City interested in learning if there are other organizations that can run Telephone Town Hall Meetings

By Pepper Parr

April 17th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

The following appeared on the city Bids and Tenders web site page.

This request is for information only.

No award will be made based on this submission.

The City of Burlington is undertaking a review of potential town hall solutions to meet evolving communication needs.

While the City presently utilizes an existing product, we are seeking to better understand the range of telephone town hall solutions available in the market, including features, service models, and potential value and assess alignment with our organizational needs and preferences. The information provided by interested suppliers will assist the City in determining next steps with regard to its needs in this regard.

Vendors wishing to participate in this process must contact the individual listed below to request a copy of the Request for Information (RFI) document:

Tricia Gammon Holness, CPPB, PMP
Specialist, Procurement
City of Burlington
E-mail: tricia.gammonholness@burlington.ca

A number of people have expressed concerns about the way City Town Hall meetings take place.  Many think the system is rigged to allow people favourable to the current city council and administration to choose who gets to call in and ask questions.

The city has yet to release the name of the current supplier – media can’t ask questions as to how these systems are set up.

One Gazette reader sent us the following:

What would residents want to see in a new platform?

– the ability to queue up at a virtual microphone without questions being prescreened, with all participants able to see the queue, the first initial and last name of the other people in the queue.

– the ability to ask questions in a chat window that all meeting participants can see.

– The mayor/staff answering questions in sequence without the ability to cherry-pick easy questions.

Will the city move to a more transparent and less stage-managed format for town halls, or will they become more scripted than they are today?