By Pepper Parr
November 2nd, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
On Monday October 30th, Wendy Fletcher delegated to City Council virtually.
Her delegation was about the budget that was being discussed by Council. On the day she delegated Councillors were hearing what the City Treasurer had presented, which had been named the Needs document. It wasn’t a budget per se, it was a document that set out in considerable detail (750 + pages) what she, as treasurer, believed the city was getting in terms of revenue and what the city was facing in the way of expenses.
The report delivered to Council on Monday October 30th.
The treasurer determined that a tax increase of 7.6% would be needed.
Mayors in Ontario were given stronger powers on July 1st and had the right to submit their own budget and make any staff changes they felt were necessary including firing the City Manager. Mayor Meed Ward has consistently said she did not have the right to delegate any of the Strong Mayors powers and that she was required to create a budget.
Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns chastises a delegator during her presentation. As Deputy Mayor she oversees Citizen Participation.
Fletcher began to give the following delegation. She was brusquely interrupted by the Standing Committee chair Lisa Kearns who objected to comments Fletcher was making about city Staff.
The Gazette has published below the complete delegation with the words Fletcher was told she could not use set out in red.
Fletcher had a Petition she wanted to present as part of her delegation but was not permitted to do so.
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On Oct 31, 2023, the day after she delegated, Fletcher got an email from Arjoon (City Clerk) advising her that the petition she wanted to submit was moved to Nov 14, 2023. No reason was given. Fletcher commented: “Regardless of any reason he may conjure up subsequently, this refusal to allow me to participate and to refuse to allow my petition which was submitted well within the required timelines, to be included as part of the public record on the date of the council item it was objecting to, constitutes a violation of my rights as a taxpayer.” What are Arjoon was doing was moving a citizens petition that opposed a budget the Mayor was presenting to a date after the Mayor had formally presented her budget. Ms Fletcher maintains doing so “… is a deliberate move by the city to prevent taxpayers from knowing of its existence until all city participation in the budget has ceased as no one visiting the city’s website for the Nov 2 call or the Nov 7 meeting will have any knowledge of the material. It will be as if it doesn’t exist. Further it is a deliberate move to disallow me to participate in this process, a right I am granted by law. “By refusing to allow my petition to be on record until Nov 14, it also impinges on the rights of every person who signed the petition. As well it violates the rights of every property owner in the city of Burlington as you take away their right to make alternate decisions by withholding information from them. “City council had no problem accepting a similar petition with respect to the potential development in Millcroft going so far as to include it in press releases. But a petition against the proposed property tax increase gets removed until a point that it’s past all public input? “In addition to violating my rights on several levels, this move is unethical, lacks integrity and is massively oppressive. The City of Burlington claims they want city involvement. There are almost 2000 people saying they don’t want this tax increase. And city hall’s response is to silence them. That’s not taxpayer involvement. That’s dictatorship. Given the violation of my rights and your own policies, I have filed a complaint with the Ombudsman’s “I want my petition marked as part of the public record for Nov 2 ,2023 as I was told it would be, and as is my right under law.” The following is the delegation Wendy Fletcher gave on October 30th The operating budget underwent a line-by-line review by the CFO and Service Leads. This review checked the operating budgets for reasonableness and adjusted where appropriate to find budget savings and reduce costs. If this is true, maybe we need a new CFO. One who doesn’t need almost 8% increases to do her job. Ms. Joan Ford clearly didn’t read the budget survey results that overwhelmingly do not support these increases Pg 33 of Financial Needs and Multi Year Forecasts uses BMA and a group average to try to say that Burlington taxes are lower than Oakville and Toronto. Just like many of the ways City Hall presents information to taxpayers, it is flawed, skewed data that’s manipulated to serve the city’s purpose. The fact is that Burlington residential taxes are significantly higher than both Oakville and Toronto. That information buried so the amount per 100,000 or the residential tax rate (RT) is not easily found. Other cities are upfront. Burlington is not. It is purposely deceitful. Both in these glorified presentations and on the City’s website. Burlington’s residential urban rate is 0.00861442 Oakville’s is 0.760437% or 0.00760437 Toronto is 0.506079% or 0.00506079  Mayor Marianne Meed Ward For the 2023 tax increase the city used the budget survey to support the tax increases. That they did so is unethical given they failed to properly inform. The city will deflect that the budget was available. But as indicated by your own data, only 57 people actually looked at the budget. For 2024, many of those who became aware of the tax increase only become aware because I told them. How is it that as a solitary citizen that I can reach more people than the Mayor or Council? The city can’t use the survey for 2024 as 55% of residents want either taxes cut or services cut. Overwhelmingly they do not support further increases in property taxes. In addition, in Appendix C of 2024 Budget Survy Results, when asked in Question 8, “As a resident of Burlington, what is the most important issue facing your community, that is, the one issue you feel should receive the greatest attention from your City Council and should be a priority in the 2024 budget”. An astonishing 211 responses out of 711 stated specifically that taxes need to be cut or minimally not raised with many making passionate pleas of the deleterious effects the high rates of tax are having on their ability to maintain their homes. Another 30 made reference to the high taxes by way of suggesting salaries and services need to be cut or that the cost of living was too high. This is 30% of all respondents directly stating taxes are too high. This number would be much higher if everyone taking the survey had been aware of the tax increase in the budget but they weren’t. Only 57/801 respondents read the budget which is only 7% of respondents. That makes the responses by those who didn’t know about the tax hike highly questionable as to their validity as they may have responded very differently had they known.  City Council in a virtual meeting. Delegate claims Mayor and Council and City Hall are deliberately attempting to keep information from taxpayers As to the 57, that’s not even 1/2 % of the entire population. It says there is a vast lack of knowledge as to what’s going on at city hall with respect to raising our taxes by taxpayers. That’s the fault of this Mayor and Council and City Hall’s deliberate attempts to keep that information from taxpayers Beyond this data, many many letters have been sent to the Mayor and Council by taxpayers who are upset or angry about these taxes. I know this because many of these people have reached out to me, several telling me their stories. It’s clear Burlington taxpayers do not agree with the rate of taxation in this city and they most certainly do not support another tax hike of 7.82% or anywhere near it. They want taxes cut or a minimal increase of 3% of less. Indeed, I’ve taken polls that support this. I also have a petition against this tax hike and stating taxpayers will not agree to anything greater than 3%. As of 830am this morning that petition is at 1205 signatures. Whether Mayor Meed Ward is going to heed the taxpayers and refuse to raise taxes or minimally keep them below 3% remains to be seen. At some point Mayor Meed Ward stopped listening to taxpayers. I propose Burlington taxpayers should call for her resignation if she decides to ignore taxpayers and put this tax increase or anywhere near it, through. The petition that Wendy Fletcher wants to present to City Council: The City of Burlington raised property taxes by 7.52% in 2023. They have proposed another unprecedented increase of 7.82% for 2024. This is 15.34% over 2 years. From 2023-2027, this Mayor and Council are planning a total increase of 32% in property taxes. We, the undersigned, do not agree to this proposed increase in property taxes for 2024. We, the undersigned do not agree to any property tax increase over 3%. If you would like to sign the petition – you can do so HERE.
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Hi Jim, with respect to this, “We will ensure that commenters are respectful and do not impugn the motives, integrity or competence of our council colleagues, other members of the public or staff”. I’m quite new to this. But that sentence is quite subjective and leaves the decision of what constitutes a breach of any of those to the person in charge. Then so what it really means is if taxpayers see incompetence we aren’t allowed to state it? If integrity is questionable, we aren’t allowed to state it? This is still a democratic society the last I checked and freedom of speech is an integral part of that. We’d be building on the Greenbelt right now if people weren’t questioning the motives and integrity of the Ford government, wouldn’t you agree?
People ought to be questioning the motives, integrity and competence of this Mayor and council imo. In just the few short months I have taken a deep dive into materials available thru the city, I have noted some significant differences between what’s in those documents and what the public is told. I have found myself quite shocked and in disbelief at time. Like MMW telling the public in an interview with Burlington Today on Oct 30 that the theme of the budget feedback was more services. That could not be further from whats actually in that feedback. 55% of respondents said they wanted services CUT to reduce or maintain taxes. The overriding theme was reducing taxes, not increasing services as MMW claimed. Yet I can’t say that? Or how that reflects on her character or goverance? What am I even doing here then. I may as well just go home. We have a mayor and council moving forward on an egregious tax increase, and they’re not done, the 5 yr plan is for a 32% increase, despite significant public opposition. That’s wrong. That’s the very definition of lacking integrity and a breach of ethics.
Do you know what my definition of disrespectful includes? Lying to the public. It tarnishes the very integrity of city hall. But god forbid I call anyone on it.
In 2 weeks my petition has amassed just shy of 2000 signatures. That should say something. I’d be curious to know how many more it would have if the Burlington Gazette was a paper every household knew about.
Wendy,
I don’t disagree with you.
I have no problem calling the mayor a liar, but I know I can’t do it in council chambers.
Pepper has expressed his opinion that I am going to be escorted out of Chambers by security guards. He may be right.
You can absolutely quote the facts. You are not allowed to question her integrity, character or governance.
If you have a problems with those the recourse is a complaint to the integrity commissioner.
We need to connect to take the conversation off-line.
Pepper, can you provide Wendy with my email address?
Unfortunately the integrity commissioner works for the City and therefore we have almost no faith in them either. Look at their response to Kelvin Galbraith’s possible conflicts with developments in his ward and how all that went down with the mayor, etc, as one example.
Lynn who do you have faith in?
The Ombudsman also works for the City.
Judges work for either the Federal or Provincial Government.
The Police work for the Region.
Look at the article on the lady killed at the pork factory. Do you have faith
in the Justice System?
PERFECTLY SAID WENDY!!
I find council members have ridiculously fragile egos and thin skin, and only seem to think we have a right to speak if we’re praising them all. Otherwise we get the stink eye, silent treatment or condescending finger-wagging. They’re public servants and we’re the public. If we are questioning their integrity or transparency, we’re allowed to question it. If we believe it’s lacking, we should say so.
Kudos to Wendy Fletcher! Her assessment is spot on!
This City wastes an unbelievable amount of money. There is excessive signage everywhere. How many signs do we need on streets telling residents “No Parking”? Hampton Heath has three speed bumps in less than four blocks. We give grants during the summer so rich white folks living in $2 million homes can have neighbourhood parties. My street just got another stop sign, but neither the traffic patterns nor the volume warrants it. Why?
This Council has a serious problem setting priorities, and differentiating between essential vs. “nice to have”. The economy is faltering, more and more people are using food banks, job losses are mounting, and inflation is out of control. This Council needs to get a grip on its spending, and start learning to say “No”.
Only 27.6% percent of eligible Burlinton residents voted in the 2022 Burlington Municipal Election. Very poor turnout!!
We need more residents to get involved and have your thoughts and voices heard in the next election in 2026. Get out and vote next time!
Lisa Kearns was only doing her job as chair in preventing the derogatory remarks.
Paul Sharman did the same thing to me at a recent meeting on Bateman.
The code of good governance which the Councilors are supposed to follow item 13 states “We will ensure that commenters are respectful and do not impugn the motives, integrity or competence of our council colleagues, other members of the public or staff.”
Having attempted to decipher, then weigh-in on the C.O.B budget I can attest to the fact that it is no easy chore and one I abandoned for a number of reasons. None of the reasons included the notion that the proposed budgeted increase was too small.
With respect to the delegation, it is my impression that the delegation would have been more impactful if the items in red had not been part of the delegation. I do not believe it serves any purpose to denigrate staff or members of council.
At the end of the day, our elected council will most likely approve a 7.6% increase. The Mayor may also choose to exercise strong powers and submit her own budget. That will be worth watching.
With respect to the petition, I do not believe a 3% increase is realistic, nor do I believe that something in the order of 7.6% is the best council can do and certainly not something the citizens of Burlington can tolerate in this inflationary period. Canadians at all levels are hurting and we are part of the problem if we keep asking for more-and-more from every level of government.
I hope the residents of Burlington remember all this at the next election. This entire Council needs too go.