 By Pepper Parr
November 19th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
With Thanksgiving and Halloween behind us the next holiday Season has to be Christmas.
How do you know it is here? Check out the mall parking lots. Or look for the community Christmas trees that are going up.
 It looks as if Aldershot was the first community to erect a ward level Christmas tree. Aldershot appears to be the first ward in the city to put up a tree. Mayor Elect is doing the right thing early in the game – getting out with people in Aldershot, wrapping her arms around the shoulders of the ward election winner and the second place candidate – the job now is to pull the community together and show them how people can work collaboratively and cooperate.
 Mayor Elect Marianne Meed Ward with Kelvin Galbraith, elected to represent ward 1 and Judy Worsley who placed second. Hopefully Worsley will stay in with the Aldershot BIA. Some questions that come to mind?
The new council will be sworn in on Monday December 3rd at 6:30 pm at the Performing Arts Centre. When the event took place in 2014 there was a motivational speaker – Ron Foxcroft did the honours then.
Does the Mayor Elect have any say in who that speaker should be? And if she does who should Marianne Meed Ward choose to address the audience? Who is there out that that has the kind of public profile needed to attract attention and who has a message that will represent what Meed Ward wants her council to stand for and someone who will resonant with the audience.
Ken Greenberg was in Burlington a couple of years ago with a strong message on how municipal governments can build community. He is one the better recognized planners in the country – speaks around the world.
If Jane Jacobs were alive she would have been a natural.
The decisions Meed Ward makes in this first hundred days are vital to both bridge the gaps that exist between those who won and those who lost and at the same time send a message – this is who we are and this is what we want to do.
Deliver that message with strength, humility and a tablespoon of kindness.
Outgoing Mayor Rick Goldring made it clear that if called upon for advice he would be available; Meed Ward would be wise to lunch with him several times during at least her first year in office.
Sometime in the near future she will announce who will staff her office. The person she chooses as Chief of Staff, assuming she retains that position, will be interesting.
Meed Ward set out a part of her agenda when she used a point of privilege at the final meeting of the current municipal government to make it clear that personal attacks were no longer going to be tolerated.
She said:
 It started at the Polish Hall on election night: where it goes – only time will tell. There were a lot of high hopes in that hall. Meed Ward said “it was very unfortunate that a member made comments that were a personal attack. .
“We have seen enough of that.
“We saw it during the election
“We see it around this table
“It is a new day
“This stops here
“It stops tonight
“The new council will have respect for each other.
“Respect for the people and respect for staff”
Meed Ward has let the city know some of what she stands for; she has been applauded for not letting this slide by.
Related news story:
A strong statement was made: This stops now.
 We asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
They get sworn in on December 3rd. There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; with the thinking coming out of the Planning department and worried about 4% tax increases. People voted for a new path to get the city out of the rut many feel it is in.
By Don Fletcher
November 18th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
“What a great initiative!
Asking for engaged citizens’ ideas, prior to the swearing in of our new Council.
While not original, I think the primary objective of the new Council has to be to “fix” our proposed Official Plan.
 By “fix”, I mean to retract from the Halton Region’s inbox our current proposal, and in particular, modify and resubmit a downtown plan (with community support) to be a mid-rise (4-8 storey) community, as opposed to the proposed high-rise ( 14- 25 storey) alternative.
Why?
Because:
1) This is what our Mayor-elect Marianne Meed Ward campaigned on. Trust needs to be restored.
2) The urgency of the submission was self-imposed and the Region will understand, given the “sea change” based on this issue at City Hall.
3) It’s what most engaged citizens want, because they felt that they were being ignored with its’ hasty approval. It became an “election issue”, maybe the central one.
4) It will unquestionably be the “elephant in the room” with all other matters. Deal with it upfront!
5) The developers need certainty with what is permissible in making future investments.
6) LPAT, unlike its’ predecessor OMB, treats the Official Plan as an enforceable criterion (I.e. teeth).
7) The Official Plan has longevity, unlike many of us.
 Planning staff put together charts and posters to advise, educate and inform the public. Okay. So nothing radically new there!
I would like to add a “how” we could do this..
Relationship is the medium for results and accomplishments.
I learned this as an executive of a $5B successful Canadian public corporation.
We have a largely new Council with a current understanding of what the residents want, and a staff that mistakenly thought they did.
I’m not a big fan of the one employee of Council, City Manager construct, with all of its’ implications. It feels as though we, the citizens through their representatives, are having our input constricted through a straw.
I recommend that the new Council convene an offsite (3-day) planning session, with all the functional heads in the administration (including the City Manager) at City Hall, to work through the City’s values, objectives and plans. A derivative benefit of such a meeting would be to begin developing those relationships needed to move the City forward and in a positive direction.
I know of a few very capable facilitators who could help.
What should I be paid for this idea?
A seat at the offsite meeting table. After all, I am a management consultant.”
Don Fletcher is a downtown Burlington resident who has been a city council watcher for some time. Before retirement he was a senior vice president with a public Canadian company in the communications and entertainment field.
By Pepper Parr
November 16th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It was the last meeting of a city council first elected eight years ago.
It took place in make-shift space while a refurbished council chamber was being completed next door. Seen as a “lame duck” municipal government with a mandate that had mere weeks left, it was still fractional, and unable to work as a cohesive whole.
Council meetings traditionally end with members of Council speaking to concerns in their wards. In this instance they all chose to speak of their achievements during the eight years they served the public.
The Strategic Plans, which up until this council was first elected, were traditionally the plan that a Council was set for the four year term.
In 2011 city council decided to create a 25 year Strategic Plan that they expected other councils to follow. New city councils are not obliged to stick to that Plan created in 2011.
The Official Plan got sent off to the Region where it has to be approved to ensure that the city’s OP fits with the Regional OP. The problem with that is most of the newly elected council didn’t buy into the OP that was passed against the objections of the vast majority of the 30 + people who delegated before city council earlier in the year. That story isn’t over yet.
City manager James Ridge was absent; the city staff position, delivered by Deputy City Manager Mary Lou Tanner, was that council and staff had worked very well together.
If one were to define the issues that motivated many of those who elected a new municipal government, the disrespect many people felt the council had for the people who were delegating and the degree to which council relied on Staff reports that. Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward and now Mayor Elect consistently pushed staff for answers. The other members of Council, for the most part, accepted the reports. Mayor Goldring did get better at asking questions during his second term.
It was clear to anyone watching the web cast that John Taylor is going to miss being a city Councillor. It had become the focus of his life – he is literally counting the days until he has to give up his parking spot and turn in his security pass – they will probably let him keep the one he has. Expect him to be on the phone on December 3rd, trying to resolve an issue for someone. He said that being a city councillor was the :“Best job I ever had.”
Councillor Lancaster told her colleagues that the event she will remember most is the occasion when she repelled down the side of a 26 story tower.
Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison wasn’t quite ready to give up his job or accept the fact that he lost his election.
He had the temerity to say that: “A portion of my traditional support was taken away by the vote Marianne Team and my opponent with non-factual information with the result that the enjoyable honour I have had of serving my constituents and the city is over. I guess I am not too young to retire. See you around.”
It was a stunning, totally ungracious comment made at the last sitting of the current council at city hall.
The Dennison comments were followed by a few words from Councillor Lancaster who said the event she remembers most fondly was the day she repelled down the side of a 26 story building. Not sure where the value to the public was in that event.
Mayor Goldring closed out the comments by talking about what he felt had been achieved during the eight years he was the Chief Magistrate.
Mayor elect Meed Ward began to respond to the Dennison comment when the Mayor pointed out that comments were not debatable. Meed Ward replied that she wanted to make a”point of privilege” which the Mayor didn’t fully understand and turned to the Clerk for direction.
Meed Ward said she could help the Clerk and read out the section of the Procedural by law that states when the integrity, character or reputation of a member is made a “point of privilege” allows the member to draw attention to the remarks and the member has the right to respond.
She then proceeded to make the point that was really what the election was all about.
Meed Ward said “it was very unfortunate that a member made comments that were a personal attack. .
“We have seen enough of that.
“We saw it during the election
“We see it around this table
“It is a new day
“This stops here
“It stops tonight
“The new council will have respect for each other.
“Respect for the people and respect for staff”
It was a blunt direct statement from a woman who had to put up with at times disgraceful behavior on the part of every member of council.
No more.
 We have asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
They get sworn in on December 3rd – tell us what you think has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in.
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department and worried about annual tax increases of around 4%
We asked the people we knew, they aren’t all friends of the Gazette, what they thought could be done and should be done.
By Jim Young
November 15th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The first thing Burlington has to do is to breathe. Everybody just take a deep breath. We have voted to change council in a massive way that has replaced not only most of the Councillors, but hopefully has transformed the viewpoints and attitudes that previously prevailed. We, and they, now need a little time to digest this.
If I have learned only one thing in my years of committee involvement and delegation at City Hall; it is that municipal politics move slowly and when we consider the importance of city actions and decisions that is probably a good thing. So where is the need to rush?
On October 23rd, we awoke to a new mayor, five brand new city and regional Councillors and one returned incumbent. Our new mayor is smart, savvy and brings eight years’ experience on council to her new role. But, with the utmost respect and support for her, she needs time to adjust to her new role which I have no doubt she will accomplish.
Our new Councillors need time to get their feet under the table, understand their new roles and some of the procedures and protocols of the job. Even the returning Councillor Sharman may need time to adjust to a new and very different council in which he may now find his views in the minority.
Individually we may have voted for or against them but they are now our democratically elected City Council and, as such, deserve our backing and support, at least until we get an honest and reasonable opportunity to judge them in action. Let us not rush to criticize or condemn.
City staff also need time to adjust to their new reality too. If our new Councillors hold true to their promises of change, this will create a seismic shift in many of the directions they have been following up until now.
Like a large ship, any city needs time to change course. This is not a time for recriminations or wholesale staff changes. We need an orderly transition to the new citizen/city paradigm we have been promised.
 Regional Councillors displaying the new 2 gallon blue boxes. They have one more meeting as a Regional government before their term of office ends. Perhaps more important than the first 100 days of the new council are the few remaining days of the outgoing council. Until the new Councillors officially take their seats on December 3rd, we are at the mercy of outgoing City Councillors who also double as Regional Councillors. This leaves them with a major say in the Regional Adoption of the New Official Plan which the majority of them favoured but was the main reason so many of them are no longer city Councillors.
We must demand that they accept that the people have spoken finally and emphatically against the adoption of The New Official Plan and conduct themselves accordingly. For them to vote at the Region to adopt the Plan, while perfectly legal, would be morally repugnant and an act of unparalleled vindictiveness on their part.
The outgoing Regional Council should must defer to the clearly voted wishes of the people of Burlington. They have spoken and deserve that the outgoing council take the high road on this matter.
Meantime let us not rush to oppose our new batch of city Councillors or demand immediate answers to long term issues but support them in their transition and give them the opportunity to live up to their promises.
We elected them, let them prove themselves worthy. In order to do that they need and deserve a little breathing room.
 We have asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
They get sworn in on December 3rd – tell us what you think has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in.
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department and worried about annual tax increases of around 4%
We asked the people we knew, they aren’t all friends of the Gazette, what they thought could be done and should be done.
Krista Richards doesn’t see much that she likes at city hall.
By Krista Richards
November 13th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
This election we almost got a full clean sweep of council. That is a huge message for this new council.
 Lori Jivan, Acting coordinator of budget and policy patiently leads people through an explanation of the budget and the workbook the city created. Hitting the ground running is an understatement. The most obvious thing to deal with is the new budget. And more to it, how the City treats the taxpayers and Citizens of Burlington with how they spend our money.
In the past 4 years, City Hall including past council, spent money recklessly on “nice to haves”, 3rd party contractors, and consultants that even a high schooler could see was a waste of money. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs John Q Taxpayer had City Staffers (NOT ALL OF THEM), ignoring emails, phone calls, lying to residents, and giving favors to their friends. And yet, no transit plan (8 years that has been talked about), infracture is horrible, the OP, etc etc etc. This HAS TO STOP.
The most direct way, to start to right the ship…… control the money! Control departmental spending, 3rd party contractors rebilling for the same job 3 times because they messed up. Stop hiring consultants who are friends of a friend. These few examples of reckless spending, goes hand in hand with the Citizens of Burlington being treated like persons of servitude. There is a great deal of money that could easily be trimmed from the budget with no loss of service. In some respect, services could be increased if someone actually put some effort into their department(s).
 City manager James Ridge City Staff at all levels should be put on notice by this new Council that they are there to serve to Citizens and not the other way around. New Council should be going through old budgets NOW line by line, and not just trust the staffers on what they say. There is a lot of smoke in those lines. While doing so, this will send a clear message for the City Manager and staff to wake up and do their jobs, if not a lot of dead weight, bad attitude paycheck collectors needs to leave. Making room for people honestly get what public service means and want to do it well.
The Citizens of Burlington voted for change. We need fiscal, ethical and moral responsibility at City Hall. If this new council accomplishes this very thing, it wont be easy but they will be well on their way to doing exactly what we elected them to do.
 We have asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
The Councillors gets sworn in on December 3rd – what has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in ?
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; even unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department.
We asked the people we knew, they aren’t all friends of the Gazette, what they thought could be done and should be done.
By Penny Hersh
November 12th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
 The residents voted in a new council with the mandate for change. Will it be what residents expect in what they perceive as a reasonable time frame? That is yet to be determined.
In response to this request and because Engaged Citizens of Burlington – ECoB feels that resident involvement is essential I asked the seniors who attend the current events class I am a part of for their input.
In no particular order this is what was expressed.
– Get control over development.
– Culture change at City Hall – Council needs to direct staff, not the other way around.
– Council needs to stop depending solely on Staff Reports.
– Council needs to work with the Provincial Government – Regarding” Places to Grow” and the demands put on Municipalities to reach the mandated target set out for them.
– Council Meetings should take place throughout the City not only at City Hall. Parking is a problem downtown, and if the meetings take place during the day there is a parking fee.
COMMUNICATION:
– Town Hall Meetings – to explain in “layman’s language” what is happening. Telling people to go to the City’s website is not the answer.
– Newsletters from Councillors that do more than just detail events happening in their wards. High praise for Marianne Meed Ward’s “ A Better Burlington”.
– City needs to hire a Public Relations firm to make Municipal Politics “resident friendly”.
 Together we can make a greater change in the culture at City Hall, and never again have to wait for an election to make our voices heard. The change Burlington needs requires commitment from City Hall and the citizens of Burlington alike, and it needs to start now. Together we can make a greater change in the culture at City Hall, and never again have to wait for an election to make our voices heard.
To be part of this change ECoB is asking residents to participate in the resident ward level committees that are being formed. More information can be found on our website Engagedburlington.ca To sign up email us at info@engagedburlington.ca and make your ward level committee a success.
We asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the city needs to go in its first 100 days.
The new city council gets sworn in on December 3rd – what has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in?
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department.
Here is what Kevin Rutherford thought could be done and should be done.
By Kevin Rutherford
November 12th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
1. Perform audits of planning staff and City manager to evaluate the performance of previous planning recommendations. Staff recommendations are wildly different depending on the planner on file, they need to reign this in and provide a consistent message and approach. Performance should also be evaluated based on the time spent reviewing applications and whether they completed the recommendation within the 120 day window, failure to do so allowed the National Homes Developer on Brant Ave to file an appeal and with the Georgina Court Development it forced council to make a decision in haste because of fear of litigation from the developer because they were at roughly 390 days.
2. Come up with a plan on engaging residents more in development plans, and earlier in the game, and treat residents with respect when they are engaged. Current meetings are essentially about checking a box in the process rather than actually engaging with residents.
 3. Scrap or re-visit the City-wide parking review. They are reducing the parking spaces required for developments creating massive parking issues. The reality is that adult children are living at home longer so more spaces are needed, not less. The justification for their plan is that they want to eliminate cars from the roads and force people to take transit etc… I am sorry I manage rail/transit engineering projects and Burlington needs massive investment before any of their objectives will ever work and in the meantime residents will continue to struggle. In areas of the city where they are exploring street parking permits is just a cash grab and not proper planning.
4. Educate planning staff on the current OP, PPS, Places to grow act etc… They are submitting recommendations that do not comply either due to incompetence or insufficient education. I agree they need to try to ensure they meet the conditions of these plans/policy, they do not seem to understand the basic principles. Even when mistakes are found, they still defend their decisions and fight, forcing developers or residents to file LPAT appeals.
Keith Rutherford is a Senior Project Manager, managing Rail & Transit engineering projects. He is also the individual leading the LPAT appeal for the Georgina Court (Upper Middle Enclave) residents. He reports that “We just received responses from the City staff on our appeal synopsis and record that we submitted and they are still digging in and standing their ground essentially “sucking and blowing” in their response on the issue items.
With a new municipal government getting ready to assume power the question is – what will they do first?
What are the big issues?
We asked the readers of the Gazette what they thought the new council should attempt to get done in its first hundred days.
Here are some of their thoughts.
By Alan Harrington
November 9th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
One Burlington issue that irks me and the community is the horrid “Welcome to Burlington” sign that greets a million drivers heading into the city on the QEW westbound.
It looks like a town that hasn’t put any effort into its brand for 30+ years.
The “O” is shaped like a sliced egg with a sulfur smell.
 The severely damaged Paletta property on the south side of the QEW at Appleby Line. And speaking of stink… what is our Councillor doing about the burned out meat factory sitting on QEW and Appleby? This neglected piece of property looks like an abandoned third-world-country war zone. It’s sat like this for a year now as of December 6th.
Does the city like the image of a city that doesn’t care how it looks to the millions of drivers that pass through each day?
Alan Harrington feels like a resident tortured in the Orchard.
With a new municipal government getting ready to assume power the question is – what will they do first?
What are the big issues?
We asked the readers of the Gazette what they thought the new council should attempt to get done in its first hundred days.
Here are some of their thoughts.
By Fred Crockett
November 9th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Residents want their municipal authority to take care of day to day services on a responsible budget, prudently set aside reserve funds for major capital works, handle emergency services, establish a reasonable planning structure, and to do so in a manner that is respectful to those residents, staff, fellow Councillors, and the broader public.
They do not want a Council that seeks to micromanage everything, and views activities as ego-boosting shenanigans so as to foster perpetual re-election. This past vote showed that some 60% of the electorate was jaundiced by the previous structure, and the rest chose to bounce most of the incumbents.
 Council is not measured by the individual accomplishments or goals of its members, but rather by the quality of its collective judgement. Competent and properly paid staff exist to perform the necessary tasks, to provide advice to Council, and to support the policy decisions made by elected representatives.
Within its first 100 days, the new council should reinforce a meaningful code of conduct, pass a responsible budget, support a functional transit system, and revise the pending planning conundrum, all in the interests of the residents.
Fred Crockett is a Burlington based real estate broker.
By Pepper Parr
November 6th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
For the 60% of the people in Burlington who didn’t vote – a message. Elections matter!
For the 60% that didn’t vote in the provincial election – a message. Elections matter!
What difference would it have made to me some will ask?
For those people who have to work at the minimum wage level here is how it matters.
The Liberal government that was in office (By the way they deserved to lose) had a program that increased that minimum wage to $14 an hour last January and had planned on an increase to $15 an hour this January.
The government you elected four months ago cancelled that program.
Assume that the person being paid the minimum wage was working 35 hours a week and assume that they worked for 50 weeks in the year they would have received $1750 more in 2019.
That’s not an in-substantial amount for people who earn a minimum wage.
When Doug Ford was running for Premier of the province he didn’t tell anyone he planned on scaling back that planned increase. We suspect that very few minimum wage people thought anything about it.
The point is – who governs us as a society matters.
Parents might want to mention that to the children that are still living at home because they can’t afford to rent a place they can afford. For many of them they will never be able to buy a home.
Things were different for their grandparents – they probably voted.
The drive in the United States today will be to get people out to vote in what is going to be one of the most important elections to take place in the United States in decades.
What does that mean for Canada, Ontario or Burlington? We won’t know until the election results are in. If nothing changes – you can be assured of one thing – none of it will be good for us.
Elections matter!
How we got to this point as a society is troubling – the answer to that question is you just didn’t give a damn.
 Salt with Pepper are the opinions, reflections, observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 8th year of as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
By Pepper Parr
November 5th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The bigger picture.
Mayor Elect Marianne Meed Ward has been meeting with the newly elected Council members to hear what they would like to achieve in the next four years and at the same time organizing her own agenda and figuring out what has to be done and when.
She will have to decide who is going to work with her when she becomes Mayor, she has that figured out; then she has to get the council ready to tackle the budget and help her colleagues make city council work.
Those are the local issues.
She has to then think through what she wants to have in the way of a relationship with the provincial government that she doesn’t share a political philosophy with nor does she have the same political temperament.
Getting some changes in the Places to Grow program and a strong relationship with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and reaching out to other municipal Mayors are just the beginning.
A much bigger issue is: Will there be a Burlington come 2022 when this council will return to the electors for a second mandate? Burlington was incorporated as a village in 1872, and erected into a town in 1915 and became a city in 1974.
When current Mayor Rick Goldring met with the Ministry during the municipal election, along with several other Mayors wanting to begin a discussion about Places to Grow, Goldring went rogue and mentioned to the Minister that he had his eye on Waterdown and wanted to talk about an annexation.
Goldring didn’t inform Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger what he had in mind.
Eisenberger, who did get himself re-elected, was pretty direct when he said he thought the idea was a flyer crafted on the back of a napkin.
 The province has changed the make-up of several Regional governments. In that announcement Doug Ford said:
“For too long (Toronto) city council has failed to act on the key issues facing Toronto. Less Councillors will mean a more efficient government, and more action on key issues like transit, housing and infrastructure,” Ford said in his statement released earlier.
“I promised to reduce the size and cost of government, and end the culture of waste and mismanagement. More politicians are not the answer. These changes will dramatically improve the decision making process, and help restore accountability and trust in local governments.”
“The Better Local Government Act introduces a number of changes, such as:
“Changes to the Municipal Elections Act to have elections for regional chairs in York, Peek, Niagara, and Muskoka Regions are reversed back to the system they were prior to 2016: when they were appointed by sitting councillors. Regional elections in Halton, Durham and Waterloo remain.”
It had become clear to those who followed these things that there is more in the way of change coming for municipal governments – look what Ford did to Toronto.
 Looking at municipal government from a Halton perspective one could wonder what might be in the works for Halton; will the province use a shotgun approach that could blow apart local government as we know it today?
The Region of Halton was created in January of 1974, prior to that it was Halton County, one of the oldest in the province was created in 1816.
Creating the Region of Halton was controversial at the time. Local politicians at the time had to fight to keep Burlington out of Hamilton.
Dis-membering Halton and adding Oakville and Burlington to Hamilton and adding Milton and Halton Hills to Peel would fit in with the kind of thinking we are seeing coming out of Queen’s Park these days.
 When Dundas was rolled into Hamilton the locals came up with a defence strategy that didn’t work but there are still these small signs placed in some local windows with T- shorts bearing the words on sale in stores on Kings Street.
What would Burlington do?
Burlington has always been a bedroom community for Hamilton; Oakville has been the place for the moneyed set who didn’t want to live in Forest Hill or Rosedale.
 What would any of these changes mean to the average Burlingtonian – we would still be called Burlington but the shots would no longer be called from a city hall on Brant Street. Would there even be a city hall on Brant Street?
Something to think about. The Mayor elect has a lot more than local issues on the desk she will sit behind on the 8th floor of city hall.
 By Ray Rivers
November 3rd, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The roots of America’s current border issues go all the way back to the 1823 Monroe doctrine when America announced that it had replaced Europe as the colonial master of Latin America. There is no reason to believe Monroe had anything in mind but self-interest, particularly when it came to America’s commercial interests. And those interests were not in the best interests of what were to become America’s banana republics. And now, as Fidel Castro once said – the hens have come back to roost.
![Call Number: Graff 4195 Author: Triplett, Frank. Title: Conquering the wilderness, or, New pictorial history of the life and times of the pioneer heroes and heroines of America ... / by Colonel Frank Triplett ... ; with 200 portraits from life, and ... engravings from designs by Nast, Darley, and other eminent artists. Published: New York ; St. Louis : N.D. Thompson & Company, 1883. Physical Description: xxxix, [2], 17-716 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm. Contents: pt. 1. From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi -- pt. 2. The plains -- pt. 3. The Pacific slope. Subject (LCSH): Indians of North America --Wars. Indian captivities. Frontier and pioneer life. Pioneers. Other Name: Nast, Thomas, 1840-1902. Darley, Felix Octavius Carr, 1822-1888. Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana (Newberry Library) References: Graff coll. 4195 Frontispiece "The March of Destiny" shot with digital NikonD100 camera](https://www.burlingtongazette.ca/wp-content/uploads/Manifest-Destiny-1024x720.jpg) The March of Destiny The accounting of US transgressions against its neighbours is overwhelming. The declaration of Manifest Destiny justified the theft of Mexican territory. Washington engineered carving Panama and its canal out of Colombia. The CIA organized numerous government coups and the military invasions in Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Grenada. Even today US troops are stationed in Honduras, ostensibly to support the Honduran government, but primarily to secure US banana and coffee interests in that country, something it has done for over a century.
One could argue that America’s actions with its backdoor neighbours were not unlike those of the Soviets following the second world war. Except that the Soviets didn’t just invade and pillage, they actually made an effort to improve the social and economic conditions of their satellites. Notwithstanding the loss of freedom and the inherent faults of the communist system, the Soviets were benevolent colonialists at least from that perspective. And, of course, the fight against communism served as justification for America’s role as enforcer in Latin America.
Former GW Bush era Secretary of State, Colin Powell, labelled it the ‘Pottery Barn rule’ – if you break it you’ve bought it. And central America in particular is one broken basket case of poverty and violence, thanks largely to US commercial and foreign policies. And so, for the masses of Central American pilgrims and their families, forced from their homes by poverty, political oppression and violence, it is a matter of just coming home to Uncle Sam.
 Immigrants heading for the US border -1000 km away the caravan has become a political issue The most desperate of these people come from the nations which make up the so-called northern triangle, composed of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. With a population approximating that of Canada, these three states harbour some 50,000 violent gang members. Honduras has been called the most dangerous place in the world. And they are all dirt poor.
Migration, people leaving or forced out of their homes and looking for a better life, is not a new thing, and it is only news because the US president thinks it makes good politics. But it’s not a simple case of we and they. 60% of Mexicans have relatives already living in the US, and over 15% of those who were born in the Caribbean or Central America now live in the USA.
Trump’s dystopian wall and his army on the border is a false god and a stop-gap at best. Walls will not keep the starving Latin American hordes out any more than China’s wall held back the Mongolian hordes, or the Mediterranean has served to ward off desperate migrants leaving Africa for a better life. If you want secure borders you need to help those nations you border enjoy their own security – economic, political and social.
The history of the planet is replete with case studies of migration and migrants moving on in search of a better life. And Immigration is the story of America, despite the inevitable xenophobia and even outright racism that is too often its companion. So you better get used to it America. This latest caravan is a harbinger of migrations yet to come as humanity continues to do what it is doing to prepare for its own extinction. Greater poverty and starvation, and political and criminal oppression are the future for this planet… unless…
There are half a billion people in the Asia-Pacific region alone who now go hungry every day. It should be no surprise that we are incredibly over-populated and still growing, even as our ability to feed ourselves is ever diminishing. We have wiped out 60% of all animal species since 1970. Scientists claim there is only two years for us to to put an end to the loss of the earth’s biodiversity, and twelve years to stop our accelerating rate of climate changing emissions. Just read the newspaper and you’ll soon become your own Dr. Death on this stuff.
 Amazon forest And the response of our global leaders? The American president is a climate denier who is terminating all efforts to deal with climate change and the environment in general. Brazil has elected a new leader who wants to convert the rest of the Amazon forest, the lungs of the earth, into high methane emitting cattle ranching. Germany is helping Russia build a new pipeline so it can burn even more natural gas.
Our greenish PM is promoting new pipelines to spur even more oil and gas extraction. And our new Ontario premier has just shut down all climate change programs, is attempting to kill a national carbon tax and has even threatened to get rid of the environmental Greenbelt. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how this movie is going to end.
American has never acknowledged its role as an imperial power, and the American people I know don’t consider themselves colonialists. Perhaps that is the reason it is so bad at this colonial stuff. So perhaps it should stop pretending. Aren’t we all Americans?
 Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Caravan – African Migration – Nicaragua –
Birth Rate – Trump Rolls Back – Understanding Migration –
By Pepper Parr
November 1st, 2108
BURLINGTON, ON
The first thing the members of the city council you elected a week ago are going to have to do is show the public that things are going to be different.
That the respect for each other will be there – and when it isn’t there they will make sure that those who are out of line are brought into line immediately.
If the new council is truly new – citizens will be watching for this.
Without that civility and respect for each other the city is looking at four years of chaos.
 Paul Sharman – the only council member who held his council seat. The holdover from the council that is on the way out is Paul Sharman. Many found the man to be difficult to work with and at times seemed menacing to people who were delegating before council.
The Gazette has learned from a number of sources that Sharman is now reaching out in an effort to create bridges to the new members of Council. That is a good sign.
Mayor Elect Marianne Meed Ward is going to need some of the skills Sharman has always had in matters of finance and organization. The problem is going to be the radically different ideological differences between the two.
Some will say that ideology should not be the issue – when that is precisely what the election last Monday was all about.
With a voter turnout of less than 40% – this new council is going to have to be transparent in a way that this city has never seen. They are certainly up to it and if the election promises were real – this is the kind of municipal world all of the newbies want to work in.
It is not going to be easy.
 The victory salute. Marianne Meed Ward recognizing the public that elected her at a Polish Hall event. What the Gazette is watching for is the first few steps that Meed Ward takes as Mayor. If she can be seen as moving forward on several issues within the first 30 days and pulling the whole city together there is a chance that she can actually pull this off.
Meed Ward has time working for her. She get sworn in on December 3rd and begins budget deliberations on the 10th. She then has 12 days to make announcements, take positions before they all head off for the Christmas Holidays.
She has quite a bit of political capital but it doesn’t come from a very broad base. 60% of the population didn’t vote and while Meed Ward had a very convincing win over Rick Goldring and Mike Wallace it isn’t all that wide in terms of the population.
The Gazette’s early thinking on which of the three, Meed Ward, Goldring or Wallace would best serve the interests of those that were vocal – one can only guess what the complacent 60% had in mind – was that Meed Ward was the best hope the city had.
Her thumping the incumbent the way she did suggests that those who were focused and engaged felt she was the person to go with.
Thus we watch closely and carefully how Marianne Meed Ward re-directs the city she chose to live in 18 years ago.
In an exclusive interview with Meed Ward before the ballot were cast she told the Gazette her role models were Hazel McCallion and Bernie Saunders.
If she can focus on the best of both of them and convince her Council to follow her – it just might work.
It is the best hope we have.
Meed Ward is now meeting with the newly elected members of council to get to know them, hear what they hope to achieve during the next four years and answer the questions they have.
One newbie got a call from a constituent about a road problem; he thought about passing it along to the retiring member of council but decided it was his job to do even though he had yet to be sworn in.
He puts out a call to Meed Ward – what do I do? Problem solved.
One of the comments Meed Ward made before she was elected was that if she was elected she wanted to find a way to teach new council members how to deal with staff at city hall.
Who they are, what they do and perhaps how they can best be approached?
The public has now adjusted to the fact that there are going to be changes. People who once had influence at city hall are realizing that the phone calls they used to be able to make to a member of council or the Mayor will not be the same.
 Angelo Bentivegna has delegated to city council and knows most of the staff members – he now has to decide what his approach to serving the public is going to be and can he reach the people who were die-hard supporters of the Council member he replaced. Five of the members of council have no experience dealing with public issues. They each face a steep learning curve; some will do well quite quickly, some will struggle and some may fail and find themselves wondering if they made a poor career choice.
At this point each of the five new members are figuring out how they want to communicate with the people that elected them. Those that voted – and realize that 60% of the people eligible to vote didn’t do so, are, we think, are expecting these new council members to be communicating with them the day after they were elected.
Given the heavy use they all made of Facebook and Twitter and, assuming they kept the names of the people they communicated with, one would think they could have something up in the way of a communications vehicle and a strategy.
Shawna Stolte, who took ward four from a long long term incumbent, found that she really liked talking to people on their doorstep. You can’t cover the 20,000 plus people she now represents walking door to door.
Another newbie thought he would be able to see people in the office of the health club he operates – shades of the Jack Dennison approach; used to be that when you wanted to see Dennison you had to hoof it over to his health club.
Some are suggesting that we need to give these five new members of council time to adjust – the problem with that approach is the issues the public have don’t wait.
Most of these people ran on a campaign that included better engagement. The proof as they say is in the pudding.
How are they doing so far?
Salt with Pepper are the opinions, reflections, observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 8th year of as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
 By Staff
October 30th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It was a pivotal meeting; took place on November 1st, 2017 when the Planning and Development committee heard the staff report on the development application for the NE corner of Brant and James Street.
 It’s a done deal – the 24 storey tower will go up. And it is likely to be twinned by a tower of the same height on the SE corner The development application got approved and was named The Gallery by the developer.
The eventual decision meant a 24 storey tower opposite city hall and the issue that became the focus point for the election that took place a week ago yesterday that put a new Mayor in office.
When development applications go before a Standing Committee they start out with a presentation by the Staff Planner, often followed by comments from the develop.
Rarely does the most senior bureaucrat make comments before an application is discussed publicly. The Gazette has never seen a city manager do this in the seven years we have covered city council.
On November 1st, 2017 city manager James Ridge said the following.
“I’d like to make a few introductory comments just before I turn it over to Kyle.
There are two issues that I would like to address in relation to this application that have come up over & over again in the context of the last number of months.
“The first is the relationship between the application and the new plan for downtown and the Official Plan.
“The timing is unusual.
 James Ridge: “”You’ve made a decision … “This is coming just months before we consider the new Official Plan and has been going through the approval process in parallel with conversations we’ve been having about the downtown.
“I’d like to start with the Strategic Plan.
“You’ve made a decision as a City that the City will grow in certain strategic locations and downtown Burlington is obviously one of the locations.
“Tonight, you are considering the merits of this application which addresses at least some of the goals identified in the Strategic Plan.
It delivers a mix of housing, office, retail, in the City’s urban growth centre.
“It’s walkable.
“It is close to major transit hub and it is arguably higher density.
“There can be an argument about whether it is the right density or not,
and people have asked how this relates to the work done in recent months in downtown and that’s been engaged a lot of the community and there are obvious questions about the relationship.
“The short answer is this.
“The application is not bound by that work, by the work that’s been done nor is it bound by the new Official Plan, but nonetheless, it reflects much of it, and that’s the interesting reality of this application.
“The new Official Plan hasn’t yet been approved.
“It won’t be for a month or so, and as such, this principle by law must be considered in the context of the existing Official Plan.
 James Ridge: “The application in front of you takes the density that is allowed in the existing Official Plan, and reconfigures it … “The application in front of you takes the density that is allowed in the existing Official Plan, and reconfigures it in a way that we believe is consistent with the work that’s been done in recent months in the downtown and the intent and goals of the Official Plan.
“The applicant has a right now in law today, without further council approval, to build 12 storeys across that sight, and the fact that we have been able to take the rights that the applicant has under the current Official Plan, 12 storeys across the whole site, and reconfigure it in a way that is far more reflective of the work that’s been done over the summer around the downtown growth plan and the new Official Plan is a function of hard work that’s been done by Kyle and his colleagues and the applicant and I thank them both for that.
“The application in front of you isn’t bound by the new draft Official Plan, it still achieves a number of the key priorities that the public told us were priorities this summer.
“When we talked about the downtown, they include wider sidewalks, less sun shade impacts, respect for the character of Brant Street, more public open spaces and excellence in architectural design and Kyle will talk about these in more detail.
“So I’m very pleased that staff and the applicant have been able to incorporate many aspects of the new plan and the public’s priorities for the downtown in this application on an entirely voluntary basis.
“While some may argue, and I’m sure many will, that this application doesn’t fully or sufficiently reflect the new downtown plan, I think that any fair-minded person says, looking at the application, there has been a real effort to at least address some of the vision for the downtown in the plan, notwithstanding the fact it’s not bound by the new draft plan.
“The second thing I’d like to talk about is height and height is often the issue that generates the most conversation and controversy about an application,
“You know that as well or better than I do, and yet decisions based primarily on the height of a proposal can have bad outcomes, especially dangerous in my professional opinion is the notion that shorter buildings are always preferable to taller ones and this application is a case study in that fallacy.
“This applicant has a right to build 12 storeys across the whole site In our professional opinion, having the site developed as a full 12 storey block is as inconsistent as you can possibly get with the vision for downtown that has developed through the summer.
James Ridge: “… the applicant has the right to do 12 storeys across that site today …” “Once again, the applicant has the right to do 12 storeys across that site today and we think that would have lasting negative impacts for the downtown, and that’s nor an extreme case or hypothetical.
“The applicant came in in 2012 with a proposal to do exactly that, 12 storeys across the whole site.
“We have pictures if you would like to see them, and to the applicant’s credit, they backed away from that proposal and have come with something different, and while height is clearly a consideration, I want to stress it is not first and foremost about height in this application.
“Show this to you graphically … this is about taking the densities that the applicant has as a right by law right now and reconfiguring it differently.
“Height is part of those considerations but it is not the only one.
“So simply put, our collective professional advice to you is that reconfiguring much of the density on this site from 12 storey monolith to a taller skinny to tower on a smaller footprint is far preferable.
“It is better to have wider sidewalks.
“It’s better to have the expanded view to City Hall and the cenotaph.
“It’s better to have more open space on the street and more sunlight than have 12 storeys across the whole sight, in our professional opinion.
“The benefits of height need to be considered fairly.
“In my professional opinion, that happens rarely.
 James Ridge: “Height tends to be a bogeyman …” “Height tends to be a bogeyman, something that is seen as fundamentally bad in a development.
and we ask only that we have a fair and an honest conversation about both the downsides of height and there are some, but also a conversation about the benefits and there are many of those as well.
“So with that, I’ll turn it over to Kyle”
 Kyle Plaz Here is what is interesting about the comments made by the city manager: they sound like someone acting as a shill for an initiative.
Mention is made of a 12 storey monolith on several occasions but the public never got to see a drawing of what the monolith would actually look like. No architectural rendering.
 The dark shading is what the developer had an “as of right” to build. The light blue is what city council approved instead. There was never the sense that the 12 story’s was actually seriously considered. The public was just given the impression that it was going to be plunked down on the land and that it would be squat looking and really ugly.
Ridge uses the word fairness in his remarks – many of the delegators who spoke to council later on in the process (there were 30 of them) had to focus on a development that was going to change the city they knew radically.
It was clearly what the city planners wanted.
 Some creativity might have solved that 12 storey situation. What if the city had challenged the developer to hold a design competition for a building that was just 12 storeys – what have others done with 12 storeys?
 Others have dome some very good 12 storey designs.
By Pepper Parr
October 30th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The first thing the members of the city council you elected a week ago are going to have to do is show the public that things are going to be different.
 Mayor Elect Meed Ward thanking the crowd at the Polish Hall. That the respect for each other will be there – and when it isn’t there they will make sure that those who are out of line are brought into line immediately.
If the new council is truly new – citizens will be watching for this.
Without that civility and respect for each other the city is looking at four years of chaos.
The holdover from the council that is on the way out is Paul Sharman. Many found the man to be difficult to work with and at times seemed menacing to people who were delegating before council.
The Gazette has learned from a number of sources that Sharman is now reaching out in an effort to create bridges to the new members of Council. That is a good sign.
Mayor Elect Marianne Meed Ward is going to need some of the skills Sharman has always had in matters of finance and organization. The problem is going to be the radically different ideological differences between the two.
 Gives a whole new meaning to Standing Room only. Some will say that ideology should not be the issue – when that is precisely what the election last Monday was all about.
With a voter turnout of less than 40% – this new council is going to have to be transparent in a way that this city has never seen. They are certainly up to it and if the election promises were real – this is the kind of municipal world all of the newbies want to work in.
It is not going to be easy.
What the Gazette is watching for is the first few steps that Meed Ward takes as Mayor. If she can be seen as moving forward on several issues within the first 30 days and pulling the whole city together there is a chance that she can actually pull this off.
Meed Ward has time working for her. She get sworn in on December 3rd and begins budget deliberations on the 10th. She then has 12 days to make announcements, take positions before they all head off for the Christmas Holidays.
She has quite a bit of political capital but it doesn’t come from a very broad base. 60% of the population didn’t vote and while Meed Ward had a very convincing win over Rick Goldring and Mike Wallace it isn’t all that wide in terms of the population.
The Gazette’s early thinking on which of the three, Meed Ward, Goldring or Wallace would best serve the interests of those that were vocal – one can only guess what the complacent 60% had in mind – was that
Meed Ward was the best hope the city had.
 Rick Goldring, Marianne Meed Ward and Mike Wallace debating on TVO’s Agenda Her thumping the incumbent the way she did suggests that those who were focused and engaged felt she was the person to go with.
Thus we watch closely and carefully how Marianne Meed Ward re-directs the city she chose to live.
In an exclusive interview with Meed Ward before the ballot were cast she told the Gazette her role models were Hazel Mccallion and Bernie Saunders.
If she can focus on the best of both of them and convince her Council to follow her – it just might work.
It is the best hope we have.
Salt with Pepper are the opinions, reflections, observations and musings of Pepper Parr, publisher of the Gazette.
By Ray Rivers
October 27th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The Trudeau Liberals are getting worried, some might say panicky, about their most important signature program – climate change. When polled, Canadians claim to be almost universally aware, even though fewer people are convinced of our role in the problem or that climate change is even a real threat. But awareness in opinion polls doesn’t always translate into what happens at the election polls, as we’ve seen in Ontario and New Brunswick recently, and possibly Alberta next spring.
 This wasn’t the solution for Easter Island – the problem cannot be ignored. Given the most recent scientific report, global warming will be the single most important issue people will be voting on in the federal election next year. The battle lines are already drawn. The Conservative party, which has never had a climate plan, will stand alone among today’s parties. And if Andrew Scheer becomes Canada’s next prime minister, federal policy will be a replay of what is happening at Queen’s Park. Scheer would terminate Canada’s most important program to fight carbon emissions – the carbon tax.
Two years ago, as Canada was signing onto the Paris climate change agreement, every sub-national government in the country, but one, embraced the Pan-Canadian Framework, a market-based national climate plan, including carbon pricing. It was a rare moment of national conciliation. The feds wouldn’t unilaterally impose a carbon tax where carbon pricing was already underway, as it was in Canada’s four largest provinces at the time.
The other provinces were given time to come up with their own carbon pricing system but Manitoba, Sask. and New Brunswick flunked the laugh test, and Ontario gave Mr. Trudeau the finger. So these provinces and the territories will get a federally imposed tax this January where the money collected will be rebated through the income tax system directly to residents in those jurisdictions.
The $20 per tonne tax will cost about 4 cents at the gas pumps and about 3 cents for natural gas. The critics rightly say the tax isn’t high enough to get people to switch to lower carbon emitting alternatives, such as electric vehicles (EV) and electric heating. But those who reduce their use of fossil fuels will still be the winners – with more cash in their pockets than they had to payout in carbon taxes.
 One of the way we can reduce what we do to the environment. Market signals work for both demand and supply. Consumers will be given another reason to go green, especially as the tax gradually jumps to $50 in 2022 One can see how a rational car buyer would want to consider the cost of gasoline when choosing between buying an SUV, a Prius or a Nissan Leaf And that market signal should also prompt the auto companies to increase the supply of hybrid fuel as well as pure EVs – the ultimate solution.
The critics are right that the the $20 per tonne carbon tax is too low an incentive for people to break with their business as usual. It’s a start but slightly higher fuel prices are not enough. So other market based instruments might be a good idea. Economic incentives for doing the right thing, like buying EV’s, weather proofing your residence or business, and converting your heating systems to clean renewable electricity would be a good idea. Gosh weren’t those the programs Ontario’s new government just cancelled?
Some European countries and even China have announced they will be banning all gasoline powered cars in the future. Now that is a powerful market signal to auto makers to jump start more technological progress and to car buyers thinking about resale values. Perhaps that strategy will appear in the plans of Scheer and Ford, when they eventually get around to drafting one.
 If we could turn these EV charging stations into status symbols we just might change some minds. And of course there is a need for education. After almost two decades after being introduced into Canadian market place it is astounding the number of people who still have no idea that gas-electric hybrid cars exist, and that buying one could save as much 50% of their annual gas bill. After owning my Prius for 200,000 kms I calculated I’d driven the last 100,000 kms for free.
Of course other matters will come up in the course of the election, like the federal debt and deficit, social and immigration policy, taxation, and possibly trade or other international matters. But if we care about the future of the planet, the only issue that should matter is the environment, and what we’re prepared to do about climate change in particular.
Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Pan-Canadian Plan – Technology – How Climate Change Will Look – Opinion Polls –
 By Roland Tanner
October 27th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Thank you so much
On Monday night I didn’t get the result I and my team wanted to see, but I believe the results, in Ward 2 and across Burlington, were excellent ones for our city. I don’t have the slightest reservation in congratulating Lisa Kearns on an excellent campaign.
Burlington and Ward 2 voted for the things I entered the race to pursue.
A return to civility and respect for residents’ voices.
A council that doesn’t just listen, but sees engagement with citizens as the constant responsibility of every level of democratic government.
A council that will protect downtown from excessive intensification, and demand a creative approach to growth directed at creating complete communities on a human scale.
A transformational approach to better transit, walkable and cyclable communities, and infrastructure that gives us all transportation choices.
A focus on affordable and subsidized housing so our parents, children and grandchildren can afford to live and work here.
I want to thank everybody who took even the smallest role in this process for your support and your interest.
 Roland Tanner Thank you for reading my emails and articles.
Thank you for taking lawn signs.
Thank you for your donations and incredible generosity.
Thank you to the volunteers, family and friends who worked harder and were more generous than I could possibly ever have expected, to reach so many doors with me, to speak to so many residents in every corner of Ward 2 and to make this campaign one I can be proud of, even though we didn’t win.
Working with you all was both a privilege and an absolute blast.
Next steps
I’m not going anywhere. A new and better council still needs residents to stay engaged. Council alone will not create a better Burlington. A large part of the responsibility still falls to us. I intend to stay involved and keep pushing for the things I care about, and the things the residents of Ward 2 and Burlington care about.
Burlington is coming of age. There is huge promise in our city as it grows and changes, while treasuring and protecting our history, heritage and special neighbourhoods. I can’t wait to be part of that future.
By Pepper Parr
October 25th, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 5 and the last of a series
When we left you last – there were two banning notices from city hall.
Neither had even a hint of due process. We live in a society whose foundation is built on the rule of law.
We live in a city where the City Manager, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces, which he left with the rank of Captain after 12 years of service, and is presumed to understand something about the administration of laws, rules and regulations, nevertheless issued a Trespass Notice with no due process.
When the second banning notice was delivered November 20, 2017 there was mention of an email I had sent the then Director of Planning. That email was the pretence the city manager used to issue a second ban that was for an indeterminate length of time.
We searched our email files and found the email.
The wording of that email is quite small – It said; “I have had developers tell me that you are using the time off to prepare you witch costume and broom for Tuesday night. Any comment – for attribution? The spelling error was mine.
I personally didn’t think the email was offensive but Ms Tanner did. I wrote an apology that was sincere. In my world, when a sincere apology is given, adults accept the apology and move on.
The apology wasn’t acknowledged.
When the second banning was issued I retained legal counsel who wrote the city in June of 2018.
This time the city said we should perhaps talk.
August was a period of time when my counsel was away for the month. That got us into September. James Ridge was out of the country for a period of time. Some possible meeting dates were shared.
At this point there is no date for a meeting.
James Ridge did advise us that “We will not be providing the investigation report in advance of the meeting, and are assessing whether it can be redacted in a way that sufficiently protects the identities of the women involved.”
He added: “You should also be aware that while the decision to lift the ban, or defend it in court, is ultimately mine, I would want to brief Council on my decision in camera, and that would occur no earlier than November.”
James Ridge is going back to Council for approval – which suggest to me that he got permission to ban me from city council in the first place.
Our demand of the city was for a copy of the Protocol that was issued to staff as to how they were to handle me and a copy of the Investigation the city had done about the complaints they received. Are those complaints as flimsy as the complaint Ms Tanner had – an email that was sent in jest the day before Halloween.
I felt I was entitled to be made aware of those first complaints. It may not have been necessary to know who made the complaints. For some reason city hall seemed to feel that complaints about behavior can be made in a vacuum; were the people who made the complaints sworn?
The city has a protocol for handling behavior complaints between staff that involves contractors working for and with the city. As a journalist I was neither an employee nor a contractor so the very detailed process didn’t apply.
A more professional approach would have been to call me in and say there were complaints and while I am not an employee or contractor the city was going to apply the staff protocol to me as well.
However, if the objective was to shut me out of city hall and prevent me from talking to staff in an attempt to shut the Gazette down, so far it hasn’t worked but at least we now understand the motive.
It look as if there is a resolution to all this out there somewhere.
My concern isn’t being allowed to walk back into city hall. I don’t have much of an appetite to spend time in the place. I do miss my conversations with the security guard.
The decisions the city manager made totally trashed what I had in the way of working relationships with more than 45 staff members that I admired respected and enjoyed working with.
Another very troubling part of the notice the city manager served on me was his saying I could not meet or talk to elected members of council in their city hall offices or at public events.
Ridge wrote: “When attending City sponsored events such as public meetings, open houses, social events located at places other than City Hall or Sims Square, you are to refrain from interacting with city staff, its representatives or Councillors.”
That one stunned me – hard to believe that people elected to public office would let the man that reports directly to them decide who they can see and who they cannot see. Perhaps this is what city council wanted; did all of them, even Marianne Meed Ward and John Taylor go along with tthis?. For some that was perhaps welcome, they could avoid talking to media with the excuse that ‘James Ridge said I can’t’.
The decision made by James Ridge was one that he put before the members of council in a Closed Session.
We have no idea what the members of city council had to say at the closed meeting; we don’t know who asked questions; we don’t know if the decision to authorize the city manager to issue the Trespass Notice that keeps me out of city hall was unanimous.
Did anyone ask if there was the required due process? The city Solicitor was in the room, she is a Member of the Law Society and has a license to practice law in the province; she knows what due process is. She also knows what the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is and she would, if she were being as professional as she is supposed to be, know that those rights were really trashed.
My issue and overriding concern is: How do I repair the damage that has been done?. I believe that at some point in the not too distant future I will be permitted to return to city hall and to talk to staff with all the conditions James Ridge put in place removed.
My objective from the very beginning has been to get this matter before some level of the judiciary where there is due process, procedure and rules of evidence.
That stuff is expensive.
What I have taken from this experience is the need the current city manager has to control. His default position is to issue edicts that cannot be supported in law.
Requiring media to put their requests to talk to staff before his office allows James Ridge to control what kind of information journalists have access to – that isn’t the way a democracy works.
Unfortunately for me and the citizens of the city, at least a majority of the elected members of council agreed with the city manager.
Media serve a role in a democratic society. As the publisher of the Gazette I certainly didn’t always get it right, I may have been a little too aggressive – but I was transparent and accountable. And everything is on the record, in the archives and searchable.
There are consequences to the decisions the current city council and the city manager have made.
 The next step is apparently going to again be done in a Closed Session by a Council that will have no authority, no mandate and very little credibility.
My objective is to get this matter before some level of the judiciary where the rule of law, due process, evidence that can be tested and the people making the decision are concerned about what is right.
I’ll get there somehow.
Part 1 of a series
Part 2 of a series
Part 3 of the series.
Part 4 of a series
Rivers on a Free Press
 By Marty Staz
October 25th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It seems like forever ago that I ventured into City Hall with my paperwork in hand, plunked down my hundred bucks and entered the Municipal Councillor’s race in our city. Having never done this before I will readily admit that I didn’t really have a grasp on what to do next. My nature has always been to “plan your work and then work your plan” but that wasn’t getting me anywhere since I couldn’t come up with a plan.
Fortunately we were still feeling the effects of very strange provincial election so it gave me time to gather my thoughts.
 Marty Staz reviewing a panel of development guidelines It wasn’t long before I was able to see where I was headed. The issues, the challenges and the talking points all came together and as I started knocking on doors and meeting with people I could feel some engagement building.
I can say with complete honesty that I was in this race with total conviction. Unfortunately, I really don’t feel I could say the same for some of my competitors. A total of eleven candidates submitted their nomination forms. A quick scan of the election results will provide proof of what I mean. I think that $100 isn’t enough to prevent less than committed individuals from wanting to see their name in the public eye. All of this only leads to thoughts of what might have been had we only had the die hard candidates in this race.
This also brings me to another questionable practice that happened for the first time in Burlington. Online voting. Do we really need a seventeen day window to give everyone an opportunity to vote online? We have two days of advance polls so why don’t we have two days of online voting? Over two weeks is a lot of time to lose for a candidate new to the elections race trying to get their message out there. Who knows, maybe it was simply done to favour any incumbent candidates.
Another gripe for me is the number of people that actually got out to vote. In an election with a multitude of issues and the new opportunity to vote online we only got a measly 3% increase in voters from 2014. When I realized this my first reaction was, “those people that didn’t vote must be living in a bubble.” But the more I thought about it I think I was one of the ones living in the bubble. Sixty one per cent of our city don’t seem to be too concerned about what is going on.
A lot of this may sound like sour grapes but truly it is probably more of the “woulda, shoulda, coulda”. I fought hard and have no regrets at all. The 39% of the public that voted simply felt that there was someone else better for the job. To all of the new members of our Council I say congratulations and work hard for us.
By Pepper Parr
October 25th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
In the next few weeks they will be meeting with people in accounting and giving them the data they need to get their names on the payroll so that half of their annual remuneration of $100,000, give or take a bit, flows into their bank accounts.
They will tell the printing department how they want their names to appear on their business cards.
The IT people will assign them email addresses and cell phones and iPads.
They will get used to parking their cars in the parking lot right outside city hall
Life as they’ve known it will take a whole new meaning. The anxious voters they were chasing just a few days ago with now address them as “Councillor”
Our Mayor Elect will begin to think how she can deploy these younger, eager people who are setting out to do the people’s will.
Few of the five newbies, Kevin Galbraith for ward 1, Lisa Kearns for ward 2, Rory Nisan for ward 3, Shawna Stolte for ward 4 and Angelo Bentivegna for ward 6.
Will Bentivegna show up with his traditional gift of a selection of his biscotti?
Paul Sharman is suddenly the Dean of Council, the only person other than the Mayor, who fully understands the budget these seven people are going to pass before the end of January.
In his first year as a city Councillor Sharman, in 2011, pushed through a 0% budget increase. He could redeem himself, indeed reinvent himself if he could pull that off again and nurture the new five on the intricacies of a municipal budget..
There probably isn’t one of the newbies who could stand up and rhyme off the names of all the Directors and give you twenty words on the approach they take to the departments they operate.
They will learn and the public will be forgiving for at least six months.
The focus, as it should be, will be on the Mayor Elect. She is going to have t determine who she will take on as staff for her eighth floor office. Will some of the people who worked with her day to day in the campaign be part of that team: Lyn Crosby is a possible.
Now that she is in office the public needs to understand that you can’t just trust her to do what she said she would do. Politics doesn’t work that way.
You couldn’t live with one-term Can Jackson – so you elected Rick Goldring. He looked good, he was a decent sort and so you elected him and trusted him to do right by you.
How did that work out?
Your job as voters is to hold them to account, demand transparency and expect a seat at the table – and then show up.
Hopefully a lesson has been learned.
They all mean well – help them deliver on what they meant when they asked for your vote. They need both your support and your willingness to ask them the hard questions as they set out to do a really hard job.
 Councillor Elect Lisa Kearns  Councillor Elect Rory Nisan  Councillor Elect Shawna Stolte  Councillor Elect Angelo Bentivegna They are all in the middle of an incredible euphoria. Let them enjoy it. Then be there for them. The past eight years should have taught us all something.
 Councillor Elect Kevin Galbraith
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