Ward 4 candidate Brian Heagle

may have changed colours.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON  January 27, 2011 – Those who live and breath local politics have noticed that Brian Heagle, a candidate in Ward 4 last October, has listed Tim Hudak as an interest on his Facebook page.  Hudak is the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and is heating things up with speeches saying “jobs trump the environment” and that the Niagara GTA road planned for some future date will result in more jobs for the region.

With a provincial election scheduled for the fall and consistent rumours that current

Burlington MPP Joyce Savoline will not run again – the seat is available and many feel Heagle is interested in running for it.  Former Mayor Cam Jackson is also rumored to be “interested”.

Both the Halton and the Burlington provincial seats are at risk – with the environment in the northern part of Burlington a big, big issue.  Joyce Savoline and Ted Chudleigh both showed up at the citizens meeting that was held when the plans for a road right smack through the Mt. Nemo community came to light.

Small community groups have been meeting since that 800 plus attendees meeting at the Mainway area took place in January.  If the road that appeared on the maps that were available ever sees the light of day, it will rip around Mt. Nemo and probably have to roll over a large number of north Burlington homes.  Burlington would never be the same.

The Conservation Halton offices on Britannia Road appears to be right in the middle of the planners thinking.  What an irony that would be.

The Tories of course will have a candidate – know one knows who it is going to be, but the sense is that Heagle is looking it over.  And he is packing his belongings for a move back into Ward 4, where he and his wife Ria grew up together.  Perhaps Heagle is doing some forward planning for another run at the municipal ward?  Probably not, the provincial level seems to be more to his liking.  Heagle did have a chance to take the Liberal nomination.  He had talks with very senior people at Queen’s Park but something didn’t work out and so the red jacket gets put away and the tailor measures Heagle up for a blue one.

No word on what the Liberals or the New Democrats and the Greens have planned.  The Liberals have lost their very energetic John Boich who chose to step down recently as President of the Burlington Provincial Liberal Association, while he copes with serious personal medical matters.

We will be following this all more closely in the weeks and months ahead.

Mayor gives his city a B+

on its financial score card.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON January 22, 2011  –  It was the “be at event” for the week and more than 400 business people bought tickets for the State of the City address by the Mayor and hosted by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce.  Those who attended described the room as “a happy place”. Mayor Rick Goldring told the audience who he was and what he was going to do.

The event, usually held in October of each year, was moved permanently to January.  The theme the Mayor chose for this his first address at a Chamber event was “Building an affordable, inclusive and complete City that works together.”

The Mayor of Burlington is an “inclusive man”.  He is almost too decent.  He is patient, listens, sometime far too long to all sides.  He is, most of the time, content to be in the background and is always prepared to give way for someone else.  He doesn’t have to seize the agenda and he doesn’t seem to have to let people know that he is in charge. That is not to say he is a pushover – he’s just decent and polite.  As he said in his address –“Expect me to be honest, direct, clear and enthusiastic. A Mayor that values gaining and maintaining your trust and confidence. What you see is what you get.”  That is who you elected to office.

He is also prepared to admit that he was wrong or made a mistake – sometimes that honesty makes him look a little simple – and he isn’t simple. “I speak honestly and directly”, said the Mayor. “I haven’t yet learned the art of the non-answer.”

Mayor Goldring leads a Council that hasn’t fully gelled yet.  He has three new members and they are fitting in well enough and learning the ropes, each at their own rate and each developing competencies of their own.  He is proud to work with them and he adjusts to their styles and approach to the job.

Goldring wanted to leave his audience of business people with four things to remember:

His vision of Burlington as a place that is affordable, inclusive and complete and that he will lead by listening and learning from others and wherever possible build consensus.  He emphasized that the challenge ahead was to balances our wants, our needs and our ability to pay.

He said the Pan Am/Ticat Aldershot stadium discussions provided him with great on the job training.  That experience also brought from staff the view that Burlington was not big enough to handle a of project of that size.

Current State of the City

“As you all know in this room, we have all just come through a global recession, “ said the Mayor. “Canada has weathered the storm very well. While Ontario has experienced challenges especially in the manufacturing sector and Burlington has experienced some of this, we have come through the recession in good shape.”

The Mayor reported that local unemployment rate peaked in 2009 at 9.2% and is now reported at 7.6%.  The Burlington Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) reports that we have added 852 new jobs in Burlington, up from 577 in 2009. We remain prosperous.  What wasn’t reported or commented upon was the amount of land that is identified as “employment lands” in the official plan and what the Mayor would like to do longer term to attract the high paying jobs that the city wants.  No mention was made of what is going to happen in the near term with the Maple Leaf processing plant on Harvester Road. There are a significant number of jobs that will disappear when that plant closes down and it will eventually close down.

“The Burlington Performing Arts Centre is on time and on budget”, said the Mayor and “will be open in the fall of this year. This is a significant addition to the cultural fabric of the whole city and will provide significant positive impact to the continuing development of our downtown.”  Our Mayor could have expanded on how he and his council propose to handle the deficits that are part of the agreement with the arms length non-profit corporation that runs the BPAC with a volunteer Board.  Council has yet to receive either a Budget for the year we are now into or a longer term business plan.

“Individuals and corporations” reported the Mayor, “have contributed over $10.3 million toward the capital cost of the facility. The facility is governed by an independent board composed of a broad cross section of people including entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, as well as people with experience in the arts.”

The Mayor said: “Yes, there has been capital spending, however because of the recession, much of the spending was at costs lower than originally budgeted.”  “Federal and provincial stimulus dollars”, he added, “have helped this City and province manage through the recession. In total, the City received some $22.4 million in Senior Government Funding through various stimulus programs. This stimulus funding provided for among others:

The new Transit Operations Centre was badly needed but not as badly needed as a transit policy.  This city still hasn’t decided what level of transit service it wants to provide the public.  There are some that talk in terms of a “one bus” transit system.  Burlington Transit ridership increased by 5.4% in 2010 and the introduction of low floor fully accessible buses has dramatically improved accessibility.

City Finances

The Mayor felt it appropriate to also speak to the financial status of the City itself.  “Based on my education and experience I’d give us a B+”, said the Mayor.  That’s a fair mark but there have to be some comments in the margin of the report card saying that we are only managing to get 68% of our roads up to the standard we set out and that we are about to go into a phase were close to more than half our roads are at the point where they need significant work to be kept up to standard and we do not have a reserve to do that work.  And it is substantial.

“Taxes”, said the Mayor, “ are comparable with other communities. Our balance sheet has a little more debt than I would like to see”, he added, “and we have seen a moderate deterioration in asset maintenance spending.”   It would have helped if the Mayor had set out just what the debt is and what the city has in the way of reserves in its various reserve funds.  His audience was made up of sophisticated, financially informed people, who understand a balance sheet and have very close relationships with profit and loss statements.

In order for a society to function it has to be informed and there was a wonderful opportunity for this Mayor to fully inform his audience.  He missed that opportunity.  It was fine to say how much he respected the Chamber of Commerce as an organization he had served on – he could have should have shown that respect by laying out all the facts.  He has nothing to hide.

“The City”, said the Mayor, “has $2.0 billion in fair market value assets. Roads and facilities are the bulk of the assets. We need to spend about 2% per year of fair market value just to protect and maintain these assets. We have not been doing that.”   This was one of his better important bits of information and his audience understands what he is up against.

“Municipal councils throughout Canada have similar challenges and” the Mayor advised, “we have to juggle priorities and balance the need for infrastructure renewal, with additional services and other community needs.”  Here our Mayor could have and should have expanded and set out some of the options he is looking at.  Where might the cuts be made?  It would have been interesting and certainly novel had the Mayor asked his audience what level they thought the cuts should be made at.

The Mayor also said:  “Over the last four years the City portion of property taxes increased by 29%.  I have set a target of 10% over the next four years and I want to keep this number a priority in our civic agenda”.   He expanded a bit on his 10% in four years objective.  He had an opportunity to mention that his council member with the best financial smarts was advocating a 0% increase.  The Mayor could have put that in context and commented on its likelihood.  Opportunity missed.  The room was filled with people who wanted to listen and confirm the sense that this Mayor is a good guy; decent, responsible and not someone who is going to try and snow you.  When he makes a mistake, which he will, this Mayor is going to tell you and take responsibility for his mistakes.  It doesn’t get better than that.

“First”, said the Mayor, “ we need to set targets that are meaningful and achievable and I believe that this target is both. Second, I believe that it is time to review our services and operating structure. Our operating structure has been relatively static for 15 plus years and the City has changed in culture, size, demographics, development profile and needs. He went on to say: “It is my observation that despite the tax rate increases that we have experienced, council continues to ask staff to do more with less and this cannot continue. We need to take a different approach.”

“Thirdly”, he pointed out,  “the City has to think long term about its human resources. Over the next four years we have a number of staff retiring. If we want the right people, the City should be an attractive place to work and build a career. It is in all our best interests.”

“Fourth, I believe that the City has to review its processes and its use of technology and communications tools to be more productive and more effective.”   Kind of a bread and butter statement – one of those “non-answers’ perhaps?

“Lastly”,  said the Mayor, “I want to restore a culture at the City of Burlington where Council, Staff and Community are working together to fulfill the long term vision of the city.”  Well there is some work to be done at the Council/Staff relationship, which we will report on elsewhere.  Where this Mayor is dead on is the need for community to work with him to manage some of the stickier problems.  While the Mayor didn’t challenge the business community to work with him, the Chamber and its members need to support this man and the work he is doing.  He can’t do it all by himself.  Rick Goldring will listen – talk to him.

I believe that our circumstances call for a focused, collaborative and measured approach with the objective being an updated City Hall operation which deals with 21st century issues using 21st century technology, people and processes and which demonstrates the ability to operate within a sustainable economic plan.   Another one of those non-answers ?

“As we move forward together we have some key challenges:  Burlington is now growing more slowly than any other community in the GTA and will see less revenue as a result.  We will have to approach City operations and services in a different way.  Burlington’s demographics are changing and is expected to soon have 20% of its population at retirement age or older.  Has the business community factored this fact into its longer term plans”.  The Mayor might think in terms of a Symposium to look at just what it means to have one fifth of the population in the retired column.

Among the questions such a symposium might ask are:

• How do we live within our means with slower growth and a changing demographic profile?

• How do we re-align the City’s services to meet the needs and priorities of the community?

• How do we keep a motivated professional staff in place at the City and deal with the costs?

• How do we support and grow our local economy to maintain our quality of life?

All very good and relevant questions.  The Mayor and his city hall staff cannot come up with these answers on their own.  They need input from the people who do business in this city.

“We have”, said the Mayor,  “an excellent Downtown / Waterfront Plan which was developed with extensive public consultation and included input from over 1400 citizens.”

“I plan to revisit it through a public symposium, and update it to ensure it continues to reflect a 10-20 year community vision.”

The Pier: The new Council has spent 14 hours in briefings on this issue (How many in his audience cringed when they thought of the size of the legal bill for all this.  The problem is not one this Mayor brought about – he’s the poor guy who has to clean up a mess left by others.  He needs support on this one.) and is united in our resolve to complete this project. We will fix this as quickly and as cost effectively as possible.

A Vision of Burlington: “So it’s fair to ask, what is my Vision of the City, and how will we achieve it together?”

“I feel we should continue to strive to make Burlington an affordable, inclusive, complete community. Affordable so new families can move here and seniors can stay in their community. Inclusive and complete communities offer an attractive quality of life. It’s time to take a regional view of the place we call home. Let’s appreciate and embrace the amenities, services and facilities next door as part of our unique Quality of Life.

“McMaster, a university ranked in the top one percent of comprehensive universities globally is a 10 minute drive away and we have easy access to Mohawk and Sheridan Colleges. We have an emerging technology centre in Kitchener-Waterloo an hour away with one of the most successful technology companies in the world.  We also have a world recognized wine district in Niagara. And Burlington sits in the epicenter of all these amenities and attractions.”

Strung together these really don’t amount to a vision – more a description of the environmental, geographic setting we exist within.  All true, but they don’t constitute a vision

“So what”, asked the Mayor. “will Burlington look like 25 years from now?”

Imagine:

–          A city of about 193,000 nestled on the lake with an escarpment and a rural backyard.

–          A city with a strong local economy which allows more people to work close to home.

–          A public transportation network which connects Burlington with the GTHA and allows us all to move around better and preserve the environment.

–          Increased access to lifelong learning opportunities so that our community can compete and thrive in a global economy.

–          An inclusive community which provides for youth and seniors and is a tolerant and cultural oasis in the region.

–          A beautiful and well-maintained city with unique and diverse neighbourhoods that are pedestrian and cycle friendly.

–          A community that values and achieves sustainability through clearly defined ecological and environmental practices.

I don’t think this is what is imagined – but more a what the public expects.

To achieve this Vision I’m proposing a five-step action plan.

• “We need a New Strategic Planning process for the community. Council will be defining a very different process that will provide all citizens a variety of opportunities to provide input into the future of our city. The result will be a more meaningful and measurable civic strategic plan.”
• “I am proposing to start a new relationship with our community stakeholders with the Mayor’s Community Roundtable. We will have our first conversation next week. The 25 or so Community leaders attending represent a broad cross section of the community through their members, congregations and participants.”
• “I will be introducing a series of lectures leading up to our next Official Plan review to inspire Burlington to look at ways of changing and improving our quality of life.”
• “We need to support efforts of the BEDC and the Chamber and others to bring new business to our community and to help existing businesses be successful. Burlington needs to be open for Business including not-for-profit, co-ops and other forms of emerging social entrepreneurship.”

This one has all those upside buzz words but they ring a little on the hollow side when we read that city hall staff thought the proposed Aldershot Stadium, that had us all worked up for a few days was too big an undertaking for this city.   Does the city council and the city staff really have an entrepreneurial spirit

• We will create a 4 year financial plan to maintain a manageable level of taxation and live within our means while delivering the services the community wants and this plan will be sustainable in the long term.

This, this Mayor will do.  He is responsible.

“In summary, we live in a prosperous caring community blessed with a tremendous natural environment. We have the opportunity to live an urban, suburban or a rural lifestyle. We have the infrastructure and the services needed to provide for the community and most importantly we have a community of citizens that show their commitment every day to our city and the people that live in it. Our opportunities are many and it is up to all of us to build our community to care for those around us. I have complete confidence that we can do this together.”

That last paragraph is what our Mayor is all about.  We don’t know yet if he can handle a crisis.  We don’t know yet how deep the vision is, there wasn’t much that was exciting about it and perhaps that is the way his citizens want it.  This time next year is a better opportunity to review his performance.  Nothing dramatic yet, and there may never be anything stellar about his term of office.  The city didn’t vote FOR Rick Goldring – they voted AGAINST the other guy.  Goldring came in with a clean slate and so far has kept it that way.

Former Toronto Mayor suggests Burlington

hold a competition on waterfront development

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON  January 14, 2011   –  It was Nicholas Leblovic’s return on an investment.  A couple of bottles of beer and an afternoon on a deck in Tiny Township resulted in the chair of the Waterfront access and Protection Advisory Committee getting what amounted to a graduate student lecture on growing a community.

Waterfront Advisory meetings are usually quiet events that take place on a Friday afternoon.  The 12 member committee has been going through a series of briefings but today it was the granddaddy of briefings and Nicholas was pleased.

David Crombie, former Mayor of Toronto and chair of a Royal Commission on   and creator of the Waterfront Trail that runs for more than 800 km from Niagara Falls to Quebec City; runs through 41 municipalities, 10 conservation areas, 182 parks – well you get the picture it was big and Crombie remembers every inch of it.

He began his talk with the statement: I have not come to Burlington to solve your waterfront problems but instead he asked the meeting (which had a dozen or so members of the public sit in) to step back twenty five to thirty years and remember what it was like then.  The railways were leaving waterfront areas in cities across the province; de-industrialization was taking place and people were beginning to look at their waterfront areas much differently.  The water was badly polluted, shore lines were in poor shape and access to the waterfront was blocked.

Local activists in many communities wanted access to the water and the great Lakes Agreement on water quality was put in place.  All these forces brought about the need to look at waterfronts across the province differently.

As we began to explore – and we did this with endless meetings, it became clear that the thread throughout was the waterfront and the need for connectedness.  We realized as a Commission that the link in all of this was our collected history.

Crombie pointed out that his generation didn’t understand the Oakwood moraine. “It was just a bump along the way to the cottage” he said.  But after listening to people a single view began to emerge.

It is all connected and we are responsible for the consequences of our actions.  We wanted to use those two realizations to animate the planning that was being done and we were faced with the question: How do you implement that?  The realizations sound simple and simplistic but they were what we used to build what we have today.

The Waterfront Trail Crombie emphasized will never be finished.  He added that what Burlington is today is not what it is going to be in 2025

Make sure Crombie advised that your waterfront becomes a priority.  Fix peoples attention on it he added.

Our waterfront certainly has our attention but not the positive attention Crombie meant.  He didn’t see our pier problem as a big deal – it would get resolved.  What he wanted this city to do was look beyond our own boundaries and realize that we are not alone in this.  That Burlington is not going to be able to create the waterfront it wants without involving Oakville and Hamilton and that all of the communities east and west of Burlington are part of our process.

And it is a process – meeting after meeting – listening and re-shaping ideas.

Set the stage with good planning

Teach and learn with one another.  There is no secret room with all the great planning ideas hidden away in it.  Plans come out of community and that means involving the community.

Use milestone projects to promote projects and design with heritage in mind.  Ooops, no one told Crombie that we are about to chop up the old Freeman Station for firewood.

Designing with heritage in mind wasn’t a cliché – we didn’t dream that up, we learned that.  We found that communities gained an interest in development through their history and he suggested that the planned commemoration events of the War of 1812 were an excellent opportunity for Burlington to recapture its history.

Gosh, we might even think of resurrecting poor Joseph Brant whose ancestral home by the hospital is one of the most under used assets the city has.

Crombie urged the city to make use of its connections and start first by fully understanding what the connections we have are and then partner with those connections.

We decided to create the Waterfront Trial and saw it not as a string of parks stretched along the edge of Lake Ontario but rather as a clothes line on which each community hung out what it saw itself as.  Crombie then went on to explain how different communities worked the Waterfront Trail into their waterfront development and mentioned to a small group afterwards that there was a time when developers didn’t have anything good to say about the waterfront trail.  Now they want to build near the thing and see it as an attraction.

Developers explained Crombie want to make money from the property they own and if you work with them to show how they can make even more money they will work with you.

This was where Crombie taught his “class” that partnerships have to be created.  The developer owns the property and wants to get a return on his investment – so make it possible for that to happen.

He explained that fighting with interest groups wasn’t going to get us anywhere

Burlington is certainly

Crombie spoke for more than an hour and passed on tons of wisdom including:

There was a time, Crombie told the meeting, when Burlington was seen as a leader in the fight to reclaim its waterfront but that in the past while its leadership had lapsed.  He talked about how the community might begin again to reclaim it’s waterfront.

Nick didn’t like that – cuts in on his turf.

It isn’t all about set backs and it isn’t all about how high a building can be – it was about securing public interest in a strategic plan.  Don’t try to push anything through – developing your water front isn’t about power.

It does said Crombie, take public money to get it started and if the province has said Burlington has to grow then use that demand of the province to leverage ideas and pull in the private sector.  Involve local pride and peer pressure.

We listened to all the perspectives and decided to string them together with a trail because we needed something that would bring people to the waterfront.

Theses places cannot be just “hike and bike” locations explained Crombie.  Your waterfront becomes a desolated places in the winter months of interest only to the xxx and the muggers.

Crombie knows Burlington.  He has family in the area and talked fondly about his younger years when he would walk through the Aldershot area, get to Coots Paradise and arrive at Pier 4, a tough, tough part of town that few ventured anywhere near.

Burlington Crombie pointed out has extra assets; it has gathering places, a history and a culture and has more than most to work with. “You have the financial and human resources that many others don’t have.

Crombie talked of ‘portals’ being developed – which he defined as each community doing its own thing and advised that looking for connectedness was the better route to go.  Each community can show its best side but there is still a connectedness between them.  Hamilton is connected to you – you may not like it but it is there, said Crombie to a room that chuckled

Your waterfront needs to be animated.  People have t live, work and play in the area – that makes it messier.

Mississauga was a geographical expression and not a place when all this waterfront development started listen to all the perspectives

And that is when David Crombie go to the best piece of advice Burlington is going to get in some time.  Hold a design competition – make it a juried competition and have some odd balls on that jury.  And see what the architects come up with.

Theses things aren’t easy but when Toronto got its new city hall it did so through a design competition and while the building isn’t all that efficient it put Toronto on the map, said Crombie.

Burlington could pull together all the developers in the downtown core – say from Caroline to the Lake and from say Pine Cove Road on the east to say Maple – QEW on the west and declare that that is the area we are asking people to design within.  Yes, it is a big area – but all we are doing is looking.  All the developers will be at the table and the property owners as well.  And then see what they come up with.

Burlington began that process with the landmark building due to go up on the old Riviera Motel site.  But that was small in scope and it seemed d to take forever to get started – they still haven’t put a shovel into the ground and most people have precious little idea as to what is going to go up – because they played no part in the planning.  Civic pride is a big factor in getting things done, added Crombie

Planning as Crombie will tell everyone is a messy business.  People say they don’t like tall buildings but I have found said Crombie that when people are bothered they use height of buildings to say what they are not really clear about.

Height is design explained Crombie – it is what you do with the height that matters

Set backs are ecological he added.  Pickering has a 40 foot set back, it looks like parts of Saskatchewan.  Scarborough was the most difficult to deal with – they were sort of the last hold out.

Bring in architects that spend a lot of time listening to the public.  “If you listen long enough, dialogue leads people to move to new spaces where new ideas are formed.  They begin to forget their previous views, explained Crombie and that he added is when the partnerships can be formed.  It is not just about density.

Sarah Banks read from a document and after listening for a few minutes Crombie said” Hire the guy.  Banks was concerned with the developers having all the power but Crombie explained that the city has leverage and the Mayor has a “bully pit” that he can use th rally public support and provide direction and focus.  The city does have muscle, explained Crombie – don’t be afraid to use it.

Mayor Rick Goldring sat beside Crombie through the presentation  Banks and Gary Scobie and Marianne Meed Ward were the only people to ask questions.  Crombie would have loved to see much more give and take.