November 21, 2013

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.  Each Council member has their own style and their unique relationship with the people who elect them to office.  They bring their personalities and their working style to what they do.  They all hold meeting in their wards and hope that someone will show up.

Councillor Meed Ward has a following; she comes close to filling a room with groups of people around tables working on issues of concern to them.

Others have difficulty attracting groups of more than five.  Councillor Dennison insists on holding his meetings at his place of business where there is a room with a fireplace and bowls of popcorn on the table

John Taylor pulled together a group of about 25 people at the Conservation Halton offices on Britannia Road Wednesday evening.  It was almost like a family gathering but then he has been representing them for more than 20 years.  We erroneously reported that the meeting was to have both Councillors Taylor and Lancaster taking part.  We regret that error and regret that there wasn’t an opportunity to hear what each Council member had to say about progress with the legal differences on the airpark and what their individual thinking was on the role an airpark plays in the development of north Burlington.

Ward 3 residents use the occasion to hear what John has to say and at the same time get caught up with their neighbours.  Rural life doesn’t have those places where people congregate naturally – given that a local Post Office is a thing of the past.  There probably isn’t a coffee shop north of Side road #1

It was interesting to observe how people from across the rural part of the city look to Taylor for comment.  People who are naturally in Ward 6, Lancaster territory, look to Taylor for comment and direction.

John Taylor, in the red shirt, always an attentive listener, sits with Councillor Lancaster on his left and General manager Scott Stewart on his right.

Taylor is not very big on agenda, he tends to roam from subject to subject and he often gets his facts mixed up.  But his constituents like him and they trust him.  You can observe that they realize he has been at the job for a long time and that perhaps another term is stretching his capacity, but they are loyal and unless there is someone they know well – Taylor is not in trouble politically.

Because Taylor doesn’t set out an agenda questions about anything and everything pop out.  The mail boxes on the side roads, the speeding problem on Side road # 1, the Britannia traffic that zooms towards Waterdown and, of course the pier and now the Airpark.

Taylor tells his constituents that the settlement of the pier dispute will go to mediation in January – and hinted that he expects a settlement. He stated he would insist the public get all the financial details. The observation deck on the pier we have yet to pay for completely has no cap on it – Taylor thought it looked like a champagne glass and liked it that way. The deck doesn’t have a wind turbine on it either but that wasn’t Taylor’s doing.

The city will get into mediation on the pier – because it has to.  A trial cannot be held unless mediation has taken place.  All the parties involved in this – and there are five of them, have basically completed the discovery portion of the deliberations.  Everyone now knows who did what when – and they now have to think through what their individual legal strategy should be.  Burlington is not in a strong position.  Mistakes were made – not by this Council but there are members of this Council who were around when the mistakes were made.  Meed Ward, Lancaster and Sharman were not members of Council when the really dumb decisions were made.  But they were there when there was an opportunity to resolve the design problems and complete the pier for far less than it eventually cost and they were there when a settlement opportunity was turned down.

Taylor and Dennison have to take responsibility for those early decisions. They were on Council in those heady days when the province and the federal governments were handing out money faster than it could be counted.  Everyone was excited and there were ideas flying around like balloons at a New Year’s Eve party.

Then reality took the bite it usually takes when the rubber hits the road – and we begin to see where staff, especially those in the Engineering department made some major errors.

But all those details are stories for another day.  We are now in that reckoning stage – the settling up as it were and it is going to cost.  We asked Councillor Taylor what his position would be if there was a settlement that had a gag order attached to it.

Taylor responded that if the city found itself able to resolve the problems during the mediation stage he would insist that the full cost to the city be part of the minutes of settlement and that the city publish those minutes.

 Justice Fitzpatrick, the judge that will hear the case if it goes to trial,  is pushing all the parties on this case.  He wants them into mediation in January and our information is that no one appears to be against mediation – the problems have to do with dates.  Everyone has to be in the room when the mediation takes place.  The issue seems to be one of getting all the calendars to work together rather than one of attitude and the dragging of heals.

Burlington’s city council would like this out of the way well before the civic election next October.  It is going to cost the city and the political objective is now – get it out of the way before campaigning gets serious.  Each candidate will create their own smoke screen to keep the smell away from them.  Stay tuned on this one.

Were it not for the strong delegations Vanessa Warren made to both city and Regional Council there would probably be trucks running along Appleby Line with loads of landfill from who knows where with who knows what in the fill. Warren will become a member of the Burlington Green board this evening – she will not be a candidate for the Ward 3 seat in the 2014 municipal election

Vanessa Warren, who lives over on Bell School Line, showed up and we learned that she will not be a candidate for the Ward 6 seat in 2014; part of the reason for that is there are two other possibilities for someone to run against Blair Lancaster.  One will announce sometime in December, the other is meeting with various people and sounding out her potential.

The first is working through a number of family concerns with his wife – serving as a council member means big changes in the way a family lives its life. 

The second candidate lives in the Alton community which is seen by many as key for a win in Ward 6.  Both potential candidates are focused on their being just one person who runs against Lancaster, they do not want to split the vote.  Mark Carr will not be running in Ward 6 in 2014.  With much deep unhappiness with the way city staff and council handled the Air Park matter before Warren formed her Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition, the community wants to see some accountability.  They would also very much like to see more room between Councillor Lancaster and the president of the Airpark Vince Rossi.

Taylor believes the city is in a good position on the Airpark matter however he didn’t talk much about what should happen with the Airpark long term

Taylor explained the changes that are taking place at the Economic Development Corporation where the Executive Director was asked to leave and the “good times” board of directors is being replaced with a much smaller board that will focus on bring new corporations to the city that will hire local people.  Taylor was of the view that Burlington economic development went nowhere for the last ten years while other communities “ate our lunch”.  Ron Witton, a builder, raised his voice and said – no not so – the reason no one wants to build in Burlington is because of the development charges are close to the highest in the GTA.  Taylor’s explanation for that was a little on the weak side.

Dundas is eventually going to become a six lane road; Burlington’s population is projected to reach 190, 000 + by 2013 and a lot more people are going to be using public transit.

What is interesting to observe is that while meeting as Standing committees and as a Council the level of detail one hears at the media table is quite a bit different from what one hears at a community meeting.  Part of that is because Taylor has been around for so long he has a much deeper understanding of the issues – there is something to be said for longevity.

Ownership of the Regional roads: Guelph and Appleby stretches as far south as lakeshore. City has to pay for the upkeep – and it ain’t cheap.

He explains that many of the major roads are Regional property and gave Appleby and Guelph as examples – however the ownership, and therefore the responsibility to maintain them stops at Mainway and only recently has the ownership extended to south of Fairview.  Those are major roads and they require a lot of upkeep and maintenance  – which the Region pays for.  If the ownership of those roads extended all the way down to Lakeshore there would be a considerable savings for the city but Taylor contends that there are “powers in the Burlington core that don’t want the Region messing around with those roads”.  Is Taylor talking about special interests?

The average driver stuck in traffic on Guelph Line who has to wait for two cycles of the traffic light to be able to make a left on Fairview doesn’t care a hoot who owns the road – the just want the traffic to move.  This two tier level of government makes things complex and most people know next to nothing about what the upper tier- the Region does for them, or more importantly,  to them.

November 15, 2013

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON It was not their finest hour.

It was the longest Standing Committee meeting this Council has held and it significantly disrupted people who came to city hall because they were told they were going to be heard.

For reasons that are beyond most people, the Clerk’s office decided to hold a public meeting and then put three items that were contentious on the Standing Committee agenda that followed and then they tacked on a Special Meeting of Council.  It was to be a disaster from the start.

We look good but inside we come across as a bit of a hick town.

Councillor Taylor remarked that it was a very bad example of agenda management.  Part of the reason for the mess was that Council cut short their Development and Infrastructure schedule on Remembrance Day so the Mayor could spend the evening at the Legion; something that is a Burlington tradition.  Time well spent,  but that decision backed up things and resulted with the mess Council faced during  the five-hour meeting  – straight with no breaks – while they listened to ten delegations on the VR-Pro Half Chili marathon that takes over Lakeshore Road one day every year.

Delegations from Diane and Nicholas Leblovic set the theme – they felt there are other places the Marathon,  that draws 5,000 people with projections to rise to 6,000, could be held and they had a petition with 150 names on it supporting a move to another location.  The Leblovic’s went further and drew out three routes that might be considered.  They just want the event off Lakeshore Road so that they don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of not being able to get out of the streets they live on and onto Lakeshore Road.

Before the Leblovic’s got their kick at the cat Colin Cameron, pastor at Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church gave his take on it all which was if you can’t beat them – then join them. Pastor Cameron gave one of the funnier delegations and for a time had them laughing in their seats as he explained how he stands in the middle of Lakeshore Road giving blessings and handing out fresh fruit to runners as they make the return portion of the marathon.

With the Public Meeting at the front of the agenda for the evening, and then the Half Chili Marathon discussions, there wasn’t time for the delegation BurlingtonGreen wanted to make nor was their time for those who wanted to delegate on the Ghent Avenue development that is due to be heard by the Ontario Municipal Board at a hearing November 26^th.

Allison Thornton finally got to the podium well past the time that Council normally adjourns and announced that she could not give her delegation because the batteries on her iPad had died. “I have been sitting here for more than three hours waiting to speak”, she said.

As the evening progressed – and progress is loosely used here – tempers began to flare.  Council Taylor had a number of concerns that he felt were not being addressed.  Taylor, who tends at times to be emotional, doesn’t  function all that well at meetings that run late – and this was a meeting that was running very late.

Chaired by Councillor Sharman – it was a meeting that just didn’t work. 

City Clerk Angela Morgan

The running of council meetings is the responsibility of the Clerk’s Office.  The General Manger overseeing this meeting was Kim Phillips who earlier in her career was once the City Clerk.  The city has staff with the experience to know how to run a meeting – for some reason none of that experience was brought to bear on the Council that met Wednesday the 13^th of November.

To add to the dysfunction of the meeting, everyone had to use a microphone system that no longer works.  Many of the speakers could not be heard.  The microphone at the podium is not the right size and people who are tall have to lean into the podium and bend down to be heard while those who are short have to stand on their tip toes to get close enough to the microphone.

Kelly Arnott isn’t the tallest person to begin with. She had to stand on her tip toes throughout her delegation in order to be able to reach the microphone

Kelly Arnott of VR Pro, the people who run the Chili Half Marathon , was on her toes much of her delegation.

It gets worse.  When people at the horseshoe want to speak they have to press a button on their microphones.  When they do that a red light flicks on.  All too often speakers forget to press the button when they have finished speaking which prevents anyone else from opening up their microphone.  Committee Clerks have a small sign that they hold up and wave to the person at the horse show who has left their microphone on.

It is both funny and embarrassing.  Professional people who attend Burlington Standing Committee meetings to make delegations must leave city hall wondering why we provide facilities that are just so lousy.  This is not a new problem; the microphones have never worked properly in the three years I have covered this council.

It is a totally unacceptable situation.  The Clerk surely has the budget and the authority to have the right kind of equipment installed.

Will Council members be issued megaphones until the speaker system in the Council Chamber is fixed.

Or are we going to have a situation where everyone at the horseshoe is given a megaphone and delegations get given one as well so that everyone can hear each other.

In Burlington we sing the O’Canada at the beginning of each Council meeting.  A recording is played, everyone stands and the anthem is sung.

Well they try,  Few voices are raised, often because the recoding that is used is a rendition people are not comfortable with or the equipment that plays the recording  doesn’t work and the sound comes out as wobbly.  Hard to describe – but just such poor form.  To add insult to injury the Council meetings are broadcast live on Cogeco cable television.  We come across looking like such a bunch of hicks.

With the meeting over people headed home.  The city planner lives in St. Catharines, the city solicitor lives in Niagara – both had a bit of a drive – and both would be at their desks on time the next day.  We human beings do not function at our best with hours like this.  Agenda management needs a re-think.

The city is planning on reducing the number of Standing Committees from the current three to two – Budget and Corporate is apparently to be merged with Community Services – which will mean even longer agendas.  Does that mean even more dysfunction?  Or does the city want to get out of public meetings and shove everything onto the internet?

Stand By says the city motto – for how long one might ask?

The Clerk needs to read the Municipal Act to assure herself that she has the authority to do something then she has to read the riot act to the people at city hall who have let this situation arise and continue to take place.

Failing that – watch for a tender asking someone to supply the city with a couple of dozen megaphones – something with the corporate crest on it perhaps.  The city motto is Stand By.