 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON March 29, 2013 The nominations for Burlington’s Best awards are in, and in just six weeks the winners will be revealed at a gala event – Thursday, May 9, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. at the Burlington Convention Centre,
The 2013 gala event is proud to welcome local blogger and unabashed promoter of Burlington, Trent Schwartz, as the keynote speaker.
Keith Strong, chairman of the nominating committee is pleased with the buzz building around Burlington’s Best awards,.
“With an impressive group of nominees, the new look of the awards and an exciting ceremony coming, we think this year’s awards will help raise awareness of the importance of volunteering in the community. These nominees all help make Burlington a better place for all of us.”
Awards will be given for the following seven categories:
Citizen of the Year
Junior Citizen of the Year
Arts Person of the Year
Seniors Person of the Year
Community Service Award
Environmental Award
Heritage Award, this is a new category for Burlington.
This year’s nominees are:
Susan Busby, Mary Dilly, Joey Edwardh, Ancilla Ho-Young, Jane Irwin, Bev Jacobs, Ross Kay, Morgan Muscat, Robert Narejko, Noah Parker, Amy Schnurr, Joe Veitch
All award winners will be announced at the event.
 Civic Award winners last year; from the left: Michelle Bennett, Sam Kawazoye, Trevor Copp, Mayor Goldring (he won the election) Wendy Hager, Dan Taylor and Jim Frizzle The Planning Committee is composed of 10 voting members, including: 6 citizens from the community, and 4 representatives from media and information agencies.
Tickets to this event are $35 per person; a table of the 10 sells for $280. The event includes a light buffet and cocktail reception. Tickets are available from the clerks department at City Hall, 426 Brant St. or by contacting Roxanne Gosse at 905-335-7600, ext. 7855 or Roxanne.gosse@burlington.ca
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON March 29th, 2013 The Burlington Strategic Support Team executed a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act search warrant at a residence located at 1026 Glendor Ave , Unit 92 in the City of Burlington.
 Community in which drug bust took place Good Friday morning. Police arrested a male and female occupant when they found and seized approximately 614 grams of Marihuana, 27 grams of Cocaine, 13 grams of Psilocybin, a quantity of Oxycodone, $3430 in cash, scales, packaging material and a cell phone.
Arrested in relation to this investigation are:
Bailey FISCHER (21 years old) of Burlington
Taylor GONZALES (23 years old) of Burlington
They were charged with: trafficking a controlled substance (Marihuana), Possession for the purpose of trafficking (Marihuana); Possession for the purpose of trafficking (Cocaine); Possession for the purpose of trafficking (Psilocybin) and Possession for the purpose of trafficking (Percocet/Oxycodone)
Police let them go home when the promised to appear in court when required. The accused are going to have to rely on drug store over the counter pills to steady their nerves in the weeks and months ahead.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. March 28, 2013 There is no deal – yet, but there are some very interesting conversations taking place about what might be done with Village Square. There are also a lot of myths that need to get – de-mythed if anything is to happen with the property.
An industry observer who knows more about Village Square than most, scoffs at the suggestion everyone loves Village Square. “if they loved the place – then why weren’t they patronizing shops when there were shops there? “ Yes, there were problems with the management of the property and the rental agreements were terrible, which drove many of the restaurants out of the location. But a change of management isn’t going to make a difference.
A personal grooming service spent more than a year in the Village and finally pulled up stakes and has moved to a John Street location. “One of my clients” commented that “the place just felt dead and it certainly wasn’t inviting. Quaint to look at but it just wasn’t working and I couldn’t afford to stay there.”
 Rahoon’s has managed to stay afloat because it is a family owned operation that doesn’t have the labour costs others have. Food is fine by the way. Give it a try. Another Burlingtonian who tends to eat out frequently walked into Rahoon’s, the Persian restaurant that has a fine menu and excellent service and price that are not the norm in Burlington. “The man’s face just lit up when I walked in” said this realtor – “I think I may have been his only customer that evening.”
The Friedman family has own the property since the early 1980’s and while Jack Friedman was active there were tenants even if they came and went frequently. But when his health declined and the day-to-day operation of the property fell into the hands of his daughters, Susan and Debra – well things didn’t get better.
Debra spends at least a day week in Burlington while Susan, a lawyer who specializes in litigation, does the talking for the family – there isn’t an active plan to market and manage the space.
 Village Square: It was one of Jack Friedman’s dreams. Potential new owners have new dreams that could include office space, a downtown supermarket as well as re-location of the historic properties. The condo on the left hand side was where the bus terminal was located
 The yellow portion of this graphic outlines the area that is screened off to the public. Entry into Spencer Smith Park will be from the stairway just to the west of the Waterfront hotel. The fencing will stay in place until the end of May.
By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON. March 29, 2013 There are still a few holdouts – bits of snow that are in places where the sunshine has yet to get to – but Spring is in the air and that will draw thousands of people down to the waterfront, wearing sweaters perhaps but out in the sunshine and fresh air nevertheless.
 Expect to see our pier looking like this during those summer evenings when darkness has settle upon the city. There won’t be fireworks every evening. But the promenade leading from the foot of Brant Street into Spencer Smith Park will not be what you have been used to – that area has been closed off while construction people continue with their work getting the node in place, continuing with the installation of the light fixtures that are already powered and preparing to install the Burlington Blue rails that will be a really striking feature of the pier when it opens in June.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON March 28, 2013 Bob Jurk, currently a Senior Project leader in the Engineering department, remembers the day when he put the actual clock fixture into the Burlington Blue cast iron structure that has been standing outside city hall since 1999.
 John Bouwman is said to be the person who decided that Burlington needed a clock outside city hall and he knew just the kind of clock the city needed. That was the starting point for the clock that has been on location since 1999. One of the reasons we made this picture as large as we did is because of the reflection in the shop window. You can see the Google car driving by and photographing every street of every city in North America. Look closely and you can see the camera mounted atop the car.  They are going to lift the clock off its base and get it into the shop for a check up. The clock has been in place since 1999 – and has apparently never missed a beat. Keith Strong remembers too how people in the community came together to get the clock in place. John Bouwman, operator of the Clockmaker on John Street, is said to be the person who came up with the idea and Mrs. Carol Wardle of Wardle Insurance offered a generous contribution and before you knew it – the clock was a done deal. All it took was the typical Keith Strong, roll up your sleeves and get it done approach, and close to fifteen years later that clock is out for a fix up.
It’s going to take a couple of weeks to complete the job of refurbishing the device – so if you are depending on the sound of the chimes to get to work on time – leave home a little earlier.
The clock was installed in 1999 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Burlington’s incorporation as a village. The city gave twin city Itabashi, Japan, a replica of the clock as a friendship gift in 1999 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the cities’ twinning agreement.
In 2014, Burlington and Itabashi will celebrate 25 years since the cities originally signed a twinning agreement.
Civic Square also includes a millennium fountain, built and installed to mark the year 2000; a bronze statue built to honour soldiers who gave their lives in the First World War, installed in 1986; and a drinking fountain built to commemorate a visit by the Prince of Wales and installed at the site in 1977.
A lot of history in a small space.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. Marc h 28, 2013 It was almost sweet. The Community Services Committee was meeting to discuss a report on the upgrades being made to Lowville Park and talk about the revenue problems at Tyandaga Golf Club where a surplus of $75,000 just wasn’t good enough for Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison. On the agenda as well was a discussion about the Cultural Action Plan that is being worked up and on which we should see something more concrete later in the year.
What wasn’t on the agenda was a Memo from Councillors Dennison, Sharman and Lancaster who wanted funding for a pet project they thought had been included in the budget but was not.
Last year the city held two “car free Sunday event; one on Appleby Line and the other on Brant Street. Appleby Line was a limited success worth doing a again. Brant Street was not worth the effort, the time or the cost.
Councillors Sharman and Dennison led the charge last year with the Mayor along for the ride. There were a number of photo ops as well. Councillor Lancaster wanted to get in on the game this year but they discovered that the car free Sunday was not in the budget much to their surprise.
 Traffic barriers in place on Lakeshore for the Car Free Sunday last year were expensive and not really used. The event was poorly attended. So they began to see if they could make it happen on their own and soon realized that they would need funding from the city – to the tune of $10,000 for two events – one that would take place on Appleby Line Sunday June 9th and the other on Palladium Way in the Alton Community June 23rd.
 No problem spending a bundle on Car Free Sundays last year – but 2013 was going to be different. Councillor Meed Ward wanted Council members to pony up some of the cost from their expense accounts. Didn’t happen – but she did try. These three Musketeers, Councillors Sharman, Lancaster and Dennison, then asked their fellow Council members to join them in voting to “Authorize the Director of Finance to transfer up to $10,000 from the Tax Stabilization Fund to an account in support of Car Free Sunday.
Not so fast piped in Councillor Taylor. You can use the Tax Stabilization Fund for a one time expenditure. This is your second kick at the can – can’t use that fund.
 The Appleby Line Car Free Sunday was better attended than the one on Brant Street several weeks later – but neither event was a huge success. That wasn’t going to stop Councillors Sharman, Dennison and now Lancaster from giving it another go. Ooops said the three Musketeers. Councillor Meed Ward wasn’t part of this initiative but did say she would support the effort if each of the Council members used some of the $9000 expense account to support the effort. Lancaster didn’t like that idea but did say she would use $500 of her expense money and might go up to $1000 if she had to. Meed Ward then turned to Councillor Dennison to see what he was prepared to put up. Dennison wanted none of that and he bobbed and weaved and did everything he could not to answer the question.
Councillor Craven, who was also not involved sat there smirking for a while and then pointed out that there was an event in Aldershot that was getting his community into this type of thing incrementally. There was going to be a “Jane’s Walk in Aldershot May 5th and he would support the motion if they would add in $500 for the Aldershot event. That would bring Craven on board and give the group the four votes they needed.
Because this was a sort of Parks and Recreation project members of Council asked Parks and Recreation director Chris Glenn if he could fund this. Nope – I’m broke was the gist of Glenn’s answer. And besides he added – this is more of a Transportation matter. The “buck” was being moved from department to department.
Councillor Taylor thought he had a solution. “You must have more than 10,000 reserve funds – just take $1 from each and pay for this that way.
Still no takers.
 General manager Kim Phillips saved the day for the three Council members who wanted to promote a pet project and have the city pay for it. She found $10,000 that wasn’t being used. General Manager Kim Phillips did observe that the Executive Budget Committee noticed Councillor initiated events were ending up as projects that “you expect us to take on.”
Phillips, always ready to be helpful, suggested there was some money in the Strategic Plan Implementation Fund that wasn’t spoken for – would that help. Now getting a Car Free Sunday event defined as part of implementing the Strategic Plan is a stretch – but they did find a way to stretch this one by saying that it would contribute to Vibrant Communities which is one of the Strategic Plan pillars.
But before they got to that point in the discussion, Meed Ward pointed out that when there was a role for the city in Councillor driven events, some of the funding could come from the individual council member’s expense account and she went back after Councillor Dennison and asked again how much of his expense money was he prepared to put into the project. She almost had him.
But then he Mayor said: “We have much bigger fish to fry this evening” and Dennison added “let staff find the money”.
Blair Lancaster moved the motion – they had the four votes they needed – and so there will be two car free Sundays in the city – one June 9th and the other June 23rd.
Now you know how Burlington works. Meed Ward did hold their feet to the flames.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON March 27, 2013 If you are a photographer and want to improve your craft note Saturday April 13th at the Burlington Art Centre where the Latow Photographers Guild will hold their annual seminar. The event will run from 9 am to 4:30 pm. Tickets are going quickly and there is a limit to the attendance.
Photographer Mike Grandmaison will speak and show images on the theme of Natural Reflections in a session designed to inspire and instruct photographers of all levels.
 Mike Grandmaison at a photography exhibit. Based in Winnipeg, Mike Grandmaison is a leading Canadian nature photographer with ten books to his credit, including Prairie and Beyond, Muskoka, Georgian Bay, The Canadian Rockies and Canada. He has been photographing professionally on a full-time basis since 1996 and has taught photography for years, conducting nature-focused workshops as well as presenting lectures to various organizations.
 One of the more than ten photography books Grandmaison has published. The April 13 Seminar will be followed by the Latow Audio-Visual Festival from 7 to 9 pm. Admission to this evening of extraordinary audiovisual presentations by different photographers, each with a unique perspective, is $10 in advance or at the door. This event will appeal to anyone with an interest in visual art, not just photography enthusiasts.
On Sunday April 14, Mike Grandmaison will lead two mini-seminars, one on creating Fine Art Photography, and one on sharing your photography through websites, books, galleries, photo contests and juried exhibitions. These sessions will be of interest to photographers wishing to take their work to a higher level. Enrollment is limited but space may still be available.
For more information and registration, click here:
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. March 27, 2013 What we all knew and loved as the Burlington Twins appear to have gone rogue and changed their name to the Burlington Bandits.
And just to show they don’t play by the rules they cancelled their Easter Sunday Workout. This was an “official” team workout.
 New name, new look and a new location. The Bandits will play at the Burloak Sports Centre this season The Bandits next scheduled spring training workout is scheduled for Sunday, April 7th at the Burloak Sports Centre from 12:30pm to 2:00pm. Open to the public of course and if you think you can swing the big stick or scoop a bouncing ball and get it back to second base before the runner does you are encouraged to attend. First chance to get a look at the updated roster.
The Burlington Bandits home opener is May 11th, 2013 against the London Majors; tickets only $7.
The Burlington Bandits are an independent minor-league baseball team of the semi-professional Inter county Baseball League (IBL). The team was founded in 2011 as the Burlington Twins and changed ownership and name in 2013.
Burlington businessman Scott Robinson now calls all the shots and signs the cheques as well.
The Bandits play a 42-game season with 21 games at home and 21 on the road.
 By Staff
OAKVILLE, ON – Halton MP Lisa Raitt, Minister of Labour and the MP for Halton, has spread the largesse she hands out into the city of Burlington. Parts of northern Burlington are within the Raitt riding where she announced that the Region will benefit from improvements to roads, water and wastewater infrastructure. Tremaine Road will be widened and realigned which is a plus for Burlington given the development for the intersection of Dundas and Tremaine that is working its way through our Planning Department
 Halton MO Lisa Raitt told Regional officials that funding from Ottawa would show up in the Region. Parts of northern Burlington are in the Halton constituency. A new Regional water quality laboratory in Burlington, will get paid for out of the Gas Tax Fund. Given the way gas prices rise – we should see quite a few dollars from that source.
The federal government now has a new Building Canada Plan described as the largest investment in job-creating infrastructure in Canadian history. The improvements to local roads and waste water infrastructure that the government announced today are expected to have a significant economic impact here in Halton Region.
The Gas Tax Fund is supporting numerous projects throughout Halton Region. Between 2006 and 2014, Halton Region will receive more than $84 million from the Gas Tax Fund to improve local infrastructure. For example, Tremaine Road, a project that previously received $5.3 million from the Government of Canada through the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, is now receiving an additional boost from the Gas Tax Fund.
 Water quality testing will be done at the Skyway Plant currently undergoing upgrades. In addition, at least $1.4 million of Halton Region’s Gas Tax Fund allocation is being put toward a new Regional water quality laboratory. This lab, part of the expansion and upgrade of the Skyway Waste water Treatment Plant in Burlington, will be built to test samples of drinking water, waste water, bio-solids and industrial waste from across the Region. Located in the new operations centre, it will help ensure Halton Region continues to meet and/or exceed water quality and environmental protection standards.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, on. March 27, 2013 The Budget and Corporate Services committee unanimously approved a Community Engagement Charter for the citizens of the city.
The document went through an at times tortuous process with thousands of hours of citizens time spent on collecting data and discussing how their document should be worded. It was not a simple process but on Tuesday morning, with surprisingly little debate, the document was approved unanimously by a council committee and will go to Council on April 8th, where it will be approved. That charter is set out in full below:
Burlington Community Engagement Charter
Introduction
The Burlington Community Engagement Charter is an agreement between and among Burlington City Council and the citizens of Burlington concerning citizen
engagement with city government that establishes the commitments, responsibilities, and fundamental concepts of this relationship.
At the core of democratic government are two pillars that also form the basis of effective citizen engagement: That government belongs to the citizens within its political boundaries, and that the inhabitants of a city are “citizens” with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship based on justice, human rights, fundamental freedoms and rule of .law.
Engaging people on issues that affect their lives and their city is a key component of democratic society. Public involvement encourages participation, actions and personal
responsibility. The goal of community engagement is to lead to more informed and, therefore, better decision-making. This Charter’s overarching objective is to enhance communications and access to information for citizens, and to facilitate and enable meaningful engagement.
This Charter is composed of five sections:
1: Common Terms and Definitions
2: Vision and Mission Statements
3: City Commitments
4: Citizen Rights and Responsibilities
5: Public Participation Spectrum.
1: Common Terms and Definitions
As used in this document, the following terms are defined to mean:
Citizen: For the purposes of this Charter, the word citizen refers to a resident of the City, entitled to its rights and services and with a responsibility to take an active part in community decision-making. The words citizen and resident can be used interchangeably.
Citizen engagement: The right and responsibility of citizens to have an informed say in the decisions that affect their lives though a dialogue of mutual respect between government and citizen.
Community engagement: The process by which citizens, organizations, and government work collaboratively. It includes information sharing, consultation, and active involvement in decision-making.
Decision-making: The process followed by the City of Burlington’s City Council to reach decisions on those items that are resented in staff reports.
Meaningful engagement: Citizens and stakeholders have the opportunity to access information on the engagement topic that is timely, relevant, constructive and substantive. Their resulting input to decision-makers is expected to meet similar standards and is intended to ensure that a balance and range of public perspectives is available for consideration in the decision-making process.
Stakeholder: An individual, organization or group that has an interest in an issue, will be or is likely to be affected, or has the ability to affect a decision or outcome. Organizations include non-governmental organizations, government, institutions and businesses.
Standing Committee: Committees comprised of members of City Council, established through the Procedural By-Law, with an ongoing mandate or purpose.
2: Charter Vision and Mission Statement Vision: Burlington aspires to become increasingly more engaged and connected with its community.
Mission: To provide Burlington citizens, members of City Council and City staff a plain language, living policy document that guides and promotes active and meaningful citizen engagement in the City of Burlington’s planning, policy-setting and decision-making processes.
3 . City Commitments
To fulfill the vision and mission of the Burlington Community Engagement Charter,
City Council makes the following commitments:
Accountability
The City of Burlington will be responsible to its citizens and stakeholders for decisions made and policies implemented, as well as its actions or inactions.
Capacity Building
The City of Burlington will encourage the ability of its citizens and stakeholders to effectively participate in the development and implementation of engagement processes with respect to issues and decisions that affect their lives and their community.
Clear Language
The City of Burlington will use plain and clear language in documents and public communications that is more engaging and understandable for citizens than technical language and jargon.
City Feedback
The City of Burlington will inform citizens and stakeholders about how their input was considered and adopted or why it was not adopted in City projects, initiatives and policy
development. Feedback will usually be provided in a summarized format rather than on an individual basis.
Delegation Process
The delegation process, which allows citizens to address Council and Standing Committees on issues, will be respectful and welcoming . Delegations can learn how their input affected decision making by reading the minutes of Standing Committees and Council on the city’s website or by requesting a written copy, or by viewing webcasts of discussions on the topic of their delegation. However, it is suggested that citizens first explore alternatives such as approaching City staff or their ward councillor to see if their issue can be resolved without escalation to a decision by Council.
Early and Widespread Notification
The City of Burlington will provide early and widespread notification to citizens and stakeholders about proposed developments, policies, initiatives and municipal projects.
Widespread notification will not be given for purely localized issues such as neighbourhood traffic calming.
Inclusion and Accessibility
Every citizen has the right to participate in community engagement regarding issues of concern to them. Engaging and enabling the participation of all Burlington citizens is a
goal of this Charter.
Openness and Access to Information
The City of Burlington will provide a variety of ways for citizens, city staff and members of City Council to access and share information and discuss ideas and options.
The City of Burlington will provide open data and information to the public in recognized and useable formats, including routinely available information in on-line formats, print material, and face-to-face opportunities to facilitate healthy discussion of city issues.
Resourcing
The City of Burlington will support the Engagement Charter by ensuring that its engagement processes are adequately resourced. Charter requirements will be met by City Council, city employees, volunteers, agents and contractors in their efforts on behalf of the City of Burlington.
Transparency
The city’s decision-making process es will be open and clear to the public and the city will actively encourage and facilitate citizen and stakeholder participation in them.
4: . Citizen Rights and Responsibilities/Participation
Citizen Rights: Citizen Engagement is grounded on the premises that citizens have the right to have an informed say in decisions that affect their lives, the right to access information from their local government, and the right to transparent and open government that provides them opportunities for engagement.
Citizen Responsibilities/Participation: Along with rights come responsibilities. Citizens who choose to do so can meet their responsibilities by being aware of community issues , exploring options with respect to those issues, meeting with City staff and Members of Council when necessary, and discussing issues with fellow citizens.
Burlington citizens elect a Mayor and ward representatives whose Council role is defined in the Municipal Act. Council must represent the public and consider the well-being and interests of the municipality.
Mutual Respect:
Successful community engagement requires mutual respect of all participants including citizens, staff, and members of council. Respect is exemplified by:
Listening with an open mind;
Showing consideration and value for another person’s point of View ;
Valuing the role each person plays in engagement processes; and
Following meeting “guidelines for engagement”.
Successful citizen engagement requires meaningful interaction and dialogue between citizens and their local government resulting in a constructive relationship among the
parties.
5. Public Participation Spectrum
The International Association for Public Participation’s (IAP2) spectrum of participation is a recognized global standard for identifying the different levels of participation.
Five levels of engagement, referenced from the IAP2’s Public Participation Spectrum, will be used in City of Burlington community engagement activities.
IAP2’s Public Participation Spectrum shows the possible types of engagement with stakeholders and communities. The spectrum also shows the increasing level of public impact
progressing through the spectrum beginning with ‘inform” through to ‘empower’. A complete description of the IAP2 Spectrum of Participation appears in the appendix to this charter.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 26, 2013 The Spin Doctors are taking centre stage now that the last of the concrete on the pier deck has been poured. The city manager has already hired people who specialize in spinning legal matters, which appears to be a skill set the communications people at city hall don’t have – so the city manager is going to set aside ten big ones to cover the cost of explaining some expected news on the legal side of getting that pier build and how we went from just under $7 million to just under $20 million.
 The pier will be illuminated with lights that change their pattern and their colour whenever the software tells them to change. The fireworks to the right is part of the Sound of Music budget. There is good news though. Staff is getting absolutely giddy and talking about opening the pier in 67 days and planning for that event. People from the events department and the communications people are moving to centre stage to make it all happen.
 An artists rendering of what the completed pier is going to look like. Those brown rails will be painted Burlington blue. The caissons that hold the pier up will also be illuminated. On the construction side things are going great. There is an artist’s rendering of what it is going to look like when you are able to walk out to the end.
Some of the light standards have been erected and they are powered up.
The public got told that there is going to be a computer application that will control the lights that will adorn the pier and the beacon that is to be installed – no wind turbine however, that got thrown under the bus when the city’s Director of engineering forgot to read the manual and didn’t know what had been installed in terms of electric equipment.
Craig Stevens, the go between for the city and the contractor, told a council committee meeting that the software that runs the lights will be able to do almost anything. “As Stevens put it, “If you can think it we can blink it”.
Expect to see some weird light patterns coming from that pier during the first six months while the techies get the hang of the software. The beacon will look like a lighthouse on the horizon. It will certainly change the waterfront view of the city.
 That yellow patch will be shutdown to repair the promenade that will lead to the pier entrance. The promenade running from Lakeshore Road down to the start of the pier will be closed for a number of weeks while that section of the walkway is repaired. The heavy trucks that ran in and out did quite a bit of damage and the walkway to the pier has to match the look of the concrete on the pier.
 Light standards are being installed and are already powered up While the snafus on getting the pier built is a story yet to be told – the news today is that what we are paying a King’s ransom for, is going to look very nice and it will do us all very proud. There is some tinkering to be done; no one is sure quite yet just how the lights on the beacon will glow but if the ones being installed now don’t work – new ones will get put in their place.
 It doesn’t look quite complete without a turbine at the top of that beacon – one of those missed opportunities. The brown coloured rails will be done in what is known as Burlington blue. It will take the city as much as a year to get used to the thing and in time they will come to love it and forget about the outrageous cost. There might be some reckoning come election time but the only people who any blame can be attached to are the Mayor and Councillors Taylor, Dennison and Craven – they were there for most of the messy stuff.
For the moment – revel in what we are going to be using in the very near future.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. March 25, 2013 The Mayor met with members of the Chamber of Commerce Friday morning to give them an update on where things were going with the city and how he was dealing with the problems that cross his desk.
The crowd this time around wasn’t as large as it has been in the past. So – what do we know now that we didn’t know before? Well Mayor Goldring has decided the focus for the rest of this term of office has to be on getting jobs and new employers into the city.
The Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) is being totally revised and will be coming back to Council with a new mandate that will focus totally on bringing new business to the city. The BEDC has had challenges it wasn’t able to meet in the past given the business model they were stuck with. City Manager Jeff Fielding saw the problem and asked that a re-make of that organization be a priority.
 The Mayor answered all their questions; there just weren’t very many of them and none seemed to touch on the serious problem with the Industrial, Commercial and Institutional sector tax revenue. Part of the problem is that the people doing the remake are basically the same people who oversaw what BEDC was doing in the past. Was city manager Fielding the only person to see that the model they had wasn’t working? In the three years our Burlington has been covering the BEDC we didn’t see any suggestions that the mandate was flawed and not sustainable come before any city council committee.
Something put a fire underneath the BEDC board. A former advisor to Mayor Goldring thought the best thing that could be done was to blow the board up and start afresh. The BEDC has a twenty member board – is that too large. Most of the big five Canadian banks don’t have boards that size.
Are the right people on that board? Are there people on that board doing more to ensure their own interests are protected rather than being focused on the long-term economic growth of the city? Is there anyone on that board asking the hard questions? We were impressed with what we saw of the work Paul Subject, president of STANMECH Technologies Inc. was doing.
 BEDC Executive Director Kyle Benham has his hands full with the development of position papers, project development and both re-building and re-orienting what BEDC can and should be doing for the city is serves at arm’s-length. Last December the BEDC board received a Transitional Plan and then created an ad hoc committee to amend BEDC’s operating model and business plan to create a land development corporation. The public hasn’t seen that Transitional Plan yet nor do we know who the members of the ad hoc committee are.
Burlington had a situation where two city council members, the Mayor and Ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven, sat on the Performing Arts board that went from a half a million dollar requirement to one that ballooned to over $1 million – so keeping representation like that on our boards would not seem to be in the best interests of the taxpayers.
Having a public that is fully informed works best in a democracy; having boards and committees that are closed – even secretive at times, results in closed thinking at best and cronyism at worst. We deserve better from the people out there representing us.
The BEDC held a workshop last Friday that wasn’t public so we don’t know what they did.
One of the interesting bits of information the Mayor mentioned, almost in passing, at the Chamber breakfast, was that Burlington has more than 60 business operations in the city that work on water issues; they do things with water and there was the sense that there may be an opportunity to look at this cluster and see if there are ways to support what they do and attract other companies in the water business to the city.
Burlington isn’t known for anything specific in the commercial world; we’ve got a bit of everything. Hamilton has steel mills – well had steel mills would be a more accurate statement.
The people doing the economic thinking for this city (we really don’t know who they are) are of the view that looking for possible clusters of companies where three or four companies will draw others of the same type is a possible economic advantage. That’s got potential.
Later in the year Goldring will be traveling to Germany to meet with companies over there that have operations in Burlington and see if there are ways some of the operations can be expanded.
 Sandy Thomson, chief thinker over at Thomson Gordon Group pauses while answering a question on what he wants to see in the way of better heritage protection Wage costs – always of interest to the business community. The Mayor sketched out the problem all the municipalities have with their unionized labour forces, particularly those involved in public safety. When there are differences of opinion over a labour contract the province appoints an Interest Arbitration. The results of those arbitrations have been giving the municipal sector significant grief – the labour side seems to be winning all the time. The Mayors in the province want the “capacity to pay” to be part of what gets looked at – and they would like to see the process moved along a little faster. Goldring pointed out that some of these arbitrations take as long as three years to get resolved.
The firemen in Burlington have in the past chosen to show their muscle. At one budget discussion meetings there were close to half a dozen of them at one table and took over the discussion. On another occasion a group of fireman all sat in the public gallery at a council meeting. Those displays are part of ensuring their voice is heard. The fireman were all over the Dalton McGuinty provincial election.
The Mayor had a decent meeting with the business sector – until the very end when there were no more questions. Those that he did get were perhaps planted and certainly softball in nature. That’s part of the way things get done at Chamber events. What was awkward was leaving the Mayor standing at the podium when there were clearly no more questions. His hosts should have moved to the podium – thanked him for his time and given him the round of applause he had earned. Instead he was left standing there. Awkward indeed!
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 25th, 2013 “Busy day Monday as we return to normal jobs and prepare for a trek to London for game 6 of our playoff series” was the note we got from John McNeil as he frantically continued to vote and vote and vote again to earn that award of $100,000 from Kraft Foods that would be used by the Burlington Lions Optimist Minor Hockey Association (BLOMHA) to cover the cost of getting more players on the ice pads.
 John McNeil was at his keyboard until the very last-minute Sunday night – squeezing in that very last vote for the Kraft Foods $100,000 award They were minutes and then it was over – you could try to enter a vote but the system wouldn’t take it – and for those hundreds in Burlington who had been voting for two days – it was over.
During the hectic two days parents still had to get their kids out to hockey games, still had to do the shopping and keep the house in order.
Now – the wait while the Kraft Foods people do the counting – which should take just a matter of minutes because everything was electronic but it will be more than a week before they go public.
 If you were at the McNeil house Saturday night you were at a keyboard – voting. So for now those that did the work – a chance to sit back and know they did their best. During the next few days there will be hundreds who will say ‘if they’d known they would have voted.
The Mayor was chatting up the business types at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast Friday morning and he forgot to mention the event – even though he was touting that Burlington was now the # 1 mid-size city in Canada within which to live. We hope our Mayor at least went on-line to vote a couple of times – won’t be too long before he’s looking for votes himself.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. March 24, 2013 While they can’t see the finish line –they all know where it is – hundreds of people who are involved with minor hockey or know someone who is involved, got dragooned into going on-line and clicking away at a red button with the word VOTE on it.
Have you voted yet? If is before 11:59 pm on Sunday the 24th of March – you can still vote. Vote NOW!
They were out to win the $100,000 that Kraft Foods had put up for their Hockey Goes On contest. Kraft asked for nominations and got thousands of them from across the country. They narrowed those thousands down to twenty from five regions they created. Ontario was one of the regions and Burlington was one of twenty communities in the region. John McNeil was the hockey person nominated from Burlington by Kristen Priestner, a parent who had a son playing for the BLOMHA Bulldogs in the atom division.
BLOMHA, Burlington Lions Optimist Minor Hockey Association, focuses on developing skills in the game of hockey and building character.
McNeil and Priestner pulled together the people they needed, first by reaching out to the other sports organizations and asking them to support the effort. Then friends, family, associates – even passersby were asked to support the effort.
That was the kernel of an operation that just grew.
 If you were at the McNeil household Saturday night you took your turn clicking away at the keyboard and registering votes for the Hockey Goes On $100,000 award that was up for grabs. There is no way for anyone other than the people at Kraft Foods to know who is leading. Each community just has to do its best to get its people out voting. This is a bit of an oddity in that anyone from anywhere can vote and they can vote as often as they want. If someone has the fortitude to stay at the keyboard for 10 hours – there is nothing to stop them. The community that sticks to it and organizes the most people with the most dedication gets the $100,000 that gets used for the development of hockey.
The force behind the Hockey Goes On was a need to recognize the people, those volunteers who make hockey happen at the minor league level. Some of those players might make it to the professional league level but that’s not a BLOHMA objective. Rick Dawson who serves as the president of BLOMHA is there to help kids play the game and take their talent as far as it can be taken and to build character and community values in the process.
The organization has thousands of kids playing the game, hundreds of coaches and many other support people who are part of what hockey at the community level is all about.
 Katherine Hartman on the left (Barracudas player helping out her cousin and BLOMHA), Tiegan Priestner, (birthday girl helping her brother) and the youngest Daniel, with the official BULLDOGS mascot. Kristen Priestner knew exactly who she wanted to nominate from Burlington when she heard of the contest. Sheila Ramage knew that her weekend was shot when McNeil got nominated. Sheila is one of the team that runs the operations side of the BLOHMA office and handled a lot of the phoning around and keeping people in touch during that 48 hour marathon.
Our Burlington asked Kraft foods if they could tell us anything about how the event was going. We got this back from their offices:
“We are pleased to report that we have had an outstanding response to the Kraft Hockey Goes On voting period. As you may know, Kraft Hockey Goes On helps Canadians share their passion for the game by recognizing important local contributors who make hockey happen in communities across Canada. Through the program, we began accepting nominations on January 21st and received over 1000 inspiring stories about the dedicated Canadians who invest their time and energy into local hockey every day. Nominations closed on March 8 and on March 16, we announced the top 100 nominees, as narrowed down by a panel of judges.
“Canadians are now voting for their favourite local hockey supporters at KraftHockeyGoesOn.ca and working hard to rally votes on Facebook.com/KraftHockeyGoesOn. We did experience a short period of down time on the site as the voting period began yesterday at 9a.m., but resolved it as quickly as possible and we are excited to see the votes continuing to roll in. The voting period continues until 11:59pm EST this evening, so we encourage Canadians to keep on voting!
 Flyers were needed – quickly. friends got called in, printing presses inked up and paper-cutter turned on. Colour Works Printing pulled in all the child labour!they could find. was it enough?
“The top five nominees who receive the most votes will be recognized for their contributions and $100,000 will be awarded to their selected Hockey Canada-affiliated minor hockey association. The subsequent top 20 nominees with the most votes will be recognized with a $20,000 donation to their selected minor hockey association.
A point of clarification: Each Region, and Ontario is one of the five regions, will have one – $100,000 award and four $20,000 awards.
 Every hand, or in this case, keyboard counted. Two Bulldogs on the way to a tournament in London on Saturday clicked while on the 401. “We look forward to seeing the impact that these funds will have on local Canadian hockey communities and are proud to recognize the individuals who do so much to make this nation’s sport go on every day. Canadians can tune-in to the winner announcement taking place during the Montreal Canadiens vs. Philadelphia Flyers NHL match-up on TSN on Wednesday April 3, 2013.”
Burlington is up against: Stittsville, Goderich, Atikokan, Barrie, Renfrew, Verona, Sarnia, Weston, Langton, Moose Factory, Kitchener, Prescott, Napanee, Pelham, Amherstview, Lakefield, Cornwall, Brampton and Fergus.
There are still a couple of hours to vote.
At press time Kristen Priestner reported: “We had Moms voting in the lobby right up to game time tonight at Appleby, one Mom (Shannon Scullion) even voted throughout the entire game because she felt guilty about taking the time off to go for a run this afternoon! We had siblings putting flyers around the parking lot and voting throughout the game as well.”
” Back to it, crunch time now! May have to have a team party on results night!”
There will be a nail biter of a party at the McNeil household the night the award winner is announced. Should be a great hockey game as well – Canadiens and the Flyers – not much better than that.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 23, 2013 It was an all hands on deck day and as much child labour as they could round-up.
The BLOMHA – Burlington Lions Optimist Minor Hockey Association people are calling in every favour they can find. Printing up flyers and getting them handed out wherever they can. All eight McDonald franchises in Burlington have jumped on the bandwagon. A number of supermarkets are handing out flyers – this is better than an election campaign.
 Get to the Kraft web site; click on that vote button till your fingers hurt and be part of bringing $100,000 to Burlington and the BLOMHA organization. The objective is to get more votes from Burlington than the other 19 cities we are competing against. There are some formidable communities on that list; they are Stittsville, Goderich, Atikokan, Barrie, Renfrew, Verona, Sarnia, Weston, Langton, Moose Factory, Kitchener, Prescott, Napanee, Pelham, Amherstview, Lakefield, Cornwall, Brampton and Fergus.
They are all after the $100,000 that will be given to the community in Ontario that register the most votes. Anyone from anywhere can vote, they can vote as often as they like and there is no age limitation. Here is what you do: Click on the LINK and vote.
 Katherine Hartman, on the left (Barracudas player helping out her cousin and BLOMHA), Tiegan Priestner, (birthday girl helping her brother) and our youngest Daniel, with the official BULLDOGS mascot. Daniel is obsessed with Bulldogs hockey, he’s got his Bulldogs hat on and bulldogs pj pants! John McNeil was nominated by Kristen Priestner, a parent whose son plays for the Bulldogs, a BLOMHA team that McNeil manages. Kraft liked the look of McNeil and asked if he would accept the nomination – he was up for it and Kraft Foods got back to him to say he had made the finals. Now he had just over 48 hours to pull the BLOMHA people together and get the keyboards clicking on that vote button.
McNeil found he needed more flyers and a buddy with a printing press and a large paper-cutter, Colour Works Printing, jumped in and produced more flyers.
 Three Bulldogs in the backseat all voting on the way to London, hope they don’t burn their eyes out for the game! The Bulldogs Atom A team are in the Championship Series of the Alliance and are hosting the Ontario Hockey Federation Championships in Burlington at Central Arena April 12 – 14th, facing off against the winners of the GTHL, OMHA, NOHA and the ALLIANCE, a true test for provincial supremacy! Yet another reason for Burlington to get behind the vote for local hockey and keep them shining!
Kids who were being transported to a Bulldogs game in London, Ontario logged in and voted while driving along the 401.
T cc was at home with a friend getting ready for her birthday party and she logged in as well. Hundreds of kids and their parents were on-line clicking away.
McNeil has opened up his house for a Bulldog party and will have friends chatting about the “good old hockey game” while five to six of them use the WiFi in the McNeil house to log in and vote. McNeil just might find out how many people can access the internet through his WiFi if they all bring their lap tops – and if Burlington is going to see that $100,000 everyone – and then some – are going to have to get into the game.
 Here is one of the Bulldogs little brothers, also a novice bulldog himself at Colour Works Printing cutting up some more flyers to help out! More Child Labour! Can Burlington pull this off: Kristen Priestner certainly thinks so: “BLOMHA has the heart to do this! Come on Burlington, we need our community to pull together this weekend! I remember ever so fondly my son’s years in Timbit hockey: This money could go a long way to helping those with children in Burlington who cannot afford to give their kids a chance to play! The boys on James’ house league teams were fast friends after a few games. In fact, one of his teammates lost his father to cancer in his novice season (7 years old), and as a family our FLYERS team pulled together. The coach, Scott Wright (now a Bulldogs Select Coach himself) and a few of us Moms set up and ran a “Skate-a-thon” in one week’s time. Proceeds went to the Carpenter House, a well deserving local hospice, and our BLOMHA house league team raised $12,000! Amazing what just one team can do in a short period of time with their hearts in the right place. Just so happens that John McNeil’s son was also on that house league team and he gave a speech (at 7 years old!) to the Rotary Club and went door to door and raised $3000 himself! Think what Burlington could do, if we pull together and vote this weekend OVER and OVER!!”
Do you get the sense that this woman is going to make this happen for Burlington? I’d bet on her.
Did we tell you where to Vote. HERE
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. March 23, 2013 How do you increase the revenue of an art centre? Sell more art would be one answer. Then how do you sell more art? You have to have what people like and you need to figure out how to grow an appreciation for art and that takes time and funding.
Anne Brownell, Corporate Enterprise Specialist at the Burlington Art Centre, has come up with a way to get the art the BAC has in its rental inventory off the racks and out where it can be seen – and develop decent revenue for the Centre as well.
 There are more than 400 paintings in the Art Rental inventory When you see an office or a board room in a television program chances are some of the art on those walls came out of the BAC inventory. Awhile back a colleague contacted Anne Brownell inquiring about what the BAC had in the way of art that could be rented. As a result of that call BAC art is now seen on CTV’s Flashpoint, Cracked and Rookie Blue.
Brownell couldn’t pull the racks out fast enough – that initial contact has resulted in a tidy little business for the BAC. The art rental and sale business contributes 30% of the revenue for the art shop.
Selling art is a complex business – people have to know you are there and they want to know that the collection has depth and consistency.
The Burlington Art Centre recently sold two painting to the Province of Ontario collection. This came about when the mother of the curator of the provincial collection, who happens to live in Burlington, got her daughter to look at what the BAC had – and was impressed enough to buy two pieces.
 Donna Fratesi, on the left holds up one of two paintings sold to the Province of Ontario collection. Helping is Anne Brownell of the Burlington Art Centre The province bought Jeanette Obbink’s ‘Killarney Rock’ and also Donna Fratesi’s ‘Almost Heaven’. While these two are no longer available for rental or purchase they could have been and there is a lot more like these two in the BAC collection.
 Donna Fratesi’s ‘Almost Heaven’, is now part of the province of Ontario collection. Ms Fratesi has 24 painting in the rental section of the art gallery. Her work is certainly popular. There is one “gotta” to all this – you must be a member of the Burlington Art Centre. That’s another good deal: A family membership is $120; Individual $105; and Seniors $85.
That membership gets you a reduced price on every event and a 10% discount on all your purchases.
Corporate memberships are also available – $250 annually for those which have the added bonus of being available to every employee. Great way for an organization to brighten up the walls of their offices. Corporations get to rent pictures for a six month period.
McMaster University’s De Groote School of Business on the South Service road used to be a corporate member; they didn’t renew last year. One would have thought the university, that pinnacle of culture, would be a continuing member. Maybe business and art don’t mix? The Burlington Art Centre is certainly showing that they do, indeed they do.
 Every painting has a story behind it. ‘Killarney Rock’ was started on the spot, with the canvas duct-taped to a tree, as a plain air painting during a canoe trip to Killarney National Park. The painting was finished later in the studio as it was too large to finish in one sitting.
Developing a reputation and a customer base is critical to selling art. People who buy art tend to start slowly and look to people who have a wide selection.
For those of us who live in Burlington there is an opportunity to rent art for a period of three months, hang it in your home and decide if you really like it. You can grow your appreciation for art by renting a piece that you are really not sure about, hanging it on your home and if after 90 days you realize that the piece was not for you – you return it. All you are out is a small rental fee.
The Burlington Art Centre has been doing things like this for the past 35 years. They are taking space in the newest art facility in Burlington when they bring Randy Bachman to town as part of their 35th anniversary celebration. The Shoreline Room at the BAC won’t hold the crowd they expect so they’ve rented the Performing Arts Centre for the event. Nice to see the two organizations working hand in hand.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 23, 2013 This should be illegal.
They want you to vote as often as you can.
No limit as to how often you can vote AND no age limit either.
Before reading any further – slip over to the voting link we are talking about and vote a couple of times – you’ll feel better after doing that a few times – then come back and read on.
Can you imagine if those rules applied in the municipal election – we’d have a council of nothing but nut cases. Don’t anyone dare come back with the comment: Isn’t that what we have now?
 From left to right Katherine Hartman (Barracudas player helping out her cousin and BLOMHA), Tiegan Priestner, (birthday girl helping her brother) and our youngest Daniel, with the official BULLDOGS mascot. Daniel is obsessed with Bulldogs hockey, he’s got his Bulldogs hat on and bulldogs pj pants!
Kristen Priestner’s daughter is voting today and it’s her birthday. Her brother is in the van with his Dad on the way to London to play “the good old hockey game”. But they will be back in the evening and at the key board. If you live on Marc Lane or anywhere near the street, drop in on the McNeil household – won’t be hard to find his place – the street will be filled with parked cars and the rooms will all have that blue glow from computer screens. Wonder how many computes can get through the WiFi in the McNeil household?
What’s this all about – and who is giving away $100,000?
Kraft Foods has a contents going on where 20 communities from five different parts of Canada have been nominated and are finalists in this contest. John McNeil was nominated for Burlington and is up against 19 other cities and towns in Ontario.
The place that gets the most votes gets the $100,000 – with $20,000 going to the next four.
 If this guy approaches you – take the flyer and vote – as often as you possibly can and bring that $100,000 first prize to Burlington and BLOMHA. The money has to go to the promotion and improvement of minor hockey. And in Burlington BLOMHA is a leader in the development of hockey skills and the building of character.
This is a two-day event – it started at 9:00 am this morning and ends at 11:59 pm on Sunday the 24th. Remember, no age limit and you can vote as often as you want. What Kraft Foods is doing is seeing just how much spirit a community has – the one that gets its people out and on the keyboards is the one that will take the prize.
Has Burlington got what it takes? We will know at the end of the month when the results come in.
There is no tally of who is ahead – you don’t get to know that – you just have to dig deep and get your people to the web site where they log in and vote.
 By Pepper Parr
BLOMHA – the Burlington Lions Optimist Minor Hockey Association is working like crazy today, Saturday and again on Sunday to register the votes needed to bring $100,000m to their organization.
If you want to know what being a real # 1 is all about – click on the LINK – then come back to the story.
 This is all about getting additional funding for this minor hockey team. Let’s see how well the city gets behind the effort. The puck got dropped at 9:00 am sharp; then it looked like the server went down; probably because f a surge in demand. Then it was up and the puck was red and you could vote.
There was a box you had to enter two words into before your vote got counted – that was to prevent anyone from setting up a program that would automatically place votes
When you are entering the two words, watch the spelling and don’t leave a space between the two words.
The players now have to log in, enter the two words shown and the vote gets counted. Then do just that – again and again – and remember – there are 19 other communities doing exactly the same thing. Burlington will win if they do it more often than anyone else.
That’s what Burlington has to do for the next two days if they are to be the winners of the Hockey Goes On contest that is going to put $100,000 into one Ontario community and $20,000 in four others as part of the Kraft Foods promotion that is celebrating the way minor hockey is played across Canada.
John McNeil was nominated from Burlington and has been getting this community lined up to click away.
All eight of Burlington’s McDonalds restaurants have joined the campaign and are promoting the contest. The Burlington Lions Optimist Minor Hockey Association (BLOMHA) has every parent they can find going on-line and voting.
Kristen Priestner, the woman who nominated John McNeil is busy working her magic and reaching out to the masses.
 John McNeil, nominated as one of twenty people in Ontario to take part in the Kraft Foods Hockey Goes On contest that could bring $100,000 to the city for minor hockey. He will be going hat in hand for the next two days asking everyone he sees to go on line and vote. McNeil will be at his keyboard for as long as he can – but he has to drive his son’s team to London for a game there. Perhaps they will all have tablets and find a way to get on-line and vote as they drive to London. McNeil is a techie – he just might figure out a way to do that. McNeil, who doesn’t let much get past him, has the people in London voting for Burlington. London didn’t make it to the finals in the Hockey Goes On contest.
All this activity – and guess what? The server went down and was down for close to half an hour. There must have been dozens of people at Kraft scrambling around like crazy to solve the problem – but it dd get solved and the game goes on.
Just vote and vote and vote and vote. If you can teach your cat to read and type – do that and have it vote as well.
Click for the link.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON. March 22, 2013 From 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, 2013 the Halton Regional Police Service will join Halton Region and other municipalities to turn off lights for an hour in non-essential, non-emergency administrative areas. Public safety and police emergency response services will not be compromised or affected in any way.
 Recognizing Earth Hour isn’t going to make any difference to the work the Halton Regional Police do – they have flashlights “We recognize that we all have a role to play in community safety, however our collective contributions should expand to include activities that benefit our respective communities. With that in mind, the Halton Regional Police Service will once again do their part in contributing to Earth Hour initiatives through a focus on non-essential administrative areas,” said Deputy Chief Bob Percy.
Areas which will continue operating business as usual include the Service’s 9-1-1 Operations, Communications, and District Station front desks, as well as other essential police facilities. Non-essential administrative areas will be dark for the hour.
The Service does not anticipate Earth Hour will result in any increase in public safety risks, any more than those presented by a short duration power outage or at night when people retire for the evening.
Although participation in Earth Hour is a personal decision, the Service is also encouraging all its employees and their families to join in wherever feasible at home, as well as at work.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 22nd, 2013 There is an opportunity for the people of this city to bring home a “real” #1plus $100,000 that will go to the Burlington Lions Optimists Minor Hockey Association – BLOMHA.
Have you heard of “Hockey Goes On” a promotion sponsored by Kraft Foods? A number of years ago Kraft sponsored an event that resulted in Dundas, Ontario getting a new arena. The event was so strong a promotional vehicle for Kraft that they decided to revise it and build on the enthusiasm for “our game’.
Hockey Goes On is there to celebrate those unsung heroes that make the game go on. The sponsors divided the country into five divisions with Ontario being one of them. People within each division were asked to nominate the person they felt had done the most for minor hockey in their community.
Kristen Priestner nominated John McNeil who manages the Burlington Atom A BLOMHA rep hockey team that skate under the Bulldog banner. Priestner’s son plays in that league.
Kraft got in touch with McNeil to ensure he would accept the nomination and onto the list he went.
The Kraft organization then took the thousands of names that were nominated and selected 20 for each division. McNeil made the cut and Kraft once again called him to ensure that he was prepared for all the news coverage there would be.
McNeil was up to it.
 The T-shirt tells it all. John McNeil wants everyone in this city to let 19 other communities in Ontario be aware of the Burlington Bulldogs – they are out there gunning for the $100,0000 that Kraft Foods wants to hand out to a minor hockey association. Now McNeil doesn’t actually play hockey, he wishes he had, but he missed that sport for the most part. His job with BLOMHA, the Burlington Lions Optimists Minor Hockey Association is to handle everything “off ice” as he puts it. He has coaches galore that he works with; his job is to ensure that everything comes together – which he apparently does so well that Priestner put his name forward.
Burlington was now about to see just how well McNeil hustles. He plans to use all the old marketing skills he has along with everything social media will let him do. Can McNeil pull it off? Will the city get behind this initiative and pull in the $100,000 Kraft Foods is putting on the table?
First thing he did was get to the media; then he put out calls to all the other sports organizations in town and ask them to support McNeil and BLOMHA.
The prize is well worth the effort. Kraft will donate $100,000 to BLOMHA which McNeil hopes gets used to cover the costs of the kids who can’t afford to play hockey – “it can get expensive” said McNeil. Besides the $100,000 top prize there are four $20,000 prizes
CBC recently reported that the average family with kids in hockey spend $1,000 per child on fees and equipment. For McNeil getting those kids whose families just can’t afford that amount – this is a big deal. He would like to see some of the money spent on upgrading equipment the organization already has and then spend money on upgrading the skills of both the coaches and the players.
 If you’re within five feet of John McNeil he will put one of these flyers in your hands and badger you to log into the Hockey Goes On web site and be part of the effort to bring $100,000 to BLOMHA Flyers have gone out to anyone who will pass them out. McNeil asked the Mayor to mention the event on his blog. Teams of kids will be at the BLOMHA offices on Saturday working the computers and voting as often as they can. “We want them there in two-hour shift” said McNeil. There will be all the pizza they can eat.
McNeil realizes that the other communities will be doing exactly the same thing – looking for every possible angle to get anyone and everyone logging in and voting – and voting – and voting.
Burlington is up against Stittsville, Goderich, Atikokan, Barrie, Renfrew, Verona, Sarnia, Weston, Langton, Moose Factory, Kitchener, Prescott, Napanee, Pelham, Amherstview, Lakefield, Cornwall, Brampton and Fergus.
Some of those smaller town have great community spirit. Is theirs greater than Burlington? We will know sometime next week.
There is a website link to the story on the work he does with his team and minor hockey in Burlington. This is where you vote.
 This is what you are looking for on the voting web site. It will be red when you get to it on Saturday morning. Vote early and vote often – as often as you like. In the upper right hand corner you will see a button – it will be red when the contest starts
So from 9am this Saturday, March 23 to midnight Sunday, March 24, you can vote as many times as you can. Help bring this funding to the kids. All it takes is clicks.
John McNeil is leading this push – he’s the guy they nominated so he is the guy Burlington wants to push over the top; it’s almost like dialing for dollars.
First thing Saturday morning you go to the web site – look for that red button in the upper right hand corner and click.
Log out and go back in and click again – and just keep on clicking. There is no limit on how many times you can vote for McNeil.
John McNeil was described by Priestner as “the “Manager Extraordinaire” of the Major Atom A Burlington Bulldogs (BLOMHA) of the Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario. John is the heart and soul of our team and what he gives back to hockey you must see with your own eyes to believe! He is the epitome of a true sports fan. He lives, eats, and breathes Bulldogs!
“His level of organization is second to none. Parents new to the team this year will constantly question if he is “for real”. His weekly emails and reminders are full of detail. He maintains a phenomenal website with up to date stats, team summaries and also takes fabulous photos to share. Tournaments are a thing of beauty with John’s attention to detail ensuring a fantastic experience for every family and never a worry.”
“Social events for the team are hosted at John’s place, the highlight being the Parents’ Christmas Social until the wee hours. Or, arranging a party bus for parents to attend a “Cupids for Cancer” fundraiser. John truly never misses a trick. A highlight for the boys came in the form of John McSanta, distributing some serious Bulldogs swag Christmas presents at a super fun team Christmas party.”
“His level of dedication is witnessed when he is the first to arrive at the rink to hang our team banners or the last to leave and clean up. He is a critical fundraiser for the team with contacts galore. In case he didn’t have enough responsibility, he is also organizing the illustrious Ontario Hockey Federation Playoffs which we are hosting this year.”
“I can’t honestly believe that John ever has time to do his day job, given that he seems to give every hour of his day to this team. When we won the Alliance provincials last year, John surprised the boys by setting up an NHL style dressing room with their names posted over their hooks and motivational signage. They were thrilled! He continuously goes beyond the call of duty and we appreciate the care and kindness he provides to our boys! John’s heart barks for the Bulldogs!”
That from one parent: Let’s see how loud Burlington can bark for McNeil.
That website link again.
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