 By Staff
March 1st, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
This seems to happen every year – the date for submitting nominations for Burlington’s BEST gets extended.
We never know if there haven’t been enough in the way of nominations or if people need more time to get the paper work done.
If more time is needed – be in touch with the Clerk – she is very good at helping people get all the documentation in place.
If you haven’t thought about who you would want to nominate – look no further that the people who delegated at city council for a slow down on the rate at which the city is proceeding with adoption of th draft Official Plan.
The delegations done by Jim Young, Deedee Davies and Gary Scobie are amongst some of the best we have heard. These people don’t have an axe to grind – they are informed and speak intelligently and with passion about the city they live in and care about.
The are the E in the word engagement.
They understand that what happens to the downtown core impacts everyone.
 The 2017 Burlington BEST The city announced that those wishing to nominate a fellow resident for a Burlington’s Best Award can now do so until Wednesday, March 7, 2018. The original deadline has been extended by seven days.
There are eight award categories:
• Citizen of the year
A person whose volunteer activity has made a significant and sustained contribution to the vibrancy and wellbeing of the Burlington community in 2017.
• Junior Citizen of the year
A high school student, 18 years or younger who has made a significant contribution to the Burlington community in 2017.
• Senior Person of the year
A person, 55 years or older, who has made a significant contribution to the Burlington community and advocated on behalf of seniors in 2017.
• Environmental Award
An individual or group that improved and/or protects Burlington’s environment in 2017.
• Arts Person of the Year
An individual who has contributed to the arts in Burlington as an artist, patron or advocate including but not limited to, visual arts, media arts, musical arts, performing arts and literary arts in 2017.
• Community Service Award
An individual or group whose volunteer activity has contributed to the betterment of the Burlington community in 2017.
• Heritage Award
An individual or group who has demonstrated a commitment to the preservation of Burlington’s heritage, and has volunteered their time in an effort to support the preservation of Burlington’s heritage in 2017.
• Accessibility Award
An individual, organization or business that has made significant contributions to increase access and participation of people with disabilities in the Burlington Community in 2017.
Jim Young for Senior; Deedee Davies for Citizen and Gary Scobie for Community service. Just an opinion.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column written by the Publisher of the Burlington Gazette.
By Pepper Parr
February 19th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The public got a first look at the four people who want to lead a provincial Progressive Conservative government.
 Christine Elliott Christine Elliot a former member of the Legislature who lost her run for the leadership twice.
 Doug Ford Doug Ford who wants to do for the province what his brother did for the city of Toronto.
Caroline Mulroney who started out running for a seat in the York constituency, where she was acclaimed as the candidate. The Gazette has always believed that Caroline Mulroney was setting herself up to replace Patrick Brown as the leader of the party.
 Caroline Mulroney Little did she know that Patrick would self-destruct in the way he did which gave Mulroney the opening she thought she would have to wait for.
And little did she know that Brown would have his Lazarus moment and rise from the politically dead to have a seat at the debate table.
 Tanya Granic Allen Then there was Tanya , a gutsy young lady who proved to be the brightest voice during the TVO debate. She kept being identified as a single issue candidate: she wants changes made in the provincial sex education curriculum, – but she had just as much to say about the rot in the PC party.
Of the four Granic Allen is the one that would give Premier Wynne a run for her money.
 Patrick Brown resigning as Leader of the Opposition. He has since filed nomination papers as a candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party. It is confusing. The day after these four debated on TVO, Patrick Brown filed his nomination papers and is waiting for the Progressive Conservative party to sign off on his nomination. How they do that after booting Brown from the PC caucus is something they will have to figure out.
The Progressive Conservatives are looking for a leader and trying to find a vision, a direction they can sell to the public.
Everyone is assuming that the Liberals have all these things – and indeed they do have a formidable leader with a very clear message. They also have terrible polling results but the Liberals are tight and they have solid campaign depth.
However, should the Liberals win the provincial election in June – just how long do you expect Kathleen Wynne to remain as leader?
 Kathleen Wynne: Will she stay on the stage if she wins the provincial election in June? She has fought the good fight and she has weathered some storms – will she want to serve another four year term as leader of the Liberal party?
And how many of the younger members of her Cabinet are going to want to continue to wait for their chance to grab that brass ring?
There are at least four that will want to jump in.
Ontario is not looking at just a new Progressive Conservative leader – it is looking at a sea change in the demographic that is going to lead the province.
Interesting and confusing times ahead.
Salt with Pepper reflects the views, observations and opinions of the Gazette Publisher.
By Pepper Parr
February 16th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
On March 1st there will be a council Workshop about the Code of Conduct for members of city council that the majority of this council just do not want.
A Code of Conduct was discussed at some length on a number of occasions during the first term of this council in 2011.
At a meeting in July of 2015, the last meeting before Council went on their six week summer vacation in the summer of that year, Councillors Craven and Sharman had a discussion in the foyer outside the Council Chamber. Both went to their seats when the conversation concluded; Sharman said a few words to Councillor Lancaster who sits beside Sharman and the meeting began.
Later in the meeting Councillor Lancaster introduced a motion, seconded by Councillor Sharman to replace wording in the Code of Conduct that had been taken out at an earlier meeting.
No one had seen the motion until it was introduced – not the Clerk or the Mayor. All the chatter about professionalism and respect for each other got blown out the window.
The final vote on what to do with the Code of Conduct was to refer what had been done up to that point to the City Manager who assured council he would move with some dispatch; debated under the Governance section of the Strategic Plan. One of the problems is that Strategic Plan meetings are for the most part not recorded or broadcast on the city’s web site.
The firm that provides Ombudsman support services to the city, ADR Chambers prepared a detailed document on this for staff; the City Clerk worked hard to get a document in place – council didn’t let it happen.
Among the issues that cropped up during the 2010-2014 term of office was whether or not the council member for ward 2 could involve herself in the affairs of ward 1. No love lost between those two.
The matter of what was a gift to a council member and what wasn’t a gift got debated as well as what the ramifications to a council member would be should they happen to be off side.
The Gazette published articles on this in in July of 2015 and again in November of 2015 when the issue was discussed on Cogeco cables The Issue.
There was another article on November 16th, 2016 and on January 30th, 2016.
Earlier this week there was a Committee of the Whole meeting that agreed to have a Task Force formed on bullying and harassment in the city. The members of council feel there is just too much harassment being aimed their way and they want to see some rules in place to manage this behaviour.
What a bunch of hypocrites; they are complaining about the way citizens with well founded concerns about the way growth is being managed who will not ensure that there is a Code of Conduct governing their behaviour. There has been a code in place for city staff that is enforced. What’s good for the goose doesn’t appear too appeal to the gander.
Bullying – what does one call the letter sent to ECoB by the City Manager threatening legal action if they did not remove some of the content on their web site. A conversation inviting the ECoB people to meet with the City Manager and talk about the information that was on the web site could have resolved the issue.
No carrots in the office of the City Manager – just big sticks.
In 2012 the then city manager Jeff Fielding said that the behaviour of a council member came very close to sexual harassment. Earlier the council member had been identified as being in a personal relationship with a member of the Planning department – those things are no no’s.
 Councillor Sharman and then Director of Transit Donna Shepherd working through a budget document.  Her body language says it all. Shepherd retired later in the year. At the Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday Councillor Sharman complained of a delegator who eyeballed every member of council in what he felt was a threatening manner before leaving the chamber. Sharman said it was “uncomfortable “.
Dumb behavior is dumb behaviour and it is not to be tolerated. How we manage it is another matter.
During the council meeting on the Task Force Lancaster was proposing Councillor Sharman spoke frequently about misinformation and seemed to be suggesting that what was going on in Nazi Germany during WWII may be now taking place in Burlington; propaganda and misinformation. The Councillor is watching too much television.
 This citizen was unhappy about transit service. At the time the city was doing nothing about transitr until a new staff member did an analysis of some data and told the city manager there were serious problems. The citizens had been right for some time – but they weren’t listened to.  A parent who didn’t want the high school his child was attending closed. As I listened to the debate via the web cast there was never any sense that the harassment council members are getting is something they take any responsibility for – the public is upset, very upset. They don’t like what they see their council doing to them and when they find that their delegations are not being heard they react.
Brian Wrixton, the Chair of the Inclusivity Advisory Committee made a very strong point when he said at Committee “there was a lot of educating to be done”.
This council isn’t talking about educating – they are talking about rules they want to see in place to control what happens. Councillor Craven wants to see something in the Procedural bylaw that permits the chair of a meeting to do something with a delegation that is upsetting the members of council. “All a chair can do now” he said “is adjourn the meeting.”
There is some very nasty racist behaviour coming out of the Alton community and that is not to be tolerated. It takes time to erase racist attitudes – ham fisted responses don’t work – never have.
Change gets brought about by leadership – usually from the top. Citizens are finding that they have a city council that just does not want to hear what their concerns are; that their Council has become close to bloody minded in their behaviour. They seem prepared to let the electorate decide if they are doing their job at the election that will take place at the end of October.
With no one coming forward in wards 1, 4 and 5; a possible candidate that might not be much different than what is there now in ward 6, we stand to end up with a council that will be on the wrong end of 4-3 votes.
 Mike Wallace taking in a city council meeting, wondering perhaps what the Chain of Office will look like on his shoulders. There is more than enough evidence to suggest that the current Mayor is in serious electoral trouble; the question is will the people of Burlington take a leap of faith with Meed Ward or fall back to former city Councillor and Member of Parliament Mike Wallace.
Related articles:
January 30 – 2017 – Clerk gets handed the hot potato issue.
November 16, 2016 – Province begins to nudge the municipalities
November 6, 2015 – Cogeco’s The Issue discuses the lack of a Code of Conduct
July 26, 2015 – New Culture at city hall?
June 2012 Transit director retires
Salt with Pepper are the views, opinions and observations of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette
By Pepper Parr
February 15th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Those unhappy with the Ontario Municipal Board decision will look for ways to appeal the decision.
OMB decisions can and have been appealed but only on an error on a question of law.
 An appeal cannot be made on a matter of evidence that was presented. If the hearing officer, in this case Susan de Avellar Schiller, made a reference to or relied on some law and was wrong – that can be appealed.
The process for this is a motion to the Divisional Court for an order of the Court allowing the appeal to proceed.
In certain rare circumstances, you may be able to seek Judicial Review in the Divisional Court.
People usually hire a lawyer to appeal to a court or to ask for a Judicial Review because of the complicated procedures and issues.
The starting point for a Judicial Review is a call to the Registrar of the Court for more information about court processes and procedures.
If the Mayor’s blog and the media release from the city are any indication, the city is going to gulp, swallow the decision and move on. The spin, so far, has been that the OMB decision is all the more reason to press on with approving the draft Official Plan.
There is a Statutory meeting at which residents can have their say on the draft Official Plan:
Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018
1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
City Hall, Council Chambers, level 2
426 Brant Street
That draft might want some additional modification based on the OMB decision. Taking their lumps for the failures in the city’s case – and that is what they were, the city now needs to take the time to fully assess what the decision says and figure out how to live with it and work with it going forward.
This isn’t the time for hasty decisions. It is the time to fess up and apologize for mistakes.
Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward has set out her position on the decision, the Mayor has thanked staff for all their fine work. The Gazette reached out to Mayoralty candidate Mike Wallace for a comment, they have said they will get back to us – nothing yet.
By Pepper Parr
February 9th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
At some point it looks as if we are going to be able to get everything at one location.
Loblaws owns Shoppers Drug Mart, they also owe the citizens of Ontario a bit of cash for the price fixing they were doing for 14 years – but that is another story.
 Shoppers Drug Mart is about to become the place where you can get your Presto transit card and have it loaded with the funds you need to get around town – when there is a transit service that will actually get you around town – but we digress.
Metrolinx, the people that operate the GO service – buses and trains – is entering into an agreement with the Presto service, that Burlington is required to use, that will provide some convenience for people who don’t manage their Presto card on line.
 Wine and beer in supermarkets – can the hard stuff be far behind? We can now purchase beer and wine in supermarkets. Cannabis is going to be sold in government operated retail outlets. The chance to get really stoned to celebrate the country’s 151st birthday has to be put on hold – the regulations for the selling of the weed won’t be in place in time.
 Cannabis won’t be sold at independent retail outlets – it will in in a provincially operated retail outlet – where in Burlington has yet to be determined. The politician who is overseeing the introduction of the public sale of cannabis is a former Toronto Chief of Police. The argument for having the government sell cannabis is to keep the business out of the hands of the criminals.
 Loblaws got to stay out of jail – we get a $25 gift card. The people who sold us overpriced bread for 14 years have slipped around being found guilty because they confessed which got them one of those Get Out of Jail Free cards.
If Loblaws, which owns Shoppers Drug Mart, is going to be giving anyone who asks a $25 gift card – there must be some way for a citizen to have that $25 applied to their Presto card
Will there be a candidate for public office in Burlington making that their campaign platform
Interesting how the federal government can defer plans but Burlington can’t find a way to defer the approval of a new Official Plan when there are so many people opposed to the pace at which the plan is being put forward.
The late Jane Irwin once told city Council that Burlington is called BORINGTON by many people – wonder what dear Jane would say today?
Salt with Pepper is an opinion and observations column written by the publisher of the Burlington Gazette
By Pepper Parr
February 1, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The Gazette has published the full State of the City address the Mayor gave to the city’s business leaders. We did so for the record – the document is there for anyone who wants to search the archives.
During the address the Mayor touched on several topics that are sensitive and disturbing to many residents – especially those in the downtown core.
Mayor Goldring said:
“Building a beautiful and vibrant Burlington is a never-ending marathon. There are always many hurdles to cross as the city will be around much longer than any of us.
Public Engagement is a critical piece of the decision making process for municipalities.
 Mayor during his Reverse Town Hall meeting – it was a bold move and it was clear that he did hear what the residents had to say. The City of Burlington was named the Organization of the Year by the International Association for Public Participation for applying the “Community Engagement Charter” adopted in 2013. It recognizes our mandate to consult and engage with residents in all matters.
As one judge put it “Employees now ask how to engage — not whether we should or not”.
As I look forward to our continued progress with public engagement, I am inspired by a 2017 lecture given by Bret Stephens of the New York Times to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia titled ‘The Dying Art of Disagreement’.
He suggests that we may be failing in how we deal with disagreement and that disagreement is critical to a decent society.
I want residents to know that Council recognizes the importance of accommodating differences on the many issues that we face as a city. The view is shared that “every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.”
To be successful, I am drawn to some simple advice from Bret Stephens of the New York Times that reads
“To disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, and watch closely. You need to grant people with alternate views moral respect; give people the intellectual benefit of the doubt; have sympathy for people’s motives and participate emphatically with a different line of reasoning. And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded by what has been said.”
We will continue to develop and improve how we connect with residents and engage our community and support discussions around issues with strongly held viewpoints – that is democracy.
The Gazette has followed the growth, and the lack of it on occasion, of Rick Goldring. The quote he refers to is something we dearly wish he has used during his Reverse Town Hall and when he was trying to get the audience listening to council debate the changes that will be part of the new Official Plan that has many very disturbed.
 We have seen this before in our Mayor – he comes across something that appeals to him and makes mention of it but he doesn’t seem to absorb what he has read.
There are a couple of thousand people who will scoff when the Mayor says he listens.
He means well – he truly does but that proverbial road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Salt with Pepper are the opinions of the Burlington Gazette publisher.
By Pepper Parr
January 21st, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Burlington is going through an experience it hasn’t had for some time.
They have taken back the power they gave the people they elected to office because those people have not exercised that power effectively or efficiently.
One speaker at the Mayor’s Reverse Town Hall told the Mayor that “You have lost our trust.”
Democracy is a delicate process, it needs constant care and attention which, unfortunately, many citizens have failed to provide.
 Politicians have to be held accountable – and not just during elections. Every member of the current council was re-elected in 2014 – they took that as a signal that they could continue doing what they had done the previous four years. That is the message the taxpayers sent.
And the voters in Burlington may well be sending a similar signal again.
Can you name people who are putting their names forward as candidates? The Gazette is aware of two young men who are planning to run for Council seats – unfortunately both are in the same ward so all the city will get is one of the two. Both would be welcome additions to council.
The Gazette has met with close to a dozen people encouraging them to run for office. In several cases they would earn more than what they are currently earning.
There is something noble about being chosen by your peers to represent and preserve what the city they have chosen to live in has going for itself.
There are conditions to being asked to serve; like being invited to dinner – you are expected to leave at some point. The current Council has two members who need to move on and recognize that fresh minds are needed.
When ending a career in civic service the idea is to get out at a high point.
Those who have been Councillors for a long time will not be motivated to move on if they don’t see younger, fresher faces biting at their ankles.
In the past we have seen people put their names forward who were not ready for public office and brought little in the way of wisdom or experienced to the table. There was at least one that got elected in 2010 that met that condition.
The new election rules – pushing back the nomination date to May 1 from January 1 makes it a little harder to create a profile or get known – but it can be done.
If a candidate cannot raise a team to get themselves elected to office then they are not ready for office.
There is a public waiting for good candidates to come forward.
Marianne Meed Ward delegated so often at city council in 2008, 2009 and 2010 that she became a known entity and got behind an issue that mattered to people.
The current Mayor wants to serve a third term, a former city Councillor and former Member of Parliament wants back in and will announce formally on Tuesday that he will run for the office of Mayor.
 The seat of government – yards away from the Cenotaph that recognizes those who lost their lives defending the democracy that gets practiced at city. There is an obligation to honour and respect their sacrifice. There is an Aldershot resident who ran for the Chairmanship of Regional Council in 2014 with absolutely no experience in municipal government who has now convinced himself that on the basis of the votes he got in 2014 he can get elected as Mayor of Burlington. There is a line in that poem: Twas the night before Christmas – “While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads” – the words were intended for children but an adult seems to have taken them on.
We get asked regularly “Is she going to run? Is she going to run?
Did God make little green apples?
Of course Meed Ward is going to run – she is being very strategic on choosing when she announces.
The question that follows is – who will run for the ward 2 seat? And is it possible for Meed Ward to end up with a council that will have 4-3 votes for motions.
The city didn’t like it all that much when Cam Jackson’s council produces a lot of those 4-3 votes and look where replacing Jackson got us. But that is another story.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column written from time to time by the publisher of the Gazette
By Pepper Parr
January 18th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The Engaged Citizens of Burlington, a newly formed group working towards a better Burlington for generations to come is particularly concerned with issues of planning and development.
They operate online and through community meetings to help build awareness on issues affecting Burlington residents and the community as a whole.
 The group planned a Workshop for volunteers that takes place this evening.
Unfortunately, the Office of the Mayor planned an event at the same time and while ECoB said they “applaud the Mayor for taking time to listen to the public” they did think that the Mayor’s office should have been aware of the meeting they had planned and been able to avoid a conflict.
 Rick Goldring during a 2014 election debate when two lightweight candidates went up against him. The 2018 election is going to be a lot different. Former Mayor Mike Wallace has thrown his hat into the ring – others are expected to follow. ECoB said they were under the impression that the January 23rd City Planning and Development Meeting was the time for the Mayor to listen to the public.
Matters got a little difficult for ECoB when the city manager sent them a letter threatening legal action if they did not remove some comments about the city planning department from their web site.
It’s all getting a little messy – there must be something in the water the people at city hall are drinking.
ECob is going ahead with their meeting.
The Mayor is going ahead with his Reverse Town Hall meeting.
They will all be at city hall on January 23rd for a critical Planning and Development meeting.
 Mike Wallace with Connie Smith. The day before – January 22nd, Mike Wallace a former city Councillor and former MP for Burlington will stand up in Civic Square and formally announce his intention to run for the Office of Mayor.
Suddenly everything comes into focus!
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column published from time to time.
By Pepper Parr
January 4th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
In the not too distant future Burlingtonians will learn what the provincially appointed Administration Review facilitator Margaret Wilson has to say about the Program Accommodation Review process that was used to close two of Burlington’s seven high schools.
How did this city get to this messy place?
The Gazette believes a large part of the reason was Marianne Meed Ward’s failure to lead.
How did a natural leader fail to lead when it really mattered?
 Meed Ward is a very astute politician – she chooses and issue and sticks with it asking people not just to vote for her but to trust her telling people: “I can do something about that”. I have watched Marianne Meed Ward develop as a politician since 2010. I sat in on a few of her early 2010 election campaign meetings. I was given an opportunity to be part of the team that was going to run her election.
 Marianne Meed Ward delegating as a citizen – before she had been elected to city Council. I have watched Meed Ward appear before council as a citizen delegate; she was tireless, deliberate, focused and consistent.
When she was elected I watched her begin the process of bringing city council around to a better way of operating. Her colleagues did not make it easy.
During the period of time after a car accident that resulted in a concussion that Meed Ward was not fully aware of, I watched her struggle through a city council meeting and then drove her home – it wasn’t that she couldn’t walk – she knew she shouldn’t.
That same evening all the members of city council were being entertained for a holiday event at the home of a Council member whose application for a property severance had been denied by the Committee of adjustment. The decision was appealed to the OMB at considerable cost to the city.
Meed Ward said she had not been invited to the event.
 Councillor Meed Ward has always wanted what council does to be on the record. She makes her colleagues stand up and be counted – and they don’t like it one bit. I vividly recall watching Meed Ward put her colleagues through five recorded votes at a city Council meeting. The Councillor closest to her philosophically, John Taylor, sat there rolling his eyeballs. Meed Ward wasn’t budging one inch; she wanted those Councillors to be on the record.
I watched Meed Ward mature as a politician. She has been described by some as divisive – and to some degree she was – but not to the majority of the people in her ward. They believed she could walk on water.
Meed Ward held frequent ward meetings. I recall one during which she blurted out that she “loved her job” and she did.
During her first few months in office she got a call from a constituent about some garbage on the street – Meed Ward drove out with her van and picked up the garbage.
During her first six months as a city Councillor the City Clerk had to point out to her that she had used up her postage budget. She used up much of her coffee and donuts budget well before the end of the fiscal year. Her job was to send out information and meet with people, which she did.
 Ward 2 Councillor Meed Ward has had her eye on the job of Mayor from the day she filed her first set of nominations papers. The public should get a chance to decide if she is what the city needs next October. She told her colleagues that that they should be paying for their parking – and that city staff should pay for their parking as well. Council didn’t agree with her – that didn’t faze Meed Ward – she said she was going to remit to the city the value of the free parking she was getting.
During the first election in 2010 Meed Ward had made it clear that she wanted at some point to be the Mayor.
She decided in 2014 that her children needed her at home and so she ran again in ward 2 and was handily re-elected.
With the 2018 municipal election in October expect to see Meed Ward running against the current Mayor.
The Gazette doesn’t agree with everything Meed Ward does but she is much, much closer to what a politician people in Burlington want to see representing them.
 Ward 2 city Councillor and Central high school parent Marianne Meed Ward at a school board PARC meeting. Which gets me to the point of all this: Where were those leadership skills when it came to Meed Ward’s service as a member of the Program Accommodation Review Committee (PARC)?
That group of fourteen people was desperate for some leadership. Meed Ward could have given the group a strong sense of what needed to be done.
What went wrong?
 PARC members deliberating with options on the walls The members of the PARC certainly knew who she was. There was some concern expressed over a member of city council taking part in a Board of Education matter.
The Gazette didn’t have a problem with Mead Ward taking on the assignment. The Central high school parents asked her to represent them and given that she had a child attending the school she qualified.
We believed that Meed Ward knew the difference between the two roles she was playing. She was doing what the Mayor should have done. Mayor Goldring took the weasel position of sending his city manager to the PARC – James Ridge displayed a significant lack of knowledge when he said the school board should not sell any school property. Once a property is declared surplus the Boards of Education are required to sell property.
It was pretty clear by the second formal PARC meeting that they were stumbling. While the Board of Education Superintendent who was tasked with running the PARC had a lot of rules that he imposed those 14 people were bound by any of them. They had no input in the creation of the rules and began to realize that they were being manipulated.
To this day I don’t understand why someone: Steve Cussens , Steve Armstrong, Lisa Bull or Cheryl De Lugt – anyone, didn’t invite everyone over for a BBQ and have a frank and open discussion. The opportunity was there – they didn’t take it.
 PARC members ranking the various school closing options that were put in front of them. Without the leadership that was needed the best the 14 PARC representatives could do was protect the school they were representing.
The chance to take the high road was missed. They ended up hurling invectives at each other. The Bateman people panicked when they saw their school as marked for closure and claimed the Central parents had thrown them under the bus.
Whatever opportunity there was for a consensus was lost; the people power Meed Ward talks about wasn’t seen at any of the PARC meetings.
There is a phrase that Meed Ward uses when she talks about why she got into public service: “What inspired me to seek public office in the first place – “I can do something about that!” And she certainly does something as a city Councillor.
She just didn’t follow that direction as a PARC member.
There was from the very beginning an option that would have solved the immediate problem; options was #7 – do nothing, don’t close any of the high schools. The option wasn’t worded all that well and had a bit of a battle to remain on the list.
Some PARC members thought such an option voided the whole purpose of the PAR process while others felt very strongly that the public had the right to voice an opinion on whether or not they wanted any of their high schools closed.
Mead Ward chose not to take that option and run with it using her formidable skills to rally the other 13 people to that position.
The PARC could have, indeed the Gazette believes they should have, arrived at a consensus – option # 7 was there for them.
 PARC member Marianne Meed Ward directing school board trustee Leah Reynolds on how to vote during some of the procedural issues. The best Meed Ward was able to do in terms of leadership came after the PARC had been disbanded was to send a text message to a trustee with directions on how to vote, while the trustees were deliberating before the final vote to close two high schools.
 A parent took a photo of Meed Ward’s iPad screen during a school board meeting that clearly showed she was instructing Reynolds. In one line, Meed Ward wrote; “DON’T VOTE IN FAVOR” and in another, “Do not uphold the Chair’s ruling.” It was not Meed Ward’s finest hour. Many people expected better.
Salt with Pepper are the opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette.
Related content:
If there was ever a time when real leadership was needed the above this was it; the PARC infighting was getting dirty.
Meed Ward had to decide how she wanted to position herself once the Director of Education released the final report.
By Pepper Parr
January 1st, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It always come down to a matter of trust.
Do you trust the person you are working with?
Do you trust the mechanic to fix your car?
Do you trust the grocer to sell you food that has not passed its best before date?
Trust doesn’t seem to go as far these days does it?
Learning that the largest supermarket operator in the country has been involved in the fixing of bread prices for more than ten years was a bit of a jolt. Many were stunned when they learned that Volkswagen was playing with the emission test results.
Hundreds of Ontario investors are out a lot of money because of foul play on the part of shady financial operators. These people wonder why the Ontario Securities Commission isn’t doing more to right the wrongs.
Thousands of Burlingtonians are close to furious with what they believe their elected officials seem prepared to let take place in terms of growth in the downtown core which they feel will destroy the city they love and live in.
Those same people question who the bureaucrats are working for and why recommendations they don’t believe reflect what the citizens want are sent to city council.
In 2010 the citizens of the city decided they didn’t like the way the then Mayor, Cam Jackson was doing his job and they turfed him. They elected a council that was quite a bit different led by a new Mayor they trusted.
Hold over Councillors Taylor, Dennison and Craven were re-elected. The sense was that Councillors Meed Ward, Lancaster and Sharman and a new Mayor was enough to change the way things were being done.
The electorate was satisfied enough to re-elect all seven members of city council which then let the bureaucrats foist a tag line on them that said:
Burlington is one of Canada’s best and most livable cities, a place where people, nature and business thrive.
The problem with the tag line is that it isn’t true – the “best city” part comes from a magazine that runs a poll each year and they declared the city was the “best”. The citizens of the city didn’t come to that conclusion – a publisher somewhere made that statement and the bureaucrats fell in love with it.
Far too many of the citizens are disagreeing with that statement – the trust that needs to be there is no longer in place.
 A rapt audience listened to an overview of a city budget. Make no mistake however that tens of thousands of the people that live in Burlington love their city – the way it is. They are not opposed to change but they want to be involved in the decisions that are made and when they speak they want to be heard.
When a group of well-meaning people take the time to gather names on a petition they don’t want to be belittled and denigrated by a member of council who suggest the names gathered are suspect.
 Monte Dennis delegating at city council.  Vanessa Warren delegating at city council. People who don’t have much experience speaking to others don’t want to feel inadequate when they have finished their delegation and are not asked a single question.
 Gary Scobie delegating at city council  Jim Young delegating at city council Burlington is fortunate to have some very accomplished people who address council; this writer cannot remember a single situation where an idea put forward by a citizen has been taken up by council. With the exception of Councillor Meed Ward, none of the others offer to get back to the speaker and follow up. They may do so – but they aren’t seen to do so.
It is a trust issue which this council does not appear to hear or even understand.
 The quality of the image is terrible – the city has chosen not to invest in cameras that will produce a decent image. These are the messengers.  By way of example – the images from Board of Education meetings are clear – and their vote recording system actually works. Much of what city council is given in the way of staff reports infuriates intelligent, informed people who expect better. City managers serve at the will of council and they take their direction from Council. The bureaucrats are just the messengers – look to the people the bureaucrats serve for the kind of direction you want – and then press on to ensure that your message is heard.
And good luck – very few new faces wanting to become city council members have come forward. We are aware of two – need more than that. Four of the incumbents might not even be challenged.
Blame yourselves for what you have.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column written by Pepper Parr, the publisher of the Gazette.
By Pepper Parr
December 21st, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Every media document the city sends out and many of the reports that come out of city hall have the tag line:
Burlington is one of Canada’s best and most livable cities,
a place where people, nature and business thrive.
It’s the kind of thing George Orwell wrote about in “1984” – the rule seems to be that if you say it often enough it becomes true. Did the person at city hall who wrote the line believe it? It was probably done by a committee with the final version being signed off on by the city manager.
For those who rely on public transit there must be a very cruel irony –there will be no transit service on either Christmas Day or New Year’s Day.
The holiday transit schedule is set out below.
Salt with Pepper are the opinions of the Publisher of the Burlington Gazette.
By Pepper Parr
November 19th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
How can citizens have some control over the changes that are made to their city?
The current crop of politicians on city council take the view that they were elected to lead and so they bring their values and approaches to leadership – failing to connect in a meaningful way with what their constituents think.
That just might be changing in Burlington.
There are currently three community groups protesting against decisions that city council has made or might be making in the months ahead.
The 421 Brant development is a done deal. The best the citizens were able to do was put together a petition and pack the city hall chamber with unhappy people. City council paid even less than lip service to their concerns and approved the project. There is a rumbling going on about a possible appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) that doesn’t look as if it has any traction.
 Approved by city Council November 13th, 2017 While the 421 Brant decision is truly trans formative for the city – there wasn’t a deep understanding as to just what it is going to mean longer term. And while there were some strong points made during the delegations at the council meeting where the development was approved – there wasn’t a focused group behind the protests.
And, not everyone was against the development.
Brant street is a bit of a mess – it is a location badly in need of some of that “vitality” many think it already has. There are those who want things to be the way they were 40 years ago. The decision to grow the population and the geographical boundaries the city has to work within meant growing “up” and not out. The Burlington we had 40 years ago is no more.
 There are two other projects that have people upset: The plans Meridian Brick has to begin mining for shale in the eastern sector of their property off the upper part of King Road and the Tyendaga Environmental Coalition (TEC) group that wants to bring that to a halt.
 West Have residents don’t want the third shale quarry site to get into production. Saving their homes and 9000 trees is seen as critical to a planet that is staring climate change in the face. Then there is the Plan B group that wants to ensure that the city doesn’t screw up the re-development of the Waterfront Hotel site.
 What a group of well funded citizens want the re-development of the Waterfront Hotel site to look like. The TEC and the Plan B people are taking a much more focused and well-funded approach to their issues.
The best that the people opposed to the height of the 421 development could do was get the support of the ward Councillor and deliver a petition to city council.
The Plan B and the TEC group have gone to their community and raised funds and then retained professional help to take on city hall.
There is talk amongst the movers and shakers about creating a slate of candidates for public office in Burlington and electing a council that represents the interests of everyone and not just the limited understanding that most members of the current city council have.
 City Council: Three of the seven were first elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. One of the other four has been around for as long as 24 years. To be fair to this city council – they were all re-elected in 2014 after being elected in 2010 – they felt they had a mandate. The people that are complaining now are the people that voted them all back into office in 2014. Surely there was enough evidence at the end of their 2010 term of office to know what they were going to deliver.
Are they politically adroit enough to change course and get ahead of the parade of protest that is taking place?
Or will enough of them give it up and move on to retirement. Councillors Dennison and Taylor have been in office for more than 20 years, the Mayor and Councillor Craven have close to 15 years as public servants behind them.
The big question is going to be – where will the new blood come from? Are there any prospective candidates out there that show at least some promise?
Salt with Pepper is the publisher’s opinion column.
By Pepper Parr
November 15, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The decision has been made.
The condominium that is to be built on the corner of Brant and James Street is to rise up to 23 storeys.
How many parking spaces, the number of elevators, how many, if any, affordable units – all that will get worked out in the months and weeks ahead.
We now know that the land assembly of the block to the south is all but complete – just the jewellery store to be acquired.
What we heard however is that the block to the south – the one that was once the Elizabeth Interiors operation – is going to be limited to 17 stories – a limit that is set out in the Downtown Core Mobility Hub that isn’t cast in stone yet.
That could be both a mistake and a missed opportunity.
We have yet to hear much in the way of negative comment on city hall as a structure. It gets referred to as “iconic” and the city planner likes the building.
Given that we are going to have high rise buildings can we not make the best of it. If the city hall is really “iconic” (I’ve yet to be convinced) then feature it.
While Burlingtonians hate Toronto being made a reference point – bear with me.
When you drive up University Avenue from Front Street and approach Adelaide there are two towers (Toronto type towers) on either side of the street. Both are Sun Life Assurance buildings meant to frame University as you go north.
 Set aside that the two buildings on either side of University Avenue in Toronto loom over the street – it’s Toronto. Note the way they frame the street. The photograph we have dropped in isn’t all that good but it makes the point. It is possible to have buildings in place that serve as a frame to what lies beyond.
Now come back to Burlington and place yourself on James Street a block or two along the street and look towards city hall.
 James Street looking west to Brant Street. The current Carriage Gate building, on the right in the photograph, which is going to be turned into a 23 story tower. That is a done deal.
The property on the left, now the vacated Elizabeth Interiors store will fall within the rules that are going to govern the development limits for the Downtown Mobility Hub.
There is an opportunity here.
Someone with initiative and a desire to see something significant come out of the decision that has been made could pick up an idea like this and make a difference.
Why not work with Carriage Gate and Revenue Properties (the people who are assembling the block south of Brant and James) and build a better city.
Look for a design that is as close as possible to identical in design and have them rise to the same height. Same set back from the side walk; same trees, same patio set up, same sidewalk furniture.
The public art set outside each building would complement each other.
That is something that people could be proud of and perhaps change the way downtowners look upon their city. For those who need the quaint and historical the Queen’s Head and the old Russel Hotel will still be there.
Can the 421 project be more than just the first high rise tower in the downtown core?
Look at the Sun life building on University.
All this assumes that those opposed to the Carriage Gate building don’t take their beef to the OMB.
By Pepper Parr
November 13, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Petitions!
Do they make a difference?
 The 421 Brant development, approved by a city council Standing Committee, goes before city council for approval this evening. Are they an accurate barometer of what the public in general is thinking or are they an opportunity for people who are opposed to something to show their opposition?
Do the politicians pay attention to petitions?
In many cases a petition is the only voice people have when they want to oppose something their government.
The current petition asking the city to stick to the current zoning for the northeast corner of Brant and James streets was put forward by Joanne and Kevin Arnold who said they created the petition to change something they cared about. 1384 people have added their name so far.
The people who are opposed to the New Street Road Diet have collected 2641 signatures as of January – that is the most recent number – appear to have signatures from the ward the bike lanes are in.
UPDATE: As of Nov 13th there are 3262 signatures, plus 500 signatures on a hard copy of the petition.
A number of years ago Councillor Marianne Meed Ward created a petition to oppose the sale of lake front property the city owned between Market and St. Paul Street – she got more than 2000 names on that petition. The property was still sold.
Those opposed to the now recommended development at Brant and James have the right to delegate before city council.
The city is faced with a serious problem – they are required to add significantly to the population of the city and there isn’t very much land on which to build new homes. They can’t build out – so they are going to build up. And they chose to recommend to council that a project that would have 23 storeys be approved. The 5-2 vote was pretty emphatic.
Are those opposed to the development – they say they are not opposed to height they just don’t want it built on property so close to the waterfront – wanting a Burlington that cannot be sustained?
Gary Scobie delegating before city council – he was one of the few that had anything to say about the development at a city Standing Committee early in November. There were not very many public delegations speaking against the development when it was at the Standing Committee stage. The city manager spoke more forcefully for the project than any city manager has spoken in this reporter’s memory.
City councils are elected – put in office to serve the people. If the public is really, really, really opposed to this project have several hundred of the 1380 who signed the petition get off their couches and head for city hall and use their five minutes to demand that city council respect their wishes.
Something like THAT would have an impact.
The Gazette has published the delegation Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident will make to city Council this evening. A review of the comments about his delegation is worth a read – it gives a sense as to how the public feels about this issue.
An Open Letter from former Mayor Mary Munro to the current Mayor is also a solid insight on how this development proposal has been managed.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column written by the publisher and sole share holder of the Burlington Gazette.
By Pepper Parr
November 9th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
What is the rush?
 The Draft of the Official Plan will be public on Friday – it runs close to 1000 pages. Those with a major interest in the contents of that document are going to have less than 20 days to respond to it.
Suzanne Mammel, the Halton Hamilton Home Builders Association (HHHBA) Executive Officer explains that Official Plans usually go through at least half a dozen versions. The current document is in its second version.
Burlingtonians complain loudly and frequently about how city council fails to uphold there Official Plan.
There are four Mobility Hub studies taking place. The city wants to get the Downtown Core Mobility Hub approved before the end of the year.
 There are the plans for the redevelopment of the Waterfront Hotel property that the city is pushing with their Emerging Preferred Concept. There are citizens who don’t like what they are seeing.
What’s the rush?
The word is that James Ridge the city manager wants as much of this as possible approved by city council before they all move into major election mode.
There are citizens who want to suggest to the city manager that he lighten up and let these issues become election issues.
Related news stories:
The HHHBA has issues with the draft Official Plan.
What the HHHBA had to say with the first version of the Official Plan
By Pepper Parr
September 16th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
In the near future there will be an announcement on the appointment of a Facilitator who will review the request for an Administrative Review of the Halton District School Board trustee decision to close two of the city’s seven high schools.
There was a request from the parents at Pearson high school and a request from the parents at Bateman high school for Administrative reviews.
The bar to getting a review was not low – the parents had to show they had wide community support.
The Facilitator will meet with each parent group and meet with the Board of Education staff for reaction from them.
And in the fullness of time there will be a response.
What if – the Facilitator decides there was enough wrong with the process and recommends that the PAR be done again?
 Would another PAR Committee be formed? The Board would, we think, have to create a new Program Accommodation Review (PAR) and put a new recommendation forward. Would a new recommendation be any different than the first which was to close Pearson and Central and then revised to close Pearson and Bateman?
Assume all this happens.
Would the current Board of Trustees act any differently?
The power to make a decision exists at the Board of Trustee level and that group does not appear to be in touch with the sentiment in the community.
Unfortunately the Burlington communities are quite fractured – making it difficult for the trustees to make a decision.
 The Central parents were out early and they spared no effort to make sure they told their story. Central high school parent care only that their school not be closed. They put forward very solid arguments and did a superb job of rallying the parents and focusing the concerns.
The Pearson parents didn’t have anywhere near the resources that Central had and there was a lingering unwillingness to be as bold and as forward as the Central parents were.
The Batman parents failed to read the tea leaves.
The issue the trustees were given was that Burlington has 1800 classroom seats with no students in them. (We appreciate the 1800 number is debatable.) If this was true, it was evident the moment the first map showing where the high schools were located that Batman was at significant risk. They failed to see that until their name was on the list of schools to be closed and while they have done a decent job of getting their story out they have not shown an ability to work with the Pearson parents and create a united front.
 That empty room was a damaging and telling statement made by the Bateman parents. The Bateman grievances are real. They have every reason to feel that they have not been heard. Part of the reason is they didn’t say very much early in the game when it counted.
Given all the turmoil within the different parent groups is it any wonder that the trustees took the safe route and went with the recommendation they were given by the Director of Education?
There was within all the options put before the trustees one that would have given the community the time it needed to take a long hard look at just what Burlington has in the way of high schools and what it needs now and what will be needed ten years from now.
 Option 7 – close no schools – was on the table but it didn’t get a lot of support from the PARC – this tally was 8 out of 14. Option number 7 was to not close any schools and take some time to determine just what future needs were going to be. Much of the data the Board staff put forward was suspect and didn’t stand up to the scrutiny the PAR tried to impose.
The public may have expected the trustees to make that kind of decision – the current board of trustees just isn’t up to that task.
Someone is going to have to come forward and pull the parent groups together and hammer out what they collectively want and take whatever consensus they can find to the Board administration and the trustees.
And then begin looking for trustee candidates across the Region to fill those seats with people who are up to the task.
Salt with Pepper are the opinions of the publisher of the Gazette
 By Pepper Parr
September 11th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The original headline on this article has been revised: a reader took exception to the use of the phrase: “pulling teeth from hens” which she felt was sexist. We didn’t see it that way and that certainly wasn’t our intention.
This is begining to feel like we are trying to pull teeth from hens: just release the documents.
A number of weeks ago the Gazette asked Ward 1 and 2 school board trustee Leah Reynolds if she would send us the complete contents of the texts she sent and received from Marianne Meed Ward during the June 7th Board of Education meeting. That was the meeting at which the trustees decided to close two of the city’s seven high schools.
We asked the same question of Marianne Meed Ward who is member of city council and served on the Program Accommodation Review committee that was not able to arrive at a consensus or send a direction or recommendation to the Director of Education and to the trustees.
Some would argue that writing a direction or recommendation was not part of their mandate. So?
Everyone seems to share the view that the process was flawed – any comment from the members of that PARC would have been welcome – and might have given the trustees a clearer sense as to what was wrong with the process used.
Reynolds replied to our request with the following:
 Trustee Reynolds had a heavy book marked edition of Robert Rules of Order – clearly came to the meeting prepared to fight a procedural battle – with a parents who is also a member of city council “coaching” her from the public gallery. Thank you for your question, which I would have gladly provided to you earlier if asked.
Before, during and after meetings, I – as do all trustees – receive messages, questions and concerns from constituents and parents. As confirmed by the Chair at the June 7th and the June 21st meetings that communication does not violate any code of conduct nor is it contrary to any Board policy. As elected officials, hearing from our communities is part of the democratic process and the right of constituents to freedom of expression. While I cannot control who or what information parents or constituents send me, it is my job to listen and to take it into consideration to inform my questions and decision.
School closure conversations are difficult and the decisions are not desired by all of the residents of our community. My remarks were recorded on June 7 on why I supported the director’s report. Let me know if you want them.
The question was – would she send the texts that were exchanged by Meed Ward and Reynolds – which she chose not to answer.
We asked the same question of Meed Ward – we copied each of them on the separate message sent which was as follows:
I am putting together an article on how the Board of Trustees arrived at the decision they did to close two of the city’s seven high schools.
The communication between you and Trustee Reynolds during the debate are part of that story. Would you be good enough to send me all of the texts that you sent to Reynolds during the meeting.
If you wish please feel free to add any comment on the context within which the texts were sent.
Thank you – hope you and the family had a great summer.
Meed Ward came back with:
There is nothing to send. There was no communication during debate of the school closure motions.
As has been previously explained, the communication via text was related to a procedural matter prior to any discussion of the motions themselves, specifically a ruling of the chair on what order motions would be heard.
 Marianne Meed Ward texting messages to trustee Leah Reynolds during a Board of Education meeting. Some of the content appeared to be instructions on how to vote on a procedural matter. There was never a risk of motions not being debated; the issue was simply in what order – simultaneously or sequentially. Getting procedure right protects the outcome of any subsequent vote, thus protecting everyone’s interests including those making this an issue.
The communication had nothing to do with the votes on the school closure motions themselves, and no impact on them.
In the end the chair’s ruling was upheld 7-4 by trustees, the debate and votes on the dual campus and school closures proceeded simultaneously for another three hours. There was no communication during these debates and votes.
My communication is no different than the many emails or texts that were sent by other parents to trustees through the meetings. What makes this different and why it has become a story is because someone read and photographed private correspondence, published it on social media, then misrepresented the substance of the text in a broadcast news story. There was no effort to contact me directly for the truth about the communication, simply a rush to judgment with the aim of social shaming, via the press and social media.
That Ms Meed Ward is precisely the point –part of what you texted was read and it didn’t look all that good. Let the public see every word that was passed between the two of you – they will figure it out.
Some folks have willingly engaged in character assassination as a tactic to save their school. I understand the emotions involved in having your school on the closure list – having lived with it for the previous 6 months. But the ends don’t justify the means. We need to do better than this, especially on difficult issues like school closures. Thankfully the vast majority of citizens have been respectful in sharing their views and making their case throughout this process with facts and evidence, and without personal attacks.
I think there is a splitting of hairs here – the little bit of the texting that the public was able to see appeared to be directions from Meed Ward to trustee Reynolds.
The Bateman community managed to interest CHCH television in the story. The ran a piece on their newscast – link to that broadcast is HERE.
There is considerable concern within the community on just what happened. We have no idea what the two woman were up to. If there is a public concern both woman have an obligation to release whatever the content of the texts were – with time stamps on them.
Related news stories:
Bateman parents want an investigation.
Parents want trustee suspended.
Parent admits sending message – she wasn’t just any parent either
By Pepper Parr
September 6th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Ken, an intelligent citizen who comments in the Gazette from time to time, made an interesting comment earlier this week.
Burlington Citizens are in charge of their future, he said. “If the people of Burlington want to build to accommodate more people then let’s see how the voting goes in 2018.”
That election is more than a year away but some of the ducks are already being lined up.
 Cute – why doesn’t the man just come out and say that on May 1, 2018 he expect to file nomination papers. There are three who covet the Mayor’s chain of office: The current occupant who has said in a very coy way that he is in the race.
Mike Wallace has been telling anyone who will give him 15 seconds of their time that he too is in the race.
And we assume the ward 2 council member Marianne Meed Ward is still in the race. She was running for Mayor when she ran in 2010. Meed Ward had run previously in Ward 1 against Councillor Craven.
Mike Wallace was a member of council for a number of years and expected to be the Mayoral candidate but found himself in a federal election where he won and was off to Ottawa.
Greg Woodruff, an Aldershot resident, has run some numbers based on the votes he got when he ran against Regional Chair Gary Carr and figured out that he has a chance of winning. Will he toss his hat in the ring? Who knows?
 Meed Ward loves her job; she revels in pulling people together. During her first term of office she spent her annual postage allotment in a couple of months – she was mailing everything to almost everyone. At the Mayoral level there is an interesting situation. Meed Ward has her tribe’ they will stand by her – the question is – does she have enough people in the other five wards that will be with her?. If she has – and she seems to believe she does – then the question becomes this – is her vote bigger than what Wallace and the Mayor have to split?
The Meed Ward vote is not going to go to either Wallace or the Mayor. Those two will have to share what Meed Ward doesn’t get.
 The Mayor spent the night of the federal election watching he vote come in at Mike Wallace’s headquarters. Mike must feel that he can pull in more of the vote that Meed Ward doesn’t get than the Mayor can.
 Wallace congratulating Gould on her defeating him for the Burlington federal seat – it will be interesting if Wallace becomes Mayor and has to deal regularly with the woman that beat him. Mike has profile, he has been around a long time and he wants the job – close to desperately.
The Mayor chose to go the photo op route – he couldn’t sustain the approach his Chief of Staff Frank McKeough developed for him during his first term.
The Mayor has gone through four Staff Chief’s. He hasn’t delivered on any of his environmental issues – still no private tree bylaw – and he hasn’t been identified with an issue that the public is fully in support of. And he seems to have to cling to the New Street Road diet.
Meed Ward is described as “divisive” – she is focused. She knows where she stands and sticks by her decisions. There isn’t the understanding of the economics of land values that the job needs.
Often, whenever ward 1 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward appears at events with the Mayor she sounds more “mayoral” than the man who wears the chain of office. Should she win her first two years will be hectic – she will want to do everything at the same time. Meed Ward believes she will be a great Mayor. Whether she is not will become evident in the third and fourth year of her first term.
At the council level – no one is going to beat Craven in Ward 1; Leah Reynolds was being primed for the ward 2 seat by Meed Ward but the fiasco with the texts sent between the two during the school closing debate might put a wrinkle in those plans
There is a credible candidate for ward 3 – the issue there is whether or not John Taylor is ready to retire. He has deep deep support in the community but 30 years is a long time. At some point the harness has to be put away – and if Taylor likes the look of the candidate he might decide to support the person and mentor him during the first term.
The potential candidate was raised in the ward and currently holds a very important job at another level of government.
 Jack Dennison the day he announced the sale of Cedar Spring. his health club operation. Ward 4? Can Dennison be beaten – Of course he can but not by a candidate who comes into the race late in the game and doesn’t have a team or the funding. Dennison has name recognition – some think the recognition is past its best before date.
Ward 5 – Sharman holds sway there and there doesn’t appear to be any one in the trenches prepared to do the work to take him on.
There is hope for a change in ward 6 – there is at least one very credible candidate who would do a superb job of representing the residents. Career options are a family issue there.
Do a head count at the council level: Craven, Dennison and Sharman are close to a given. If the right people are elected in wards 2, 3 and 6 – and Meed Ward is Mayor – Burlington will be a much different city.
We thought we saw it that way in 2014 and we were dead wrong. No predictions at this point – but the possibilities are intriguing.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column written by the publisher.
By Pepper Parr
August 8th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
It is less than a year away. In June of 2018 we will elect a provincial government.
The provincial Liberals have been in office since 2003 and are described by many as tired and no longer have that edge one needs to govern a province the size of Ontario.
 Katherine Wynne decided to sell part of Hydro to raise the money for needed infrastructure projects. Many thought she had made a serious mistake. Hydro rates bother a lot of people and the selling of a significant part of Hydro One is seen as close to criminal by many.
The attention being paid to the upgrading of our infrastructure – roads, rails – and the building of hospitals has been admirable. Will all that be enough?
Wynne put immense pressure on the federal government to improve the Canada Pension Plan by creating an Ontario pension plan – the federal government caved in and improved the federal plan – something every Canadian can be grateful for.
The raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour suggests the Wynne government hasn’t completely lost touch with what the province needs. The pressure from the private sector is immense – Loblaws is lobbying her fiercely.
 Patrick Brown is going to have a Joe Clarke experience. Keeping the provincial economy sound and maintaining the NAFTA agreement with an American president who wants to tear it up before he gets committed to either a mental health institution or a prison is not a small matter. Something well beyond the capacity of Patrick Brown.
When deciding who you want to run the government, being angry and wanting to get rid of what you have, requires a look at what the options are. The pickings aren’t all that inviting.
Andrea Horwath hasn’t excited anyone other than the limited NDP base and the support for her there isn’t exactly overwhelming. And there doesn’t appear to be a number two within the NDP ranks.
Patrick Brown struggles to define just what it is he wants to do – and seems to have an edition of his platform that is tailored for whichever part of the province he is in.
In Burlington it has been difficult to get a sense of what the Conservative candidate, Jane McKenna, has to say or to even get a look at her.
The Gazette has reached out to the Conservative’s in Burlington – they haven’t been returning calls.
Brown is still learning his way as the Conservative party leader – he should be aware that he isn’t going to hold that job for all that long.
 When she was a speaker at the federal Conservative leadership convention earlier in the year it was evident what the Mulroney game plan was – Caroline was headed for the leadership o the provincial Tories. The game changer is Brian Mulroney’s daughter Caroline, who has been nominated to run as the Conservative candidate in York–Simcoe, north of Toronto. She appears to have a home in Forest Hill, a very tony part of Toronto and a home in a township within the York Simcoe riding.
The team guiding the Caroline Mulroney nomination campaign are keeping her away from national media while they woo the locals. The sitting member for York Simcoe, is the longest serving female member of the provincial legislature and has thrown her support behind Mulroney.
Caroline Mulroney did not decide to enter provincial politics to sit as a back bencher at Queen’s Park. That is not the way the Mulroney’s do business
She will win the York – Simcoe seat and while she has zilch legislative experience the pressure on Brown to put her in his shadow Cabinet is something he will not be able to resist. Should he win the provincial election, which is a big assumption, the pressure to put her in his Cabinet will be even stronger.
The Mulroney’s are going to do to Patrick Brown what they did to Joe Clarke.
It will not take too long for Caroline Mulroney to outshine Patrick Brown and begin the move to ousting the poor man when there is a leadership convention.
Jane McKenna, who has been particularly adroit at figuring out where the power is in a room, will find herself warming up to Ms Mulroney as quickly as she possibly can.
 She has a strong profile: Caroline Mulroney is a lawyer, has experience in the financial sector and the required philanthropic foundation. Ms Mulroney is in this for the long term. Should she find herself on the Opposition benches the goal will be the same – to gain the leadership of the Conservative party in Ontario.
So what the public wants to do is look very carefully as Caroline Mulroney – is this the woman that is going to restore the Progressive Conservatives to power in Ontario?
Patrick Brown might, and this is a small might, defeat Kathryn Wynne. She is a formidable campaigner and she does not like to lose. She also believes that Ontario has done well by the Liberal government she has led.
These are all small matters – Catherine Mulroney is going to lead the Ontario Progressive Conservative party and will at some point defeat the Liberals.
 Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and daughter Caroline arrive at the church for the state funeral for the late Jim Flaherty. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Wynne might prevail and get back in but 2018 will be her last election and there is no one on the Liberal front bench that can take the leadership and defeat Ms Mulroney.
The only thing in the woman’s way is any stupid mistake she could make. Highly unlikely – her Father will be up to his ears in her campaign and he will call in every favour he has and then some.
An opportunity to create a Mulroney dynasty is too much for Brian Mulroney to take a pass on.
By Pepper Parr
June 26th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Everyone is blaming the eleven trustees for the decision they made to close two of Burlington’s seven high schools.
 The trustees needed a clear signal from the parents – they didn’t get one. All they did was their job. The signals they got from parents were pure self-interest. Central fought like crazy to get their name off the close list. They did that by organizing and putting facts on the table.
Lester B. Pearson put very solid facts on the table – they had the best of the arguments to not lose their school.
 The Board staff did everything they could to tell parents that changes were in the wind. The Bateman parents at first paid no attention whatsoever about the school closing issue – they saw themselves as safe and did nothing.
When they realized they weren’t safe at all – that they were at serious risk they had to scramble to get their story out. It was a very solid story – few people outside Bateman knew how successful a school Bateman really is. The closing of that school is going to be very disruptive for families that have had more than their share of disruption.
The trustees were faced with a situation where the Board made a recommendation, then changed that recommendation and then proceeded to hold several meetings that left few parents happy with the way things were going.
 It was too little too late – Bateman parents who deserved better treatment got caught up in a turf war they didn’t see coming. Many of the students at the school will suffer because of their individual circumstances. It didn’t need to happen this way. What was clear during the Program Accommodation Review (PAR) process was that no one really wanted to see a school closed. It took a bit of time for the PAR committee to coalesce as a group and when they did it was evident that they had within them the capacity to come up with some innovative ideas. They needed more time.
One Gazette commentator pointed out that the city spent more time on deciding what to do with the Freeman Station than the school board allowed for the parents to have a meaningful input on the school closing decision.
When city hall made the wrong decision citizens moved in and got it right – on our sesquicentennial next Saturday you will be able to tour a really well preserved Freeman train station that served this city well. Citizens inevitably make the right decision – they just need some leadership.
The PAR committee learned, much to their surprise, that what they understood innovation to mean was not what the parents meant. What we saw was the size of the divide between a protected part of the economy (school board staff) and the private sector that has to earn its bread every day.
 Option # 7 don’t close any of the high schools.  Option 19 – the Staff recommendation,  What turned out not to be possible for the PAR committee to do was to settle on just the one recommendation and that was to not close any schools and to change some of the school boundaries.
It was there for them to choose – #7.
But instead the different communities chose to protect their own turf and do whatever they could to save their school.
Imagine – just imagine if the PAR had settled on the one option – # 7 and then said to the trustees – don’t you dare close any schools until this issue has been thoroughly reviewed and the community agrees on what is best for the whole community.
 Delegations argued their individual school case and in doing so lost an opportunity to put a collective case in front of the trustees and direct them to listen to the parents. And imagine if every one of the 50+ delegations had said the same thing – don’t you dare close any of these schools. Direct the staff to do a better job of coming up with a better solution.
Had the PAR committee and the delegations done what they could have done – do you think the trustees would have voted the way they did?
And had the community pulled together the way they could have we would not have the rancour and really bad feelings between the parents at one school feeling as aggrieved as they have a right to feel.
The matter of those 1800 empty seats is a concern – the world is not going to come to an end if many of those seats remain empty for a while. The 1800 number isn’t apparently the real number – it is somewhat less but it is an issue that needs serious attention.
The trustees had little choice – they didn’t fail – the parents failed. What the trustees got was a set of very mixed messages – close theirs but don’t close mine. Some argue that the Board of Education set things up so just this would happen. I don’t believe they did – but if they did – did we have to follow that direction?
All you had to do was say No! Every one of you – just say No! That didn’t happen and the trustees went to the safest corner they could find – the wishes of the staff. One Burlington trustee who campaigned on no school closures went along with her colleagues and voted to let Bateman high school close.
The upside, and it is small, is that trustees get chosen again in just over a year and maybe someone will find a way to get something on the agenda that takes a second look at the decision made June 7th, 2017.
The properties are not going to be sold to developers for years – if they are sold at all. Right now the plan is to close them and that is a decision we have to live with because we let it happen.
Those who buy into the belief that Burlington is the best mid-sized city in the country are probably the same people who claim downtown Burlington is vibrant.
We are really better people than this.
Work together, work for each other and make the place the city that has more than a wonderful waterfront and a magnificent escarpment going for it.
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