 By Pepper Parr
March 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
There were myths to be dispelled and facts to be shared – and it would have been nice if there had been time to ask questions earlier in the evening. For some reason many civil servants feel they need to take their audiences through all the legislation that is out there to be dealt with – the people in the room at the Holy Lutheran Church on Lakeshore Road wanted to ask questions about the coyote problem Burlington is experiencing.
 Coyotes are territorial, weigh 40 lbs. if they are male and prowl at night. The audience learned that coyotes are very territorial. They tend to mate for life. They have the one gestation period each year – February. Their gestation period is 60 to 63 days and something between 20 to 50% of each litter survive.
Coyotes do not mate with dogs. They will mate with some wolves
 Pups stay with the parents until they know how to hunt – then they find a mate and leave the pack. Both parents raise the pups. Burlington has a population of what are known as eastern coyotes. They are not all that big: females are 30 to 35 lbs,; males 40 to 45 lbs. The Ontario Ministry of Natural resources has a number (21) of coyotes that have GPS collars and can be tracked with their located plotted on a map. The audience was shown a map of a pack that lives in the south Burlington area.
 Orange dots on the map indicates where a pack of coyotes was between March 7 and 14th in Burlington. Known as MISSO14 this pack is tracked by GPS collars. Coyotes sleep during the day and prowl at night looking for food. They have been known to take down sheep, goats and if there is a cow that is injured they will bring that down as well but for the most part they go after mice, they eat berries and will go after wild geese.
They look for corridors they can travel in; railway lines, hydro rights of way as well as the edge of the lake.
Coyotes will not attack – but they will chase. If confronted by a coyote make all kinds of noise and leave the area but do not turn your back on the animal and do not run.
Coyotes have been come habituated in urban communities. John Almond of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources told the audience that a fed coyote is a dead coyote – when fed they stop doing what they do naturally – hunt for their food.
 Coyotes have very acute hearing and can hear mice scurrying about beneath the snow. Coyote is preparing to pounce on a mouse. Coyotes look for places where they can sleep during the day and have a territory large enough for them to find the food they need. The live in packs, but once pups are taught to fend for themselves they leave the pack, find a mate and create their own pack. Territory is critical for them and they don’t welcome newcomers to an existing pack.
They have exceptionally acute hearing and know from sound where mice are beneath snow.
One of the biggest problems with coyotes in urban areas is people. We leave garbage out where they can get at it and some people actually leave food out for the animals.
 Coyotes howl to communicate to others in a pack. When coyotes howl – they are not telling the world they are about to kill something or have just killed something; their howling is a form of social vocalization.
 There was a time when government paid a bounty for coyotes trapped or shot. Coyotes have been with us for centuries. Governments used to pay a bounty to trappers in attempts to lessen the population. That didn’t work. disease and an inability to find the food they need is what controls the size of the coyote population. – there is a pack of them in south-east Burlington that has GPS collars the ministry uses to track them – they can take data from a satellite and know where that pack is at any given moment.
If you leave the coyotes alone, let them be the natural predators they are, don’t feed them – they won’t harm you. Because they are natural predators they see your cat as their lunch. Keep the cat inside at night.
 By Pepper Parr
March 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
We all know about insurance. We pay those premiums month after month convincing ourselves that we are “covered” and all too often when a catastrophe occurs we learn – the policy doesn’t cover that. It happens to households and it happens to the world of business as well – and when it happens in the construction industry – it can get messy.
 June 17th – 2013 – It will be seen as a great day in the history of the city. Despite a horrendous cost and new levels of mismanagement by people who are no longer with the city – the pier was a good idea. And if there was ever a messy construction project – look no further than The Pier at the foot of Brant Street. That situation is slowly working its way through the legal system. The next step is mediation – a process that is required before a case can be given a trial date.
Nancy Shea Nicol, the city solicitor has explained that at some point prior to any trial the Court will order that the parties engage in mediation to see if the issues can be resolved. Mediation does not make a determination of the legal rights of the parties; it is not binding and the mediator cannot impose a resolution on the parties. Mediation is a process where the people involved look for a way to see if they can agree on a settlement and avoid going to trial.
Mediation is a way to keep differences out of a court room. People involved in legal disputes – and in the pier situation there are five law suits – are required to at least attempt to mediate that dispute. It is useful to look at who is suing who:
Harm Schilthuis and Sons Limited (HSS) vs. City of Burlington
City of Burlington vs. Zurich Insurance Company (Bonding Company for HSS)
City of Burlington vs. HSS, EFCO, Aecom, Lombard, PV &V, Craneway (Insurance Claim)
City of Burlington vs. Aecom
HSS vs. Lombard, PV &V, City, Craneway (Insurance Claim)
What is instructive here is that HSS, the original contractor, is suing their insurance company and their insurance broker. You sue when you believe the service you bought was not delivered. HSS is also suing the city of Burlington – they believed they delivered and that the city has not paid for what was delivered.
The city is suing Zurich insurance – they are the company that provided the performance bond the contractor, HSS, was required to put in place.
 There was a time when the city didn’t have more than $14 million of taxpayers money sitting at the end of Brant Street. There are those who think it should have been left the way it was. The city called that performance bond, arguing that the contractor had not completed the job. The insurance company, Zurich, came back with a proposal to complete the pier – albeit at a higher cost – which the city didn’t like the look of and they declined the offer – pretty quickly it might be added – and went looking for a new contractor which they found, hired and paid. In June, 2013 the pier was officially opened.
 Steel beams that had been installed, found to be flawed were taken out – they sit in the construction yard at HSS The contract to build the pier was awarded in the summer of 2006. A new council was elected to office in October of 2006. Then there was the crane accident: August, 2008, during the first concrete pour, one of the main steel beams supporting the deck twisted. Two weeks later, a crane capsized onto the pier.
Fast forward to December 16, 2009, when HSS notified the city, in writing, that it was unwilling and unable to complete the pier construction contract. HSS then filed a construction lien against the city and issued a statement of claim in January 2010 – the gloves were off.
The city said at that time that it had a plan of action to complete the pier in a fiscally responsible manner and notified HSS’s bonding company, Zurich Insurance that HSS was in default. The city’s first recourse is to give the bonding company an opportunity to remedy HSS’s default and to follow the procedures as set out in the performance bond issued by the bonding company in favour of the city. Cam Jackson was still Mayor of Burlington at this time.
On June 18, 2010 HSS published a full-page advertisement in the Post to tell its story. The city issued a statement saying the “confidential, without prejudice discussions referred to by HSS,” in the advertisement, “contained significant new costs, which were not acceptable to taxpayers in the opinion of City Council, and additional conditions, which went against the advice of our legal counsel.”
The argument moved to a “he said”, “she said” stage where HSS said the company had not been paid by the city for invoices it had submitted and the city said it had already paid HSS $3.9 million of the total $6.5 million construction contract amounting to 60 per cent of the original contract.
 This Council didn’t create the pier problems – but they did manage to drop the ball on more than one occasion when there were opportunities to limit the financial damage. October 2010, a new city council gets elected; Cam Jackson is no longer the Mayor but the council still has three members, John Taylor, Jack Dennison and Rick Craven who were on council when the original contract was awarded.
In April 2011, the city received a proposal from Zurich Insurance Inc., the HSS bonding company, to settle the construction of the pier issues.
On May 11th, City Council, in a closed session was given an update on the proposal.
On May 24 city council decided not to consider the proposal. The public was never told what the proposal was or the reasons for rejecting it. We do know that the proposal did require the city to put more money into the construction of the pier but the public was never told how much more.
On September 26 council voted to hire Graham Infrastructure of Mississauga to complete the Brant Street Pier.
Graham Infrastructure’s bid was for a total contract price of $6,429,700, including full HST. Two optional items—a beach access ramp and additional concrete work for the waterfront promenade in Spencer Smith Park—were recommended for inclusion in the bid, bringing Graham Infrastructure’s contract price to $6,713,330.
The total project cost, including the nearly $5.98 million spent to date, would total $14.44 million.
 The city made the most of what will be seen as an historic occasion; the youth of today lay their hands on the pier plaque on opening day. On June 17th, 2013 the pier at the foot of Brant Street was officially opened.
But that is far from the end of the story. The pier ended up costing a lot more than anyone expected. The original contractor, HSS, has bills they sent the city before they left the construction site and which the city had approved for payment. But once the law suits were issued – everything was frozen. There were also invoices from the contractor that had been submitted but not yet approved. Those are still outstanding and the city is doing nothing about payment until the court case is settled.
These invoices, collectively are in excess of $1 million. HSS had bills to pay the trades that worked for them; they came perilously close to bankruptcy, which they believe many at city hall would have been quite happy to see happen. HSS has survived partly because the trades they have employed for more than 25 years stood by them and said they would wait for payment. When the court case is settled many believe HSS will be found to have been in compliance by walking off the job, their invoices will be paid, the tradesmen will get paid with interest that will come from the city of Burlington taxpayers.
The contractor, HSS is suing its insurance company and the broker who sold them the insurance policy. Lombard is believed to be the insurance carrier and PV&V Insurance, the broker who sold the policy to the contractor.
 There is nothing pretentious about the HSS operation. A general contractor with a solid reputation known for doing the extras.Henry S sits ay his desk working the numbers. Relationships are the foundation on which business people build trust. Henry Schilthuis, president of HSS, built relationships with his trades people who proved to be strong enough for them to wait for payment for the work they had done.
HSS is reported to have been dealing with PV&V for a considerable length of time and expected their insurance broker to defend their interests with the company carrying the insurance – in this case Lombard. Lombard apparently doesn’t think they have to pay on the policy claim HSS made. Messy.
While the contractor, HSS is unhappy with its broker and the insurance carrier – the city is unhappy as well and is going after the HSS the contractor, the contractors insurance company Lombard and the broker who sold the policy to the contractor PV&V and the project manager, AECOM.
This puts PV&V in a very awkward situation. They’ve got everyone coming after them, which doesn’t do much for credibility.
How does one mediate a mess like that? They look for a very skilled mediator – and the good ones are very much in demand. Finding one for this situation has been a challenge but it appears that a date for a mediation hearing has been set – June 19th, even though at least one of the parties is grumbling about the date chosen. Justice Fitzgerald, the judge handling this file has been pushing everyone on this.
In a document the city released before the mediation date of June 19th was set, the city said 17 days of examination for discovery had taken place which resulted in a considerable number of undertakings being given. An undertaking can be an obligation to find an answer to a question or produce further documents in response to questions.
Some undertakings were not agreed upon and required a court attendance for a determination as to whether or not the undertaking is valid. When one side doesn’t want to release information that is damaging to their case – it often requires a judge to tell them – give them the documents they are asking for.
Someone didn’t want to provide documents – our information is that it was the city that couldn’t find many of the documents and the project manager that seemed to require a lot of time to find documents.
The last time city solicitor Nancy Shea Nicol addressed council in open session she explained that there were another four to five days of examination for discovery and that up to that point more than 60,000 documents had been exchanged. At one point someone realized there was a collection of documents no one was fully aware of – it isn’t clear who it was who had the documents, the lawyers don’t talk about his stuff – they just send in their invoices and toil away.
The public has been asking for an accounting on those legal fees – they would like to know how much had been spent to date. The Post filed a Freedom of Information request asking how much had been spent on legal fees and was turned down by the city. The Post appealed that decision and the matter went to the Privacy Commissioner.
It didn’t take the city long to see the writing on the wall –they released the figures at a press conference on January 30th, – and said $1,349,952 had been spent to date.
 The city had argued that telling the public what they spent on legal fees would reveal some of their strategy. The figures are out and there doesn’t appear to be any harm done. I leave it to you to figure that one out.
The fear of course was that the public would be outraged and demand that the city quit the case. It is a very complex case – the real fear is that the city will settle during the mediation process, have a confidentiality clause put into the agreement and the public will never know just what the settlement amounted to and how much they had to pay out.
Did the contractor really screw up and will his insurance company have to pony up with a big cheque. Did the city provide the contractor with a plan for the pier that had major flaws leaving the original contractor with no option but to walk off the job?
Did the contractors insurance company come back with a proposal that would solve the technical construction problems and cost less than the city has spent so far on legal fees?
Why doesn’t city council walk their transparency talk and inform the public – the people who have to pay the bill when council gets it wrong.
The differences are both financial and technical. There were problems with the design of the pier and there are significant differences of opinion as to what an insurance policy covered and what it didn’t cover.
 Done – all the concrete is down – and the steel beams are holding it all in place. Now the railings get put in place. Earlier this week city manager Jeff Fielding advised council that he and city solicitor Nancy Shea Nicol had met with the lawyers representing the city and outlined the city’s position that was going to be put forward during the mediation sessions – which are not very long – hours rather than days.
The city will put forward its position and set out what they are prepared to settle for. It is not known yet precisely who will do the talking, the person representing the city has to have the authority to agree on a settlement figure. The lawyers representing the city will be in the room.
In the event that the mediation proves to be successful the city is going to have to tell its citizens that there is more money yet to be paid out. The contractor, HSS has a claim that many informed observers see as valid – money will move from city hall over to HSS.
How much money will move from AECOM, the project managers and the owners of TSH the company that designed the pier, to city hall is the question that matters most to this city council. If they can recover from AECOM more than they have to pay HSS – they will look like heroes. And in an election period that will matter.
The mess the city is in wasn’t created by this council – but there were several opportunities to settle the problems that the city took a pass on.
Councillors Taylor, Dennison, Craven and Goldring, led by former Mayor Cam Jackson, were part of the council that got the city into the contracts the city is now defending. The contracts weren’t the biggest part of the problem; it was the management of the contracts that have hurt Burlington taxpayers. When the full story is out – and it will come out – taxpayers will be livid.
Most of the people in the city’s engineering department that handled all the technical issues and the relationship with AECOM are no longer with the city. They have moved on to other municipalities.
 The idea for the pier came from a council led by former Mayor Rob MacIsaac, but he left town and went to Metrolinx, and then on to Mohawk College and has now settled as the president of Hamilton Health Services, the second largest health operation in the province with an annual salary of $542,000. With performance incentives that could rise to $650,000 excluding taxable benefits.
That virtually doubles his 2012 salary ($275,515 plus $47,210 taxable benefits) as president of Mohawk College. That is quite a step form the approximately $50,000 MacIsaac earned as mayor of Burlington. MacIsaac has a five years contract. While at Mohawk he had seven weeks of paid vacation; he gets just six weeks paid vacation with the Hamilton Health Services organization.
Of those who were on council when all this happened, only Mayor Goldring has filed nomination papers for re-election. Taylor, Dennison and Craven have yet to formally file.
 By Staff
March 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Each year the province requires municipalities to publish a list of all those who earn more than $100,00 annually. The data is presented as the salary paid and benefits given that are taxable.
Burlington civil servants were given a 1% salary increase in the 2014 budget.
Councillor Marianne Meed Ward brought a motion to Council that was approved asking the city manager to look into the free parking and free transit passes that are given city employees. Meed Ward is of the view that this benefit is taxable and should be treated as such.
The first figure shown after each name is the annual salary, the second is the taxable benefit.
ADCOCK ALAN Firefighter $102,172.28 $487.27
ALDHAM JUDY Field Services Supervisor $104,070.38 $2,225.26
ALLDRIDGE BRIAN Platoon Chief $124,140.31 $649.80
ANTONIOW PHIL Manager of Program Development, Budgets and Contracts $112,680.32 $622.77
AXIAK ROB Manager Facility Operations and Special Projects $105,876.99 $552.03
BAKOS MICHAEL Captain $108,247.81 $571.12
BARRY PHILIP Captain $108,610.77 $573.86
BAVOTA ANTHONY Fire Chief $157,572.65 $1,906.95
BAYLOR MARK Captain $110,816.79 $570.96
BAYNTON STEVE T. Captain $111,727.68 $586.64
BEATTY DAVID N. Fire Chief $105,836.89 $3,409.68
BEDINI CHRIS District Supervisor $105,298.61 $662.70
BENNETT RANDY Manager of Information Technology Infrastructure and Operations $117,305.77 $640.34
BENNITT JAMES District Supervisor $101,209.87 $764.12
BERDAN MICHAEL Transit Supervisor $103,954.97 $456.07
BIELSKI BIANCA Manager of Development Planning $131,198.38 $739.08
BIRCH CHARLES T. Captain $112,490.88 $585.12
BLACK JEFFREY Manager of Field Services $105,641.57 $3,398.73
BOYD LAURA Human Resource Manager $106,215.06 $590.76
BRILLON SYLVAIN Firefighter $100,870.86 $484.09
CAUGHLIN DEBORAH Manager of Council Services $104,747.58 $582.24
CHOLEWKA CHRIS Captain $107,542.24 $564.00
CLARK CARY Manager of Development and Environmental Engineering $109,618.58 $550.80
COULSON ANN MARIE Manager of Financial Planning and Taxation $133,138.56 $702.66
CRASS JOHN Manager of Traffic Services $106,854.96 $599.16
DI PIETRO ITALO Manager of Infrastructure and Data Management $118,340.36 $655.44
DONATI DERRICK Firefighter $101,799.93 $495.31
DOWD TIMOTHY Captain $117,192.97 $585.12
DUNCAN JOHN Transit Manager $120,963.15 $1,069.52
EALES MARK Captain $106,407.96 $559.95
EICHENBAUM TOOMAS Director of Engineering $165,413.29 $877.56
EVANS FRANCES Manager Halton Court Administration $104,071.88 $575.45
FIELDING JEFF City Manager $249,940.24 $8,898.60
FIORAVANTI LEANNE Solicitor $105,949.26 $510.32
FORD JOAN Director of Finance $153,457.30 $838.93
FRYER E. TODD Firefighter $101,929.55 $519.12
GLENN CHRISTOPHER Director of Parks and Recreation $132,997.91 $731.28
GLOBE DARREN Captain $107,508.37 $573.49
GOLDRING PATRICK Mayor $168,155.78 $2,511.56
GRISON GREGORY J. Captain $111,727.66 $585.74
HAMILTON SCOTT Manager Design and Construction $111,514.22 $618.78
HAMMER CHAD Firefighter $101,951.54 $493.89
HAMMOND BILL Fire Training Supervisor $107,840.61 $562.56
HART TIMOTHY Firefighter $103,027.20 $492.49
HAYES DENNIS M. Platoon Chief $127,478.73 $617.46
HEBNER PETER B. Captain $114,146.11 $585.12
HURLEY BLAKE Assistant City Solicitor $134,557.07 $644.83
JAMES MICHAEL Training Officer – Fire $102,489.52 $570.96
JONES SHEILA City Auditor $123,574.30 $664.26
JONES STEPHEN Captain $107,384.25 $550.83
JURK ROBERT Senior Project Leader $105,261.62 $581.57
KEANEY THOMAS Firefighter $100,775.57 $486.09
KELL DONNA Manager of Public Affairs $114,486.31 $630.35
KELLY JOHN Captain $110,246.84 $579.30
KIPPEN MARK Firefighter $100,628.48 $496.85
KOEVOETS MATT District Supervisor $106,906.64 $1,394.19
KRUSHELNICKI BRUCE Director Planning and Building $160,581.87 $891.60
KUBOTA ERIKA Assistant City Solicitor $134,346.99 $644.86
LAING BRUCE K. Captain $111,727.68 $585.12
LAPORTE N. JASON Captain $109,433.52 $571.25
LASELVA JOHN Supervisor Building Permits $103,581.39 $578.01
LONG MARK Captain $114,237.26 $591.85
MACDONALD GARY F. Captain $111,727.68 $585.12
MACKAY MICHAEL J. Captain $111,727.68 $587.71
MAGI ALLAN Executive Director of Corporate Strategic Initiatives $172,840.24 $967.56
MALE ROY E. Executive Director of Human Resources $182,946.28 $1,012.56
MARTIN CHRISTOPHER Captain $108,414.44 $553.46
MATHESON JAMIE Firefighter $100,671.68 $492.84
MCNAMARA MICHAEL J. Captain $112,644.56 $585.12
MERCANTI CINDY Manager of Recreation Services $113,175.87 $568.20
MINAJI ROSALIND Coordinator Development Review $100,370.93 $560.67
MONTEITH ROSS A. Deputy Fire Chief $136,019.93 $1,601.85
MORGAN ANGELA City Clerk $140,406.98 $753.15
MYERS PETER R. Captain $111,727.67 $593.09
NICELIU KENNETH Firefighter $104,681.45 $514.61
NICHOLSON J. ALAN Captain $111,727.68 $585.12
O’REILLY SANDRA Controller and Manager of Financial Services $113,228.22 $591.60
PEACHEY ROBERT Manager Parks and Open Space $111,558.40 $623.32
PHILLIPS KIMBERLEY General Manager $212,612.61 $8,730.36
POLIZIANI MATTHEW Captain $107,950.52 $557.81
REILLY PETER Captain $114,474.01 $589.90
ROBERTSON CATHARINE Director of Roads and Parks Maintenance $146,163.10 $1,304.38
SCHMIDT-SHOUKRI JASON Manager of Building Permit Services and Chief Building Official $135,620.24 $738.61
SHAHZAD ARIF Senior Environmental Engineer $100,995.97 $560.26
SHEA NICOL NANCY City Solicitor $168,958.55 $814.29
SHIELDS LISA Assistant City Solicitor $134,626.43 $638.32
SLACK CRAIG D. Platoon Chief $128,234.10 $649.80
SMITH CLINT Platoon Chief $127,352.17 $649.80
SMITH SIMON Firefighter $100,129.68 $498.05
SPICER MIKE Director of Transit $134,021.48 $708.84
STEIGINGA RON Manager of Realty Services $113,120.85 $618.84
STEVENS CRAIG Senior Project Manager $101,835.28 $570.98
STEWART SCOTT General Manager $217,635.03 $10,462.48
SWANCE JEFFREY W. Captain $111,727.67 $585.12
SWENOR CHRISTINE Director Information Technology Services $163,040.20 $861.42
TAGGART DAVID Manager Facility Assets $111,045.99 $610.32
THANDI JAZZ Manager Procurement Services $101,688.67 $561.61
VRAKELA STEVE Field Services Supervisor $101,325.60 $1,691.68
WEBER JEFF Deputy Fire Chief $139,961.19 $5,933.10
WHEATLEY RYAN Captain $110,407.44 $570.96
WIGNALL T. MARK Firefighter $102,867.06 $512.74
WINTAR JOSEPH Chief Fire Prevention Officer $110,934.32 $621.60
WOODS DOUGLAS S. Captain $112,106.48 $585.12
ZORBAS STEVE General Manager $167,678.00 $923.12
ZVANIGA BRUCE Director of Transportation Services $145,292.33 $775.86
 By Staff
March 31, 2014,
BURLINGTON, ON.
There has been another outbreak of measles that has the capacity to impact people in Burlington.
Persons who have visited any of the following locations may have been exposed to measles:
Saturday, March 22, 2014:
The Queen’s Head (pub), 400 Brant Street, Burlington, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Sunday, March 23, 2014:
Milestones Restaurant, 1200 Brant Street, Burlington, 7 p.m. to midnight
Wednesday, March 25 – Friday, March 27, 2014:
Joseph Brant Hospital, 1230 North Shore Blvd., Burlington
March 25, 7 p.m. to March 26, 9:30 a.m.
March 26, 3:30 p.m. to midnight
March 27, 11:15 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Halton Region Health Department is following up individually with patients and individuals accompanying them who may have been exposed at Joseph Brant Hospital.
“Measles is preventable through immunization with two doses of measles vaccine,” stated Dr. Monir Taha, Halton Region Associate Medical Officer of Health. “Persons who have measles need to isolate themselves while they are ill and for four full days after the rash first appears. Always call ahead before going to a health care setting.”
Measles starts with cough, runny nose, red, watery eyes, and fever, and after about four days a rash begins on the face and moves down the body. There may be white spots inside the mouth. Measles spreads easily to persons who are not immune. Infants under one year of age, pregnant women, and persons with weakened immune systems can get very ill with measles. Complications of measles can include middle ear infections, pneumonia, croup, and inflammation of the brain. Learn more at www.halton.ca/measles.
If you think you may have measles and need to see a doctor, you must call ahead to the doctor’s office, walk-in clinic, or emergency department. This will allow health care staff to give you a mask to wear when you arrive and take you straight to a room in which you can be isolated. In a doctor’s office you may be given the last appointment of the day.
For more information, dial 311 or call the Halton Region Health Department at 905-825-6000, toll-free 1-866-442-5866 or visit www.halton.ca.
 By Staff
March 29, 2104
BURLINGTON, ON.
The long, cold, snowy winter isn’t over yet – and we are going to pay for it for quite a while.
The Ontario Energy Board has approved a 40% hike in natural gas rates for Enbridge Gas Distribution customers that will take effect Tuesday, boosting the average residential customer’s annual bill by about $400 a year.
Enbridge filed its application for the increase March 12, interveners had until March 17, to get their comments in – the Energy Board handed down its decision March 29th to be effective April 1st. Name someone you know who can get a doctor’s appointment that quickly?
 You will look at that gas meter a little differently now – see it as a black sink hole. The hike is the result of Enbridge running out of its negotiated supply of gas for the winter and having to go to the open market for further supplies.
Enbridge Gas Distribution’s gas supply charge will increase from 12.68 cents per cubic metre to 17.60.
The changes would result in an overall increase of about $33 a month over the next year, according to Enbridge.
Of this $33 a month, about $20 per month relates to costs associated with this past cold winter.
The other $13 relates to the projected forecast natural gas price, both of which will be reviewed again in three months as part of the normal regulatory process.
“Our interim rates take effect on April 1, but customers won’t feel the full impact of the increase right away,” stated a release from Enbridge.
“Virtually all natural gas providers have increased their prices because of increased demand and increased gas prices over this unusually cold winter.”
 They do it because they can get away with it – and we are the fools for allowing it. Do these guys not plan for situations like this? In their media release they refer to the increase as an “interim rate” that takes place April fool’s. Does that mean when the supply stabilizes they will negotiate better contracts and drop the rates? Was having this happen on April Fool’s day a coincidence?
 By Pepper Parr
March 29, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Premier Wynne is going to take part in Ted McMeekin’ s nomination event in Hamilton on Sunday. Ted is the member for Ancaster – Dundas – Flamborough – Westdale who has served as the stand in for Burlington when we need some help at Queen’s Park.
 Ted McMeekin, on the right, supports Karmel Sakran during the 2011 election. Sakran lost but McMeekin won and was returned to Cabinet when Wynne became Premier. McMeekin has solid Burlington roots and one of those whose political pedigree goes all the way back to the days when Bobby Kennedy was running for office in the United States and McMeekin was one of the political junkies that did some of the door to door work to get him elected.
When Burlington was beavering away at getting the funding for the re-development of the Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital – that’s what it was called then – McMeekin was the go to guy.
He wasn’t’ a Cabinet Minister then – Sophia Aggelonitus had that plum but she lost to a New Democrat in 2011. McMeekin however was always there for us.
Last week the MPP for Oakville, Kevin Flynn was made a Cabinet Minster and given the Labour portfolio which means Burlington is now bracketed by Cabinet ministers.
If you listen to the Burlington provincial Liberals they will tell you that Eleanor McMahon, the nominated candidate for the Liberals in the expected any day provincial election that she will become a member of Cabinet just as soon as she can get herself elected.
 Eleanor McMahon, Lineal candidate for Burlington in the next provincial election. Will that be a spring election? As accomplished as Eleanor McMahon is – and she has a very impressive resume (much better than Kevin Flynn’s) there is no way that Halton is going to have two MPP’s and with Ted McMeekin a stone’s throw away that would put a lot of Cabinet clout in our part of the world.
Not going to happen.
That will mean a bit of a change in the way the Eleanor McMahon does her door to door campaigning and morale will slip a bit once the reality of the Flynn appointment sets in.
The ironic part of all this is that it was the cancellation of a gas-fired energy plant in Oakville that is causing Premier Wynne so much grief. And that problem is not going to go away anywhere soon.
In September of 2009 the Ontario Power Authority accepted TransCanada’s bid to build a 900-megawatt natural gas-fired power generation plant in Oakville. Oct. 7, 2010 the Ontario government announced the cancellation of that power plant.
October 6, 2011 the Liberals under Premier Dalton McGuinty hold on to their seat in Oakville.
Oct. 8, 2013, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk pegs cost of cancelling the Oakville gas plant at between $675 million and $815 million. Estimated total costs of cancelling both plants reaches the $1-billion mark.
Kathleen Wynne was a member of that government and sat at the Cabinet table – it is a stretch to say that she wasn’t fully aware. It will be a struggle for Wynne to continue to form the government. The budget that is scheduled for some time in the spring will tell the tale. If the Liberals can give the New Democrats what they will demand for their budget support, Kathleen Wynne will live another day and have time to re-build the close to decimated support the Liberal government once had.
Given enough time she has a chance – unless of course there is yet another scandal.
Meanwhile the Burlington Liberals press on with a good candidate in a tough situation.
 By Pepper Parr
March 27, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
They are sometimes called “issue” politicians; people who had an issue with city hall and fought back to make something happen and went on to serve their communities very well as city councillors.
These “issue” politicians tend to have had some experience with local groups where they were one of the hundreds that serve in the trenches making thee wheels go round.
 Angelo Bentivegna expects to be a force if he is elected to city council. His learning curve will be steep. Angela Bentivegna is an issue politician.
An immigrant to this country, he arrived in 1957 and lived in Montreal, in a less than tony part of town, where he started working at the age of 14 selling newspapers at a nickel a copy outside the old CN yards.
He got a job after that in a restaurant, completed high school, where he met the woman he married and has been married since 1978. The two of them attended McGill University at the Faculty of Education; they both wanted to be teachers.
Bentivegna has been fortunate enough to find mentors; people who saw his capacity and his energy and developed his skills in the operation and management of different kinds of restaurants. He managed restaurants, opened up new locations for the Victoria Station operation as well as Kelsey’s where he was the owner of a franchise.
 Angelo Bentivegna tends to look people in the eye and listen carefully. When Cara bought out all the Kelsey franchises – Angelo found himself with a decent cheque in his pocket and an opportunity to strike out on his own. “I always liked the idea of working for myself and this was the time in his life when he could do that.” He said.
The restaurant business was the one thing he knew very well; he knew everyone in that business, which he explains is “really a very small community.”
Angelo and his wife both graduated as teachers – she stayed in a classroom, he roamed North America for different restaurant organizations. Angelo and Diane lived through all of the recessions – he can name every one of them.
With a strong restaurant management background getting into retail selling products that were a part restaurant business was a natural – they opened their first shop in 1991 on Fairview –and have been in that same plaza location ever since.
Bentivegna learned to roll with the changes in the retail world. They started selling cooking utensils and as consumer demand shifted – they shifted. Today the Mrs. B’s Gift House focuses on gift packages and biscotti baked daily.
In TEAR Diane, Angelo’s wife, thought there was something wrong with a consistent itch she had in her chest. The Bentivegna’s were fortunate – early detection resulted in surgery that rid Diane of the disease. The family was grateful and wanted to do something for the community; they decided they would purchase a Digital Mammography Unit with Biopsy attachment for the Joseph Brant hospital – price $450,000 which didn’t seem to deter the family. They organized their event, sold tickets, found sponsors and thought things were going just fine when they ran into a brick wall at city hall.
 If Angelo Bentivegna is elected to city council he will either have to get up very very early to make the biscotti – or this city will just have to go without. Beauty and the Bistro, the name of the fund raising event, was set up so that every penny went to the fund to pay for the Digital Mammography Unit with Biopsy attachment – nothing, not a dime, was paid to anyone. Angelo scrounged support from everyone he knew and in the restaurant world – he knew everyone. Ten restaurants were lined up to serve small portions of food at a gala event where the tickets were priced at $50 – “We wanted every to be able to afford to attend”, said B
He got a party tent supplier to help out, “borrowed 1200 glasses, table cloths – you name it and Angelo B found someone to ask to donate what was needed.The event was to take place at the Leggat automobile showroom on Fairview. That location was not zoned to hold banquets, which B wasn’t aware of but didn’t see as a problem.
The Mercedes-Benz dealership on the North Service Road was used for two fund raising events so B didn’t think he had a problem. That changed when he started trying to get some help at city hall. Angelo couldn’t believe what he was hearing – why not?
He recalls one day when he asked city hall receptionist if the Mayor was in – he wasn’t. None of the councillors were in either but he did manage to get through to the administrative assistant for Councillor Craven and she said she would help.
City planner Bruce Krushelnicki learned of the problems and help Angelo work his way through the complex process of getting a change in the zoning for the Leggat site on Fairview.
It took an appearance before the Committee of Adjustment to get a minor variance and an appearance before city council to get a $420 fee waived. Angelo B got his permits and the city got a new bylaw that meant no one else would have to go through the same hoops ever again. Bylaw 2020-327 solves that problem
Angelo found getting information and clear direction at city hall confusing and frustrating – he didn’t think it was supposed to be that hard and around last Christmas began to think in terms of running for a seat on city council and working towards bringing about a change.
 People can expect to know just where Angelo Bentivegna will stand when there is an issue to be addressed. Angelo Bentivegna is certainly persistent. While he apparently didn’t understand the rules and there may have been a touch of impatience when he was at the counter at city hall he kept at it and finally found someone who would help and eventually got what he needed for his charitable event.
In an early draft of the platform Angelo Bentivegna is going to run on he says he is:
Passion, persistence, and productive, that’s who I am.
I listen…. We come up with a plan and we get to work.
I will have no excuses…and will admit when I need help.
I will commit 100% of my time as a full-time Councillor.
Expect this from me: One voice, one ward, our community, our great City….that is what I will embrace.
The challenges for ward 6 as Angelo Bentivegna sees them are:
The Airpark on Appleby Line. He doesn’t have any plans as to what should be done with the property once the various court appeals have been heard. He has begun to make inroads with the people who are directly impacted by the air park however B lives south of the 407/Dundas divide.
Many feel that it is time for someone who actually lives in the rural part of the city to sit on city council but B thinks he can overcome that problem by reaching out and being available to people. He is very critical of the practice Councillor Lancaster had of holding her ward events at the Air Park.
Transit is a stated issue but there are no policy outlines as to what he thinks the solutions are nor does he define the problem. The city’s aging population and the needs of our young families that need more programs for young children are subjects B wants to focus on – but nothing specific here either.
Ensure that we save the lakefront but no suggestions as to what should happen to the Beachway.
There isn’t a motherhood issue that Angelo B doesn’t touch on in his campaign outline. “We need to protect where we live, work, play and how we grow in the future”, is the clarion call.
Angelo Bentivegna has had his share of recognition for his community work. He was a finalist for the Business Excellence Award given by the Canadian Italian Business Professional Association. “I lost out to Angelo Paletta and I can live with that said Bentivegna
He was recognized by the Chamber of Commerce and awarded the Mayor’s Community Business Service Award in 2011
Add to that the:
Chamber of Commerce award winner of Best Retail/Wholesale Business. -2001
President’s Award for Burlington City Rep Hockey Club – 1991
President’s Club Award – Victoria Station Restaurants – 1979
President McGill University Student Faculty of Education-1976
His most recent community initiative is Chair of “Beauty and the Bistro”, a community wide, three-year fundraising initiative to purchase a Digital Mammography Unit with Biopsy attachment for Joseph Brant Hospital.
Angelo is a member and supporter of the “Gift of Giving Back” the largest community initiated food drive in Canada led by Jean Longfield one of the Directors of the Burlington City Rep Hockey Club.
Welcomed fans and guests during the OHL Memorial Cup 2011 twelve day event, managing and co-coordinating “Hockey House” activities from beginning to end at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga for the St. Mike’s Majors.
-Initial Charter Member of Lion’s Club Foundation for Guide Dogs in Oakville…’09
Burlington City Rep Hockey Club – Vice President… 94-present
Burlington Cougars Jr. A Hockey Club Executive 2001-2003
Burlington Tourism Supporter..08-present
Parent Council and later President of Notre Dame Catholic H.S. Parent Council 1991-2001
Created a WinterLude Fundraising Program for Notre Dame High School raising funds for computers and the library program 1991-2001.
Involved as Parent Liaison on Strategic Planning Committee with Halton Catholic District School Board 1991-2001.
Volunteer for the CIBC Run for The Cure Hamilton Burlington Chapter.
Angelo B appears to have touched all the bases – can he reach out far enough to touch the hearts of the people in ward 6. It should be an interesting race. There is an additional candidate running in ward 6, Jim Curran with a fourth candidate expected to declare early in April.
 By Pepper Parr
March 27, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Someone suggested it might be called drive through charity and while that is an apt description – there is nothing passive about the way the 52 members of a group take out their cheque books to aid others – on the spot. No committee meetings – they just up and do it.
Last night the group, 100 Women Who Care, met at Tansley Woods and in under an hour and a half heard Adrienne Gosse explain what the Burlington Humane Society was doing with the $3800 they were given in January, listened to short, short presentations and passed on $5200.
The general flow of the meeting is: introductions; ask for nominations; randomly pick three names, listen to presentations by each of the nominees and then vote for the charity of choice for this meeting.
 Out came the cheque books – “what’s the date today” and as fast as that $5200 went to the Halton Women’s Place. Ballots are handed out – the chosen charity named and out came the cheque books. The Halton Women’s Place representative went home knowing they had $5200 more to work with.
There was no one talking minutes – they don’t have a secretary, there is no treasurer – they don’t handle the money – they are just the channel the cheques run through to get from the donor to the recipient.
They are called the 100 Women Who Care Burlington and it works.
The women who show up four times a year chit-chat the way women do and pay attention to what the speakers are saying.
 Adrianne Gosse, shelter manager at the Burlington Humane Society telling the 100 Women Who Care what her organization did with he funds they were given. Last night there was a presentation from the Burlington Big Brothers and Sisters, the Junior League and the Halton Women’s Shelter. Each presentation was less than ten minutes. Ballots were handed out, filled in, counted, the winner announced and the cheques written. Not every member manages to get to the group meeting. Those that don’t make it to the meeting get an email telling them who is being given funds and cheques are made out to that organization.
The drive by charity comment came from someone who remarked on how simple and direct it all is. Any member can fill in a nomination form on the spot, and assuming there is a person from the group nominated, they can speak and if the members present vote for that group they go home with the cheques in their purse.
Amazing – its just DONE!
 Meagan and Pat, two of the 100 Women Who Care, tidy up before going home. This is the second meeting the group has held – there are now 52 members. Once they reach their objective of 100 members – they will meet four times a year and raise $40,000 that gets put into the community service sector of the city.
No fuss, not a lot of noise. Just ordinary women meeting once a month, doing what they think is right because they are able to.
Do you want to join? Check out their Facebook page, send a message to Laurel Hubber and you’re in. She will tell you when the group meets – bring your cheque book.
Background links:
Support went to the dogs the first time.
 By Pepper Parr
March 27, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The city will be taking its best minds and prettiest faces to Queen’s Park to tell our story and present our case for more support from the province.
Burlington is sort of like that bright child that doesn’t get into trouble, runs its operations well enough ad gets forgotten. Burlington doesn’t do drama or crisis. Everyone likes everyone Burlington – it is the greatest place to live – so what’s to worry?
There are problems – and the city wants the province to be more aware that we are here, have a great story to tell and when we have problems – we’d at least like Queen’s Park to be aware of them.
When the discussions were taking place about IKEA taking up residence on the North service Road between Guelph Line and Walkers Line city hall staff ran into all kinds of problems with the Ministry of Transportation over just when and how the QEW might get widened. We wanted to know what the MoT could do for us in the way of help with the interchanges on Walkers Line and staff found that there wasn’t a lot of help coming in.
Burlington realized it didn’t have a presence in the minds of the decision makers at Queen’s Park so we decided to put together a team of people who would GO train it to Toronto and meet with the provincial government
 If you haven’t asked to be part of this panel – don’t complain and say city hall doesn’t listen. As part of the preparation for that event city manager Jeff Fielding used his most recent communications tool – Insight Burlington – to ask his panel of more than 500 people what they thought the city should talk to the provincial government about.
There were six questions – four related to transportation and two related to employment.
The computer application that has been developed is kind of slick. The questions are set out on the left hand side of your computer monitor. On the right there is a row of boxes – one under the other with the words 1st choice, 2nd choice – right through to the 6th choice.
All you had to do was drag the question on the left to a place on the right – which was how you ranked the questions – showing which you thought was the most important to the least important.
The only thing missing was an opportunity to put in thoughts that were your own. There could have been a box to type in a comment or a question that could have been asked.
 There are times when city hall staff would like public opinion quickly. The Insight panel makes that possible. The members of the panel got an email yesterday afternoon and were asked to click on a link that took them to the survey. It took just two minutes to complete the survey. Sometime at the end of the day or early tomorrow Fielding will get a report from his team that will tell him what the community thought he should do.
It is quick, short and gives city administrators a very valid sample of what the community thinks.
The program that runs behind the questions gets an even distribution from each of the six wards, a balance of age, gender and income. All that data will have been collected earlier when the members of the panel were put into the system
Fielding would like a bigger panel and he wishes the members of council has been more diligent in promoting the idea. He believes that over time people will hear about the panel and want to become part of it.
 The beauty of this service is that the city is able to get opinions very quickly – and they don’t know who you are – they just know that you are of a certain age, which ward you live in, if you are a home owner or an apartment dweller. The will know if you drive a car or are a transit user or both. But they don’t know who YOU are.
If you would like to become part of the panel – log into the web site and answer the questions – remember – they don’t know who you are. The data collected is not kept at city hall. All they get are the results of the survey.
If you believe in a democracy and want to be of service to your community – became part of the panel. Some people have mentioned that they applied and were told they were on a waiting list. That would have been because there were too many people, say, of a certain age group which would skew the sample population.
While this is an extreme example: if 56% of the population is female but 80% of the people who applied were male – the results would not be reflective of the city. So some of those male applicants would get put on a waiting list and when the number of female applicants in the same age grouping increased they would be added to the survey panel.
What is vital is that the sample be reflective of the city’s population.
It will be interesting to hear what the city got back in the way of rankings to the six questions that were asked.
Background links:
City to create an opinion survey panel.
City recruiting panel members.
 By Staff
March 27, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
On Wednesday March 26th shortly before 11:00 am, a citizen reported seeing a suspicious white truck and a male going door-to-door along Teal Drive in Burlington.
Police converged on the area and located a residence which had been broken into and a laptop was stolen. A search of the area failed to turn up the white truck or suspect however the stolen laptop was located and appears to have been discarded by the suspect on Tanager Avenue.
Several witnesses reported seeing the male running through numerous backyards and into the passenger seat of the white truck on Partridge Drive which then took off at a high rate of speed.
No description was obtained for the driver of the white truck however the suspect in the entry is described as a white male in his 20’s wearing a hat, navy blue and black puffy knee-length jacket, black pants and white running shoes.
Police are seeking assistance from area residents who may have information and/or surveillance cameras which might assist in identifying the suspect and/or the suspect vehicle and its’ driver.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Constable Mark Urie of the 3 District Criminal Investigations Bureau, Residential Crime Team at 905 825-4747 ext 2338.
Alternatively, anyone with information on this or any other crime can anonymously call Crime Stoppers at 1 800 222-TIPS(8477), through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.com or by texting ‘Tip201’ with your message to 274637(crimes).
Burlington is clearly a city with citizens who notice suspicious behaviour and report it to the police quickly.
 By Ray Rivers
March 26, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Canada is held up as a model for how to run elections – we are recognized as having the best electoral system anywhere – and 85% of Canadians also thought our last federal election was perfectly fair. So why has the government introduced their so-called ‘Fair Elections Act’? And why is this Bill getting panned/dumped on by just about everybody, including a national newspaper and some 150 political scientists around the world?
 Raid on Conservative Party offices” Elections Canada wanted data. For one thing the process is flawed. Everyone knows that the PM has been engaging in a war with Elections Canada – ever since they nailed him on his party’s in-and-out funding scandal. Why would anyone expect him to be impartial? Shouldn’t something as important as changing our electoral process be managed by an independent body, rather than at the whim of one of the political parties? Why were there no consultations prior to introducing the Bill – not with the other political parties, not with the public and not even with Elections Canada, who might know a thing or two about elections?
Elections Canada’s mandate currently includes encouraging more people to vote. We understand that democracy works best when more citizens are involved. But this Bill would diminish that objective and further suppress voting by removing ‘vouching’, which was used without issue by thousands of voters in the last election. The government claims ‘vouching’is problematic, and there may be better ways to assist those without adequate ID to secure their right to the ballot box. But just excluding voters without adequate identification is throwing out the baby with the bath water. And, critics say the minister proposing this change is wrong – hasn’t done his homework.
 Not terrible numbers – but they should be higher – 70% across the country. Some nations, like Australia, legally require their citizens to vote; why would we want to do anything to suppress voting, to discourage people from exercising their franchise? If one wants to vote in Australia and isn’t carrying the right identification they can just swear an oath and declare their right to get a ballot. Further, shouldn’t we be finding more inclusive ways of voting, like internet voting to facilitate and enable more of our youth to participate in the democratic process? We do internet banking don’t we? Surely, we can manage the process of issuing secure ‘pin’numbers.
For a number of years Canada’s official political parties received direct public funding, the amount dependent on how well they had performed in the previous election. This reduced the influence of money, and the power of wealthy contributors, in shaping government policy. Germany, Sweden, Israel, Australia, Austria and Spain are among the growing number of countries with public funding, now representing over half of those with elected democracies. US presidential candidates may elect for public finding. And just to be clear, note that we subsidize political parties with the public purse anyway – through tax-deductible donations.
Mr. Harper, when leading his minority government, eliminated corporate and union funding and reduced the individual contribution limits to $1000, keeping his earlier election promise. And it was relatively easy for him since the Conservatives are more effective at attracting individual donations than the other parties. Then, after gaining his majority, he cancelled the public funding program to solidify his private funding advantage. And the new Bill would raise that individual donation limit by a whacking 50%. The Bill, for some bizarre reason the government has difficulty explaining, also exempts political parties from spending limits for fund-raising activities.
 The report had to be one of the most embarrassing for a democracy For something labelled Fair Elections Act, the Bill fails to improve fairness in any meaningful way, such as giving Elections Canada the power to investigate political parties and compel testimony of those suspected of committing transgressions. This limitation came to light with the Robocalls scandal, in which the Tories were also implicated. To make it even more difficult for irregularities to be uncovered and those guilty penalized, the Bill shifts that responsibility to a partisan minister (attorney general), and muzzles the politically impartial Elections Canada which reports to Parliament as a whole.
And wouldn’t something called Fair Elections deal with the unfairness of the first-past-the-post (FPP) system in our problematic multi-party environment – one that enables a PM winning less than 40% of the popular vote to rule the country at his/her pleasure for a full unfettered four years. New Zealand, Germany and a host of other nations use a proportional electoral system, where some of the MPs are chosen FPP and the others appointed by the relevant political parties based on their share of the popular vote. The results for these nations have been generally positive with less violent swings in public policy.
 The Green Party and NDP are big supporters of proportional representation. The Liberals are promoting a preferential system that would ensure future governments are elected by at least half the voters. Toronto city voters may use a similar system in this year’s mayoral election. Voters would rank candidates, and the second and third choices of the lowest scoring candidates would get added to the highest scoring candidates’tallies – until one has emerged with over 50% support.
 It is about one person, one vote by an informed voter. In the end, democracy is about representing the public will. It is unfair to be subjected to the ideological whims of a political party, be it right or left-wing, which came to power with the support of less than half of the electors, let alone 38%. Fixing that irregularly would be a worthwhile endeavour. Otherwise, calling this Bill the ‘Fair Elections Act’is a huge misnomer. It is nothing more than a crude attempt to break and handicap what seems to be working just fine.
Background links:
Fair Elections Act Elections Canada Implications More Implications Ranked Voting Conservatives Muzzling
Elections Act Critics NDP Tour on Elections Act Kill This Bill Government Strikes Back Voter Fraud Real Problems
 By Staff
March 25, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
You will soon no longer have to call your council member to complain about pot holes on your street.
 New city service: located on the city website. The city is currently testing a software application that will be on the city’s web site that will allow you to report a pot hole, get a confirmation that the report was received and then get a notice telling you the pot hole has been fixed.
AND you will be able to go to a map and see all the pot hole reports that have been submitted and what their status is. That should be a very busy map.
Deb Caughlin, E-GOV project manager sat before the city’s Development and Infrastructure committee and explained how this website application (they call it a widget) was going to work – and then made the mistake of trying to go live on-line and show council members how cool this was.
The demo had clearly not been fully tested – it didn’t work but Caughlin assured council that the thing did work – it was currently in the testing phase.
 Form you use on-line to report a pot hole. Pretty simple. When testing is complete you will be able to see the report you made on a map as well as get a notice that your report was received and then a report when it has been fixed. City reports that there have been 440 reports of pot holes made so far – all by telephone or email. Burlington has made a significant commitment to pushing as much as possible in the way of city hall interaction on-line. It is easier for the public and requires next to nothing in terms of day-to-day staff time. The initiative is one the city bought – $16,000 for the initial year – less for following years.
The service can be modified to be used to report sign problems, street lights and traffic lights.
 This is the report you get back just as soon as you send in your pot hole report. What if a bunch of high school students decide they want to flood the system with prank reports – the system is designed to spot when excessive traffic is coming from a single computer – which will make it difficult for that senior who has nothing better to do than pester city hall while they do their civic thing.
There will be glitches – but it’s a neat idea. Right now you can go to the graphic on the home page of the city website – click on the image and you get taken to the widget.
At this point all you can do is report a pot hole. Staff expects to have the testing and staff training done by the end of the first week in April and go live shortly after that.
You are asked for an email address – if you don’t give one – you can’t get a notice that the pot hole has been fixed.
 This is a sample of the kind of map that you can log into to see how your pot hole is being taken care of and also just how many there are being fixed and their status. Users will be able to zoom in and zoom out of the map. Playing with this should keep some people up very late. We will let you know when the service is fully operational – meanwhile you can report pot holes now.
The service is being built to operate on Smart Phones as well. The service SEE, CLICK,FIX is being used in city’s across North America. If you are in a city that has the service you will be able to report pot holes there as well. We can’t wait to learn that Hamilton is using the service. Mains Street west is brutal.
 By Staff
March 25, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The Halton Regional Police Service is reaching out to the public to assist in identifying a suspect involved in a bank robbery.
Just after 10:30 am this morning, Tuesday March 25th, 2014, a lone male entered the CIBC Bank at 575 Brant Street and demanded cash.
No weapons were seen on the suspect or observed by bank employees. No one was injured.
The suspect was given a quantity of cash and he subsequently left the bank last seen walking northbound on Brant Street.
 Suspected bank robber at the tellers wicket. No one was injured – cash was taken. Suspect Description:
Male, white
40 to 50 years of age
Approximately 5’10” to 5’11″”
Large build, 200 lbs
Wearing blue jeans and a black hoodie underneath a plaid coat, dark sunglasses and a black ski mask with a baseball cap.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective John Ophoven, 3 District Criminal Investigations Bureau at 905 825-4747 ext 2343
 Bank robbery suspect captured on security camera walking towards the tellers. Anyone with information on this or any other crime is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1 800 222-TIPS(8477), through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.com or by texting ‘Tip201’ with your message to 274637(crimes).
This is the second bank robbery in Burlington within the last three months. In January the Bank of Montreal was held up by a lone male bandit. Police dogs were brought in but the scent was gone. No arrest was made yet for that robbery.
Background links:
BMO on Brant Street robbed in January.
 By Pepper Parr
March 25, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
There was a lot of energy lost, a lot of huffing and puffing as well as a lot of sometimes silly back and forth taking place yesterday at city council.
The Official Plan review is producing document after document which some members of council are finding it hard to keep up with.
The Planning department had distributed copies of two very significant reports; one was the final Phase 2 of the Employment Lands study and the other was a Commercial Strategy Study, it came in two parts, Phase 2 and Phase 3 reports.
Consultants were on hand to take council through the documents and we will report on what they had to say in a follow up report. Several members of Council commented that “these were weighty documents” and they needed time to fully understand and appreciate what was in the documents – and the contents were significant.
The team developing the documents that the public gets to see as part of the Official Plan Review has not produced very much on their progress – they have been busy getting the documents ready for distribution.
 During the phase the planners are in they hope – and they do have their fingers crossed, to achieve the following. Expect some slippage on the schedule – which is not necessarily a bad thing.
- “Full Launch” of engagement strategy
- Implement approved workplan
- Engage on the collective vision for the city and potential directions
- Gain deeper understanding of issues, questions and opportunities
- Identify and assess emerging directions to inform policy development
 Ward 3 Councillor John Taylor is all smiles here as he waves three reports that were given to council yesterday; he wasn’t all smiles when he fumed at the overload and the time he wasn’t being given to read and absorb the content. Other council members said they too needed more time. Several council members were overwhelmed with the content and wanted more time to review the contents. The problem is that the OPR team is running up against problems with the calendar.
Council members want more time to review the documents; they also want to meet in what they call a Workshop setting where they can ask the consultants all kinds of questions and do what in the recent past has proven to be some very solid interaction where members of council learn and fully understand what is in the consultant’s reports.
- The Official Plan Review team has a huge task on their hands and they have to juggle a number of research projects at the same time and manage to find time for real public engagement. The above sets out the projects that all have to be eventually pulled together to create what will become the city’s official plan for the next five years.
Traditionally, staff transmits documents to council that are then in the public domain. The Planning department then prepares its report on the consultant’s document and then that report – the one written by the planners – is debated at a council Standing Committee meeting.
This Council wants to change that approach. They want to hold a workshop at which they discuss the consultant’s report with the consultants in an open session. The Planning staff would take part in the workshop.
Then, after getting a sense of where the members of city council are going with their thinking – planning staff would write their reports that would include recommendations that council would debate and accept or reject.
The calendar and the time schedule that the OPR team have to work with is going to make this very tight. And, there are some professional concerns. The city has a well-paid and very qualified staff (those words came from the city planner – not me) and they have to be given the time to discuss and debate as planners what will work and what will not work for Burlington. The consultants are people we hire, explained Bruce Krushelnicki and we accept or reject what they suggest.
There is a tremendous amount of work to be done and some very hard thinking as well. These two reports are critical to how the city approaches its economic development. And without a significant change in its economic development Burlington as a city has some very real problems.
While the city figures out how it wants to handle the reports the people over at Paletta, who own the biggest chunk of those employment lands know what they want to do. In a letter sent to the city WHEN they said:
Paletta International Corporation (“PIC”), the owner of approximately 120 hectares of land located west of Burloak Drive between Upper Middle Road and Mainway, known as Bronte Creek Meadows (“BCM”). BCM has a long history which is known to many Councilors and Staff.
In their letter PIC disagreed sharply with the direction the consultants reports were going and said that BCM is not “part of a strategic concentration of employment lands”.
PCI said at that time, December 21, 201, that they were continuing to review some of the more technical aspects of the Draft Study but that “even at this early stage it is clear that the draft report is premised on a fatally flawed assumption; namely, that BCM is part of a strategic concentration of employment lands. In fact, BCM has no strategic locational advantages for employment purposes. It has no access to rail, no visibility to 400 series highways and relatively poor access to 400 series highways.
The document went on to say that PCI “has cooperated with the City in marketing the site for employment purposes for many years with no success.
As such, PIC does not support the conclusions of the Draft report in respect of BCM and will oppose any attempt to impose a secondary plan for employment uses on these lands. A secondary plan would be a waste of resources as the lands are not attractive for employment uses. A secondary plan will not change that essential fact.
Also included in the information given to council was a second letter from Paletta dated March 24th, 2014 in which they said they had serious problems with the “methodology and conclusions” used by the consultants. Clearly, Paletta had read the reports and figured out very quickly where there interests were being pinched. Why is it that the Paletta people can read faster than those on city council?
 By Pepper Parr
March 23, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Point: Notices were mailed to all the people in the rural community about a meeting to consider the idea of a special cultural/heritage district, unfortunately they went out a couple of days after the event. Turnout was less than expected.
Point: The city posts all kinds of detail on its website and develops stories encouraging people to consider running for public office – but, for reasons which were never made clear, they took down that portion of the web site that had all the financial returns from the 2010 municipal election.
The financial return is the document that sets out how much money each candidate raised, who the donours were and what the funds raised were spent on. Vital information for anyone who decides they want to run against an incumbent.
The documents have since been put back up on the city website. Why were they taken down and who made that decision?
 Public input on the budget was limited to an overview and a workbook people could make comments in. Point: The city holds a public meeting on the budget the finance department has prepared. While there is just the one meeting held in the downtown core, it is well attended and staff are very attentive in answering questions. There is talk of plans for additional public meetings in 2015 in the Dundas part of town now that the Alton campus is operational.
 The city had very competent staff on hand at public sessions to answer questions – on decisions that had already been made. Vanessa Warren, one of the people who led the public reaction to the dumping of landfill on the airpark site on Appleby Line, asked why the city was coming to the public with spending that was already decided on. She wanted to know why the public wasn’t being asked how it wanted its money spent BEFORE decisions were made.
City manager Jeff Fielding, would dearly love to have feedback from the public on key issues and has devoted a significant part of the budget he has to run his office to a process that he hopes will give him almost instant access to a panel of people who can answers questions. The unfortunate part of this $100,000 + expense is that the public response has not been overwhelming – there were less than 500 people on the panel at last count.
It is a two-sided coin – the public wants information – well the more vocal part of the public wants more information, and the city is being moved in a direction where public input will be critical. Getting to a point where what the public wants and what the city would like is the challenge for the city.
Back in 2010 the late John Boich and former Mayor Walter Mulkewich authored the Shape Burlington report in which they identified an “information deficit” in the city. City hall didn’t take all that kindly to the report – a report on which they haven’t responded to all that well since its publication even though city council voted unanimously to support the document.
 Boich and Mulkewich recommend that there be a Citizens charter – a document that sets out what every citizen can expect from the city. There is such a document but you would be very hard pressed to find the thing on the web site and the “implementation plan” for that document has yet to be completed.
Would it be fair to say that the administration at city hall isn’t really behind the concept of a charter other than collecting data and then doing nothing with it?
There is a demographic divide at city hall – both within the administration and at the council level. There are people in the planning department and over at finance who genuinely want the public to know what is being done and are eager to hear what people have to say.
The city manager certainly wants public input and is delighted when he meets people who can help him determine the public will. However, getting all of his senior team onside has been and is continuing to be a challenge.
There is an item on a Standing Committee agenda somewhere in the works that will discuss the Community Engagement plans; this doesn’t appear to be a priority item but then real community engagement has never been a priority for this city.
Two of the current city council members were on the Shape Burlington committee – one would think they would be chomping at the bit regularly to get some movement on the Citizen’s charter. Both Councillors Blair Lancaster, ward 6 and Paul Sharman, ward 5 have said very little about this during their term of office.
It is going to take a city council with a younger, more committed demographic to bring about any change.
 There are a few, precious few, on council who want to hear what their constituents think and treat those people who write out their delegation and trudge over to city hall and take the time to make their point of view known. Yes, there are people whose delegations are sometimes poorly prepared and on other occasions delivered in a less than respectful manner. But there have been a number of excellent delegations that have resulted in a change.
On many occasions city council is hearing from people who are angry, mad and upset. Their council is making decisions they don’t like about the place they call home. Look at the 250+ people who were opposed to the building of a six storey apartment building on New Street – they just didn’t want to see that kind of change in their neighbourhood. They said they could live with four storey but other than Councillor Meed Ward, who asked some very pointed questions and got mushy answers, no one explained why a four storey structure couldn’t be built.
The city did nothing to educate that public. Sure, public meetings were held but there was not very much that was educational about those events. Usually a planner representing the interests of a developer is explaining what they have already decided to do.
Could the planning department not think in terms of putting in place a process whereby staff review an application and decide at that very early stage if some public education is necessary? Then assemble a team of people who would put together an outline of all the up sides and down sides of the development – cover everything and prepare a public for the change coming their way.
Ken Greenberg, a noted planner was brought to Burlington as part of the Mayor’s Inspire series. He explained how in Toronto developers first went to the community with their ideas and looked for buy in at that level before they put as much as a pencil to a piece of paper
 Greenberg told the Burlington audience that this approach gave the developers a clear sense of what the community would tolerate and gave the community an opportunity to have their ideas seriously considered before anything went too far.
What Burlington is looking for is a way to move forward with developments and at the same time find a way to effectively communicate with the tax payers. We’ve not managed to do that – so far.
But there is hope – the proposal to do something to further protect the rural part of Burlington plans on having very significant community involvement. More about that proposal later.
 By Pepper Parr
March 23, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Denise Davy, a mother who lost a son in a railway crossing accident, became a tireless advocate for change and took her concern about the lack of safety barriers at railway crossings in Burlington to city council. She managed to bring about changes – there are barriers now in a number of places where people foolishly scoot across railway tracks, including ward 4 councillor Jack Dennison who publicly set an example he showed be ashamed of – but apparently isn’t.
 There is now a sturdy fence at this rail line. Davy, a former Spectator reporter, who now runs a writing and editing business, took her cause to the Regional government; she took it to Mississauga and got invited to a Roundtable held by the Member of Parliament for Halton, and also the Minister of Transport, Lisa Raitt. Here was someone who could do something.
Davy understood that she was to be one of a number of people taking part in a discussion about safety features along the railway tracks. She was amongst some pretty important people:
Attending were: His Worship, Gordon Krantz, Mayor of Milton; Andrew Siltala, Senior Manager, Economic Development, Town of Milton; Bill Mann, Chief Administrative Officer, Town of Milton; Jean Tierney, Senior Director, Corporate Safety and Security, VIA Rail Canada; Susan William, Regional General Manager, Central, VIA Rail Canada; Greg Percy, President, GO Transit; Paul Finnerty, Vice President, Operations, GO Transit; Michael Farkouh, Vice President, Safety and Sustainability, Canadian National Railway; John Orr, Vice President, Eastern Canada, Canadian National Railway; Randy Marsh, Manager, Community Relations, Canadian Pacific Railway; Andy Ash, Director, Dangerous Goods, Railway Association of Canada; Brad Davey, Executive Director, OntarioConnex; Eve Adams, Member of Parliament, Mississauga-Brampton South and a Representative from the Halton Police.
 Simple message bearing a lot of the pain that results from a needless death at a place where rail tracks were easily cross. No more at this crossing. There wasn’t a hope in hades that Denise Davy would have ever been able to pull a group of people with the kind of clout this crowd had. Davy saw herself as one of the group and was a little stunned when after a few words from Minister Raitt, she turned to Davy and gave her the floor. It wasn’t what Davy was expecting but she dove into her story, her experience and explained for the hundredth time that education alone does not work – barriers have to be put up – and if those barriers are expensive then we have to find a way to pay for them.
She worked at dispelling the myth that most of the people who lose their lives on railway tracks are suicides – the people in the rail transportation business have words to describe them: deliberates and accidentals. To Denise Davy they are all lives that were needlessly lost.
She points to the way the public safety people reacted to motorcycle people who used to drive without helmets – we passed laws requiring motorcycle people to wear helmets and we reduced deaths. We are in the process of putting in stiffer penalties in place for those who text and think they can drive at the same time. We learned she said that public education didn’t work in those situations and we know it doesn’t work to prevent rail crossing deaths. If it is going to cost money – then we have to find that money.
There weren’t a lot of concrete suggestions thrown out by others; mainly they went around the room and talked about what they’re currently doing, which included everything from public education to putting educational campaigns in the schools.
 A fence that cannot be easily climbed with a notice and a contact number for those under severe emotional stress is now in place at Drury Lane. Now for the rest of the Region and then the rest of the province and then the rest of the country. Davy said she listened and commented then said that the problem was clearly none of the things they were doing are working because people are still being killed.
Raitt proved to want to be more proactive than many expected. She made it absolutely clear according to Davy, that this is an issue for her, that she is concerned and glad that it was brought to her attention and said that it should be included with an overall review on rail safety. She is going to connect with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Rail Association of Canada and get the conversation going on the issue with them as well.
She also wants to go big with something on rail safety week which is April 28. It was mentioned a few times by various people, that the area around the GTA has the highest number of accidents in Canada.
Raitt gave Davy a printout that listed 29 accidents and incidents in Burlington, Milton and Oakville between 2009 and 2013. The total for Halton for same period was 46.
The tragedy came right to the doorstep of the Friday Roundtable in Milton. Passengers on the Lakeshore West GO line got the following message: Due to a police investigation of a trespasser fatality at Clarkson, train service on your line is suspended between Port Credit and Clarkson until further notice.
Davy had not seen the message as she was preparing to drive from Burlington to Milton for the Roundtable. “That is unreal. How many more people have to die before something is done!!! My heart is breaking reading this.” All the pain, the grief, the sorrow and the hurt came flooding back and the realization that the anniversary of her son’s loss was less than a week away.
Trooper that she is, Davy attended the meeting and left with a platform created for her by the Minister of Transport to get the message out. The matter of rail crossing safety was not on the agenda said the Minister – and added that “it is now”.
 Denise Davy rests a little easier knowing that fences like this at places where rail lines were once easily crossed might eventually get put up across the province. Raitt is planning something for the week of April 28th – Rail Safety week in Canada. The rail car disaster in Lac Megantic is the high-profile event – but Denise Davy now has a platform she can work from. She said after the Roundtable: “ I know change can’t come right away and the fact that I was given a platform to speak to such high level officials who are in a position to make change was a huge step forward.”
“The main thing” said Davy is “to watch where it goes from here. I am going to plan something for April 28 and told everyone in the room I would be open to working with any of them to do something on that date.”
Before Denise gets to April 28 – she first has to deal with March 27th.
Background links:
Single citizen get rail crossing safety improved.
Rail crossing deaths brought to attention of council.
 By Staff
March 21, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
In the early morning hours of March 21st 2014, The Halton Regional Police, Burlington Strategic Support Team (SST), concluded a drug trafficking investigation that resulted in three arrests and the execution of a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act search warrant at a Burlington residence
Seized as a result of the Investigation:
323 grams of marihuana (approximately 11.39 ounces/ 0.71 pounds),
1/2 gram of Cocaine,
The drugs have an estimated street value of $2600.00.
The following persons have been charged:
Gary DEAN (22 yrs) of Brant Street in Burlington (Held for Bail)
- Trafficking a controlled substance (marihuana)
- Possession of a controlled substance (marihuana) for the Purpose of Trafficking
- Possession of a controlled substance (Cocaine)
- Breach of Probation
- Breach of Recognizance
Colleen MCCAIG (24 yrs) of New Street in Burlington (Released on Promise to Appear in Milton Court on April 29th 2014)
- Trafficking a controlled substance (marihuana)
- Possession of a controlled substance (marihuana) for the Purpose of Trafficking
- Possession of a controlled substance (Cocaine)
James VAN VIEGEN (27 yrs) of East 42nd Street in Hamilton (Released on Promise to Appear in Milton Court on April 22nd 2014)
- Possession of a controlled substance (marihuana) under 30 grams
- Breach of Probation
Investigators remind the public to utilize Crime Stoppers to report any illegal drug, gun or gang activity at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477), through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.com or by texting “Tip201” with your message to 274637(crimes)
 By Pepper Parr
March 21, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The media release said the province was going to freeze MPP salaries until the provincial budget is balanced. Sounded reasonable – but the news release didn’t say how much MPP’s are paid now nor did it make any mention of the allowances and perks they get.
The pay freeze, if it passes, would extend the current freeze on MPP salaries until the provincial budget is balanced in 2017-18. The MPP Salary Freeze Act would not allow pay increases to take effect until April 1, 2019, after the Public Accounts confirm a balanced budget.
Compensation costs account for over half of all Ontario government spending, either paid directly through the Ontario Public Service or as part of the government’s transfer payments to universities, hospitals and other public sector partners.
The government has identified the management of public sector compensation as an important part of its plan to control costs while also maintaining public services that families rely on like health care and education.
In 2004, a salary freeze for MPPs was implemented from October 2003 until April 1, 2005.
The 2009 budget announced that MPP salaries would be frozen for one year beginning on April 1, 2009. That salary freeze was extended in the 2010 budget for two years and in the 2012 budget for an additional two years, bringing the total length of the current pay freeze to five years.
The media release makes no mention of any increase between April 2005 and 2009. It is the decision to be selective with the information that is given out that ticks off the public. The men and women who serve as MPP’s are entitled to a decent wage and a pension plan plus expenses that they incur when they do their jobs.
The Burlington MPP gets an allowance to pay for accommodation in Toronto for those evenings when the legislature runs late. It’s a 45 minute drive from Queen’s Park to Burlington – no need for the cost of an apartment to stay over. If a session runs really, really late – OK let the MPP get reimbursed for a hotel room – a moderately priced hotel room if you don’t mind.
We would love to know how often MPP Jane McKenna stays overnight in Toronto and how often members of her family use the apartment when they are in Toronto. Same goes for how often Ted Chudleigh, the Halton MPP stays in Toronto.
In 1996, the defined benefit pension plan for MPPs was wound up and members and beneficiaries were paid the value of the benefits earned to that date. MPPs now have a defined contribution pension plan.
Since 2009, Ontario has initiated compensation restraint measures for members of the Ontario public sector and broader public sector, and has indicated that compensation costs must be managed within Ontario’s existing fiscal framework.
Ontario public sector wage settlements continue to be below the average of private sector, municipal sector and federal public sector settlements.
Tax payers want a government that they see as people looking out for the interests of the public. We frequently hear people running for election say it is an honour to serve the pubic – that tends to stick in the throat when we read about the massive cost of WORD of shutting down the construction of two gas plants before the last election and then reading details of the amounts paid to consultants and law firms to handle the shut down and then learning that documents critical to an honest investigation of who did what when are no longer available – erased from hard drives on computers.
These politicians toss around the loss at more than $1 billion – a BILLION – most of us have to pause to figure out how many zeroes that is.
The current Premier seems like a decent hard-working woman; she is certainly out there working hard. But one could have, and many people said the same thing about former Premier Dalton McGuinty who resigned as Premier on really short notice.
We need government – and the people who do that work are entitled to good incomes. It is hard work and they are in the public eye almost every hour of every day.
We just want better value for the money we have to spend.
Burlington currently has its own little employee perk problem. City hall staff get free parking which comes in at about a quarter of a million a year. How many people get their parking paid for by their employer?
When ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward brought this up during the budget deliberations there wasn’t a line up of council members ready to support her position. The city manager said at the time that what Meed Ward had brought to council appeared to have merit. Jeff Fielding doesn’t use language like that lightly. Most of the Council members wanted to see a detailed report on what the city was required to do if in fact paid parking was a taxable benefit. They all voted to have a report prepared – but there was not date set as to when that report would come back to council.
An opportunity to lead was missed – by ever one of the except for Councillor Meed Ward. Councillors Craven, Taylor, Dennison, Sharma and Lancaster as well as the Mayor punted the ball back to staff – they very people who enjoy the benefit. Anyone of the six could have said: If this is a problem we need to fix it quickly. Instead they put made sure the funds to pay for that free parking came out of the tax revenue account and into the parking revenue you account where it is then used to pay for the free parking.
The city finance department should have known if the benefit was taxable or not and brought a recommendation to council.
It’s exasperating.
 By Pepper Parr
March 20, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Change is probably the hardest thing people find they have to do.
We like what we have and fail to realize that what we have is because someone made a change a long time ago. Normally intelligent people at times use arguments that are – well let’s see they are less than well founded – to make a point to prevent a change.
One of the more recent struggles city council faced Monday evening was the approving of the M project on New Street at Cumberland where plans for a six storey structure were approved on a 6-1 vote with Councillor Meed Ward voting against the project.
Those residents who opposed the project – and there were a lot of them; 250+ – do have the right to appeal the city’s decision to the Ontario Municipal Board which is where Ward 2 council member Marianne Meed Ward would like to see this go.
She urged her council colleagues to require the developer to come back with a structure that was four storeys in height which would have conformed to the rules as she understood them.
The underlying issue was intensification – we are going to grow, people are going to come to Burlington and there has to be a place for them to live.
The Maranatha project is not an inexpensive place to live. While it does have an innovative “life lease” feature, its strong point is that it is a place for people who want to live in a particular community with a clear set of values now have a place to go. In this instance it happens to be a Christian community that has provided housing for decades.
 The developer first came to the city with an 8 storey application and later reduced that to seven storeys. The massing was just too much for the residents. Meed Ward argued for a four storey project – which would not have had to come to council. The developers wanted eight storeys originally but dropped it to seven and then to six and came back with a project that has a lot less massing that the original design.
Councillor Dennison made the point that if the project was a four storey building the foot print would be much larger with much less green space and fewer trees. The choices were – high and thin or low and fat. Council went for the height.
From time to time much of what council does is on the mundane side but on occasion the public gets to see how they think and the values they work from.
There were a number of delegations; the one from the community brought nothing new to the argument other than a statement that Roseland Height Community Organization founder Brian Heagle prepared for the spokesperson to read. One wonders why Heagle didn’t appear on his own behalf – he is not known for being shy.
Traffic congestion was brought up as a concern: Mayor Goldring told the delegation that staff reports indicate the project will add 30 cars to the morning traffic – less than a 3% increase and 50 cars to the evening traffic – less than 5% more.
At a previous meeting objectors made mention of a 40 foot sink hole – that proved to be a two foot wide hole that was the result of utility lines beneath a road.
What was bothersome was the twisting of information – the spin put on facts and the way information was not fully researched. Anup Ogale, spokesperson for the Roseland Heights Community Organization (RHCO) spoke of “opening the floodgates” for similar incompatible properties along New Street when a drive along that road reveals that there aren’t any properties left be assembled – no flood gates to be opened.
 The six storey submission from the developer was the result of intense discussion with city hall planners. That being said Ogale did make some solid points. The issue was massing – there was from the RHCO point of view, too much building for that part of town. That Burlington has to build was not their issue: where, how high and in what way: “there’s the rub” said Ogale. He added that “you’re the gate keepers, to protect and enhance what our community wants and or needs …Tough decisions.”
 “The developers” explained Ogale, “first proposed eight storeys. That wouldn’t pass. So the building was modified to 7 storey’s, now six. Start at 8 when a maximum of four is permitted. Reach a compromise at 6. With respect, this isn’t a poker game. It’s not about who will blink first; 6 storeys is not a winning hand in any event.”
Burlington has an Official Plan said Ogale, “It is not called an Official suggestion.” He added that it is vital to respect and uphold the Official Plan or people end up saying: “Why bother to fight this if Council won’t listen.”
His comments reflect a misunderstanding as to just what an Official Plan is and what it is expected to do. The document is one the city has to revise every five years – Burlington is currently undergoing such a review now – they take more than a year to complete.
The Official Plan sets out a big picture vision of what the city wants to do. The Burlington Official Plan has to comply with both the Regional Official Plan and the various Provincial Policy Statement.
An Official Plan is intended to be a dynamic document and it is subject to amendment. Developers will come along with an idea and quietly go about assembling properties and then taking an idea to the planning department.
The planning department just doesn’t put a rubber stamp on every idea that comes to them. The Maranatha project is an example of the city working with a developer to come back with a plan that has less massing and less density
There was a letter from the Sustainability Advisory Committee that had a lot of very useful information which unfortunately didn’t get to the planner for the developer in time for them to provide a response. Council members didn’t get the document until earlier in the day. The Sustainability Advisory Committee, one of the Mayor’s favourites, has been known for the quality of their work in the past.
 The Maranatha developers have been in the community for decades – they have run the “homes” project and determined the market for additional housing called for a bigger building. However, Ed Fothergill planner for the developer of the project didn’t see much merit in the comments from the Sustainability Advisory Committee. In his letter Fothergill said “he was surprised that these comments would come forward at this late date on an application which was deemed complete on December 20, 2012. Since September of 2012, there have been opportunities for input to the process either to the City or to myself or my client directly through the circulation of the application that took place in the beginning of 2013, at the public meeting that was held in June 2013, and any one of the three Open Houses that were organized by my client. During this time, we have not been contacted by the Sustainable Development Committee and only learned of their most recent submission through the offices of the Planning Department on Friday.”
Councillor Paul Sharman is the liaison person with the Sustainability Committee and he certainly knew the project was working its way through the system and that there was significant opposition to what was planned. Perhaps the Councillor missed a couple of the Sustainability meetings.
Fothergill said: “We believe this lack of participation in the planning approval process is a serious omission and not representative of the normal fair and open planning process that is enjoyed by those who routinely do business with the City of Burlington.
“In addition,” said Fothergill, “my client has gone above and beyond statutory requirements and have made themselves and members of their consulting team available to any group or individual to speak to any matter related to this project since our initial Open House of September 2012. It is disappointing to have a group such as this who have been given a very important mandate by the City to choose not to be a part of a very extensive and open process, but rather without notice to other parties, to come forward now, after the fact, when a Committee recommendation has already been made.”
“It is somewhat disrespectful of the planning process” added Fothergill who went on to say: ”We believe this process renders these comments inadmissible to any Ontario Municipal Board proceeding should the project have the misfortune of pursuing that route, and is of questionable value now to Council following a thorough review of the matter at Committee.”
 The process was not the only thing that bothered Fothergill. “We have great difficulty with many of the comments made in the submission” and added that “to be effective, it is very important that their work be focussed on the mandate provided. Once comments and positions begin to extend beyond one’s specific mandate, there are dangers in treading into areas that are best covered by others.”
It is said Fothergill “beyond the mandate of the Sustainable Development Committee, as we understand it, to speak to matters related to planning, servicing, or other technical issues where there is no specific expertise attributed to the Committee and where these matters are more appropriately dealt with by the preparation of technical support documents and the review of that material by other City departments, including the Planning Department, Engineering Department, and Traffic Department. This concern becomes evident in cases such as this where the position put forward to this Council by an advisory committee which has chosen not to be involved at all through the process, brings forward conclusions that are directly contrary to professional recommendations made by qualified staff in a variety of City departments.”
He added: “We believe that many of the comments in the letter illustrate the danger of exceeding the mandate of the Committee and of providing comments which may not have clear direction to Council. These include the following:
“The Committee provides an opinion that the proposal is out of character with the neighbourhood without undertaking the kind of comprehensive analysis that was already completed by the Planning Department who presented the Development and Infrastructure Committee with a contrary position based on their careful and thorough assessment of the proposal within the context of established Official Plan policies.
“The Sustainable Development Committee notes that the area is not a designated intensification corridor and notes that the decision on approval of the application should be made with the guidance of a completed Neighbourhood Study. These two matters are not criteria to be considered in assessing the application, are not required by the Official Plan, and were not assessed by either myself as a planner for the proponent, or by planning staff. We believe that it is inappropriate for the Sustainable Development Committee to establish criteria on their own for the assessment of the application, particularly when the criteria have no policy basis, are unknown to the proponent and the planning staff, appear after the fact, and may not be consistent from project to project.”
“It is noted in the report” said Fothergill “that “as a City we have the habit of increasing building heights without fully understanding the impact on the neighbourhood”. This is not the experience we have found in our dealings with the City of Burlington. This statement we believe diminishes the amount and significance of work that was undertaken by staff with respect to their assessment of our application as well as numerous applications reviewed by staff and approved by Council. This statement may simply reflect the fact that the Committee may be unaware that this, and every development proposal that comes forward to a public meeting, undergoes a rigorous and thorough review, not only by the Planning Department, but other departments at the City. To suggest that decisions are being made … without fully understanding the implications, we believe, is not a true reflection of the quality of work undertaken by staff and the diligent way by which Council regularly makes decisions on development applications.
 Fothergill suggests there could perhaps be “some form of filter to review comments” from Advisory Committees to ensure they are within their mandate and not contradictory to the position of staff or departments who have the mandate and expertise to deal with technical issues.”
Councillor Sharman, who could have been a filter for the Sustainable committee, pitched a handful of soft questions to Ed Fothergill, planner for the developer, and sounded a little like a defence attorney in a criminal trial leading his witness. When Sharman asked Fothergill if he was qualified and could he expand on his experience – Fothergill was a little flabbergasted – he has been in the planning business for so long that he may have forgotten when he started. It all came across as a bit of a set up.
Mayor Goldring made a telling point when he said he was absolutely certain that at least some of the 250 people who signed a petition against the project would, in the fullness of time, choose to live in the project.
 While the six storey building is not what the community wanted – of even more concern is what happens to the Brock lands at the rear of the project. There was the argument that this type of project pushes the price of housing up – which no one in Burlington is going to lose much sleep over. Meed Ward mentioned a developer who had approached her about a possible 14 story project and wanted her input and comment.
For Meed Ward to be able to say publicly that a developer had met with her to talk about a project that was going to look for more height puts a hobble on the pretty consistent comment that she is doing the city great harm and that no one wants to build in Burlington because of what she does to developers.
And she is tough on developers. She asks some pretty blunt questions and ensured that Fothergill earned his fees earlier in the week when he began to explain why his client needed the height they were seeking. Could this project not have been a four storey building se asked and when Fothergill gave her an answer she immediately shot back with “Why not?” It has been sometime since a developer in Burlington has faced that kind of questioning.
Councillor Dennison pointed to the Bonnie Place project that has 11 and 16 storey structures and is literally blocks away from the Maranatha project.
Change does not come easily to established communities and planning is a complex business. Has the community learned anything from this project? Has city council?
 By Pepper Parr
March 20, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON.
The Burlington Liberals have their candidate chosen and she has been doing regular Saturday door to door canvases the past three weekends.
The Burlington Provincial NDP will be hosting a nomination meeting Tuesday, March 25th at the Burlington Seniors’ Centre (2285 New St.) at 7:15pm.
The sitting provincial MPP, Jane McKenna’s association has not announced a date on which they are going to re-nominate their candidate.
 MPP Jane McKenna with the best job she has ever had will have to seek re-election when the expected provincial election is called in the Spring. When McKenna goes to the polls it will not be with the same organization that did her peek-a-boo campaign in 2011. There have been consistent rumblings of dis-satisfaction at the local riding level with the MPP. However her star has risen with the party at Queen’s Park where she is said to be a favourite of Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak. Other than a small stream of photo ops, Burlington hasn’t seen or heard all that much from McKenna.
The New democrats maintain: “It’s clear that in the next election Ontarians will have a choice between an entitled Liberal party that has betrayed the public trust, a Progressive Conservative party that lacks leadership and vision and a team of dedicated New Democrats who have already delivered tangible results in a minority house.” said Ryan Perera, president of the Burlington NDP.
One candidate, Jan Mowbray, has put forth her name at this time; Jan brings a wealth of experience in public administration and volunteerism in Halton.
 Jan Mowbray, former Liberal has decided to run as a New Democrat in Burlington. Mowbray, an experienced political operative, left the Liberal party “because there was no sign of change for the better. More and more scandals popping up in the news, lack of oversight – think Hydro. The vulnerable sectors of our community continue to be impacted by policies that don’t address real problems. McGuinty in 2008 promised to reduce poverty by 25% in 5 years – it was referred to as 25/5. There was hope in the social sector. Five years later we were at 30% poverty. What could we have done with $2.1 billion?!”
“I know the issues, I know the people with 25 years of experience working as a volunteer in the social sector. I have considerable legislative and electoral experience (2 terms on council; worked federal and provincial election campaigns); as my by-line states, I am committed to the community.” Said Mowbray
Mowbray was elected to the Milton town council in 2003 and then re-elected in 2006. She ran for the Regional seat that Milton has and lost to Colin Best in 2010.
Mowbray would seem to be a candidate for the Halton provincial but running against Ted Chudleigh is tantamount to suicide – Burlington was probably seen as a location where the New Democrats at least had a shot – not because the NDP is all that strong in Burlington but because Progressive Conservative McKenna is so weak.
 Liberal Eleanor McMahon has been out campaigning every weekend for the past three weeks. While the Liberals have a strong candidate in Eleanor McMahon, Mowbray will dump all over her citing the McGuinty sins. Mowbray is a shoe in for the nomination – none of the usual NDP suspects appear to be up to the challenge. Burlington might see itself with three women running for the provincial seat.
Although only members in good standing with the party are welcome to vote, any and all are welcome to come meet the Burlington NDP executive and the next provincial candidate for the NDP in Burlington.
All inquiries are welcome at burlingtonndp@hotmail.com or by contacting the riding association president, Ryan Perera at 647-402-5874.
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