By Staff
August 2nd, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
There will be a Special Meeting of Council on Tuesday – how many members will participate virtually is going to be interesting to see.
Mayor Meed Ward has a Motion through she is asking her colleagues to consider setting up a Resiliency Fund to support the community during natural disasters or emergencies.
Meed Ward wants the:
Chief Administrative Officer, or designate, in cooperation with the Chief Financial Officer, to report back to Committee of the Whole on October 7 with options and recommendations on establishing a Burlington Resiliency Fund to support the community during natural disasters or emergencies.
Reason:
On July 15, 2024, Burlington received approximately 65mm in rain over three hours, additional rain in the afternoon and more rain on July 16, 2024.
This significant amount of rainfall led to the flooding of 1288 homes in Burlington, some of which experienced significant damage, causing unexpected financial hardship for many.
Flood waters reached the main floor in many homes.
Water soaked innards of many houses had to be ripped out.
Following the flooding, it became clear that Burlington lacked a centralized resource for both the intake of charitable donations and for the distribution of support.
Relief funds are often established to support the long-term recovery and resiliency of a community following a natural or human-made disaster as part of a proactive emergency preparedness community strategy.
The city has the ability to set criteria for eligible costs. The city can also receive donations and administer dispersals from a relief fund, including issuing charitable tax receipts.
Burlington Foundation President Megan Tregunno spoke to Council in July about the role they could play in flood relief. They did a superb job under Colleen Mulholland who was President at that time
The city can also partner with an independent third party, such as a local community foundation. This occurred after the 2014 flood, when the city partnered with the Burlington Foundation to assist homeowners impacted by that flood.
The minimum contribution to establish a fund with the Burlington Community Foundation (The organization is now known as the Burlington Foundation) will vary based on the type of fund established. This could be included as part of the 2025 budget and/or through the current Severe Weather Reserve Fund and/or raised through community donations.
Establishing a relief fund with the Burlington Community Foundation allows the foundation to hold, manage and steward the fund’s assets and nurture and grow fund in perpetuity.
As staff review options and recommendations for a Burlington Resiliency Fund, the analysis should include but not be limited to:
- Who should administer the program
- Source of initial seed funding and source of ongoing contributions
- Criteria for eligibility
- Types of costs that would be covered, and amounts such as insurance deductibles or backflow valve
- Types of natural disasters covered, including impacts from flooding, windstorms, ice storms and other natural or weather-related events
- Eligibility by type of property and tenure, including businesses, residential properties (including rental) or all
Outcome Sought:
To provide council with options and recommendations to make an informed decision about whether to proceed with an ongoing Burlington Resiliency Fund to assist residents impacted by severe weather and other emergencies.
It’s a good idea. Unfortunate that it takes a crises to bring forward ideas like this – ideally Council will rubber stamp this and get into the details when it comes back to Council in October.
There are at least three Statutory meetings that will be at the top of the Agenda.
Some had hoped there would be an opportunity for some of the people who have been very hard hit by the floods of July 15th and 16th.
Council is the place for the public to hear from the people who have much of what they own laid out on the front lawn waiting to be hauled away by garbage trucks.
The culvert that got blocked. There would have had to have been much more debris jammed in this culvert to stop the flow of water – the 407ETR people will certainly be looking at what happened – none of what they learn will become public – the liability issues could be stiff.
Some mention of what the 407ETR people are doing at this point would be welcome. Their role in the flooding, better to use their responsibility in this needs to be determined. This could well end up in a Courtroom.
The culvert was apparently not cleared regularly – when there was an excessive amount of rain the culvert was blocked preventing the water from running through the eight foot pipe underneath the 407 and on into Lake Ontario.
A safe diversion tactic from taking any responsibility for the flooding, from hearing directly in a public forum from those impacted, and from taking real action to prevent future floods. Will be worth a million social media posts and interview soundbites. Love how the reason for the flooding is – it rained a lot. Funny how surrounding cities with the same rain didn’t all have the same outcome, but let’s not go there – instead, look! The mayor made another motion to add to her loooooong list of motions.
My heart bleeds for those with flood damage. BUT, this damage would not have happened if MMW had stuck by her election promise in 2018 to deal with the causes and infrastructure needed so this did not happen again after the 2014 flood. She talked the talk (and got elected) but she never walked the walk. This was to secure the election but never her intention to do. Instead she and council have been very busy increasing taxes – and not for flood prevention – but for “Legacy” projects such as Bateman, art, tearing apart and rebuilding structures in Central Park, and making city hall “pretty”. Now we have 1288 homes unnecessarily damaged by floods and residents will likely need to pay more in 2025 taxes because of her negligence in executing her election promises. I thought Burlington would be a good place to move to when I retired. But I was so wrong!
And by the way, I did not vote for her or my local councillor. Did you? Time for a change with some fiscally responsible and truthful people.
Lynn,
I agree 100%.
MMW and this Council have spent Millions and Millions of our Property Tax dollars on their “Frivilous Projects” instead of spending our money on what Burlington Residents NEED DONE in our City like the Infastruture!!
I hope that MMW and Council are paying attention to their Residents and choose wisely with what items they include in the upcoming 2025 Budget; and what they MUST TAKE OFF the Table for the 2025 Budget.
Residents will be watching!!
Who owns the Culvert?City or 407
Editor’s note: This one is not all that clear. Councillor Nisan tried to make the point that the culvert was on the very edge of the property line – but on the 407 side. It mgit one of those situations where the responsibility gets shared. No one has yet to issue claims. Expect more here and expect us to have to dig to get the full story. 407ETR have deep pockets and strong bench strength
Publisher
https://www.ontario.ca/page/municipal-drains
According to the drainage act, it appears it would be the city’s responsibility: the more interesting, to me, is the fact that after the 2014 flooding event the measures that were undertaken failed to prevent this latest event and should be viewed as a ‘speed bump, into the entire COB operations and hiring practice as a whole, if this was any other corporation they would be getting a visit from the head office audit team.
Before signalling we are here to help with yet more cash has anyone found the root cause of the flooding that has and will occur more in the future? Will the so called “Resiliency Fund” become yet another COB slush fund is also a question worth asking.
ISO quality programs use a tool called “ error cause removal” that would identify, address and rectify the things that are under the control of the key players, being COB, Halton and 407.