By Pepper Parr
September 17th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
At some point, one hopes, City Council will begin focusing on the concerns and issues of the people that Live, Play and Work in Burlington.
Right now the mistakes and the downright incompetence that surrounds the allocation of limited swimming pool capacity in the city is hurting people.
Burlington Aquatic Devilrays (BAD), a swimming club that has operated for 40 years, could be close to ending its existence.
It’s membership has plummeted – because the swimming pool space they used to have is no longer available to them.
Pool time has been given to an organization that operates in Hamilton, Waterdown, Dundas, Ancaster, and Stoney Creek.
Mayor Meed Ward and Councillors Galbraith, Kearns, Nisan, Stolte, Sharman and Bentivegna have gone mute. They are hiding behind the argument that Council has no business sticking its nose in procurement matters.
They have muzzled the President of the club.
Some have concerns about the quality of the management of BAD – in our conversations with that organization, we’ve seen nothing that is of serious concern. Keeping everyone happy is not as simple as it sounds.
Councillor Kearns has said she will ask Council to do an audit of the procedure that was followed in the allocation of swimming pool space. For a number of reasons that don’t make all that much sense, what some people thought was going to take place in September has been moved to October. There is no certainty that it will actually happen, and that would be unfortunate.
The people in Burlington who put in hours of volunteer time to run a swimming club are going to have to pressure City Council to reverse the decision that was made by the department that handles procurement matters. Council is in place to represent the needs and wishes of its citizens.
They need to be told to do the job they were hired to do.
This has definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and shown me that the city doesn’t really care about ensuring their residents have access to services before farming the facilities out to other users. I will definitely NOT be voting for any of the current council members and have little faith in this groups ability to ensure fair and equitable service.
Since the beginning I have felt that the city could care less about this, they made their money and the procuremnt team got to try out their new AI systems. I highly doubt the mysterious audit will bare any fruit and nothing will change, the mayor needs to do photo ops and all of city council are mute on the issue as it doesn’t effect them directly.
Similar thing has been going on with Central Park cricket pitch – many times players from other towns playing tournaments, ALL DAY, every Saturday, every Sunday, every weekend, all summer!
What happened to Burlington – is this what we get for our tax dollar?
Those outside of Burlington fees will be paying user fees, won’t they?
At this rate, Council should add lifeguards to City Hall — they’re drowning in their own failures.
This swimming fiasco is exactly what some of us warned about. The real embarrassment isn’t just the failure — it’s the cowardice of Council and the Mayor who refuse to take responsibility. How many times do we need to ask for Leadership ….. not excuses.
Many of us discussed here that this swimming program was headed straight for a “belly flop” and here we are dissecting the wreckage.
Incompetence on full display …. Failure is their trademark !!!!!!