By Staff
September 6th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
The City of Burlington’s Community Engagement Charter is now 10-years old and is in need of an update to reflect the growing and changing needs of the community.
The Charter is an agreement between Burlington City Council and Burlington residents. It supports better access to your local government. It also outlines the City’s commitments for engaging with people. Engaging people on issues that affect their lives and their city is important. The Charter seeks to make sure that residents can interact with the City in an accessible, inclusive and meaningful way.
There will be many opportunities to engage with City staff this fall about the Burlington Community Engagement Charter. The first opportunity is the Food for Feedback event on Sept. 16, 2023, at Central Park from noon to 4 p.m.
For those who cannot attend an in-person session, the materials will be posted online with questions to answer at getinvolvedburlington.ca/engagement-charter.
Engagement opportunities
Date: Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023
Location: Food for Feedback at Central Park, 2299 New St.
Time: noon to 4 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 24 2023
Location: Appleby Arena, Community Room #1
Time: 1 to 3 p.m.
Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023
Location: Virtual via Zoom, link on the Get Involved page
Time: 7 to 9 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023
Location: Haber Community Centre, Community Room #2
Time: 7 to 9 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023
Location: Mountainside Arena, Community Room #1
Time: 1 to 3 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023
Location: Burlington Seniors’ Centre
Time: 7 to 9 p.m.
To learn more about the Burlington Community Engagement Charter and details of the public engagement dates, visit getinvolvedburlington.ca/engagement-charter.
Background
In April 2013, Burlington City Council approved the first Burlington Community Engagement Charter. The Charter was created by residents with support from staff. It is an agreement between and among Burlington City Council and the community concerning resident engagement with City government and establishes the commitments, responsibilities, and fundamental concepts of this relationship.
Lisa Kearns, Ward 2 Councillor, Deputy Mayor, Community Engagement & Partnerships explains:
“As part of a growing region, we’re not the same city we were 10 years ago, and it’s time to ensure the Charter is reflective of our community needs and trends. Being able to have a say in your city, neighbourhood or community is the backbone of democracy. It is important this Charter is reflective of that.
This document will be reviewed and updated periodically and as needed. I would also like to thank everyone that provided their input into the current Charter.”
LINK to the Charter
I am looking forward to delegating on this when it gets to Committee/Council.
Should be fun.
The Charter makes a big deal of residents delegating.
The Procedure Bylaw prohibits councillors from actually engaging delegates.
The present Charter certainly keys on Transparency and Accountability right up front. The City says – “The City of Burlington is committed to maintaining transparency in our information and accountability in our processes.
Further, “Accountability, transparency and openness are standards of good government … Burlington Council is responsible to provide good government.
Under Code of Good Government; Accountability, transparency and openness are standards of good government … Burlington Council is responsible to provide good government.
The Council of the City of Burlington is committed to achieving excellence in governance, and doing so in a way that maintains and ensures public trust and.
Code of Good Government is supposed to mean that the City follows Council Rules of Procedure.The Procedure Bylaw is a bylaw that rules how Council and Committee meetings are run and details the decision-making process of Council.
All of these need citizen engagement.
I could go on, but I am really sort of joking with this, and it’s not funny.
I am still waiting to see any of this really false promise come to pass.
In truth, the Charter needs to actually deliver on some kind of rules of implementation strictness. Come to think of it, maybe a new Clerk might fill the Bill. This one is feckless from my experience and in my opinion.
After my experience with the Clerk utter failure to uphold the Code of Good Governance for the Integrity Commissioner I am not able to accept this, as the Clerk was not dutiful in his upholding the rules, or answering for this with transparency and accountability.
It needs another enforcement body to make certain that the Procedure is actually followed to the letter. Otherwise why bother having such Rules and put the Clerk in full charge.
Tom, the Clerk being involved in the public deceiving of Stolte that we had not registered for delegation when we had produced evidence prior to Council beginning that we had registered before noon on July 10th, is supportive of your opinion.
The Council cannot function as it should when the City Clerk or a member of his staff publicly and knowingly deceive the Acting Chair of Council to believe two members of the public had not registered to delegate when he knew they had. Then leave two items on the Consent Agenda that bylaws require moving to regular agenda due to registered delegation.
This is not complex stuff so don’t we need to be concerned about how far the deceit goes on matters that are complex and put the city at risk. This guy is in charge of our elections for goodness sake and should have a spotless reputation, not one of being publicly involved in deceit of the Chair.and indeed all members of Council, for no apparent reason. What should it matter to him who delegates when the Procedure Bylaw rules have been followed as they were. How bizarre is that behaviour!!! How bizarre is the behaviour of all those members of Council and senior staff who allow this behaviour and don t call him on it.
I wish it was just my opinion. The Council, the IC, and the Clerk all did this, and I have the written evidence. It’s all fact – based.
No one has been transparent or held accountable.
Everything the Clerk (and Council and Senior Staff) did to me regarding the Integrity Commissioner is factual truth and proven with full paper trail of evidence that I have, and that was provided to all involved as can be seen in the Gazette..
Some was published in a Comment piece in the Gazette on August 14, followed by a story comment on August 16.
I have very much more, all part of the IC written record of evidence.
Tom, our apologies, the correct word was “comment” not “opinion”.
The Clerk can’t even get simple stuff right.
Check out the Minutes of the March 21st Council meeting. Item 14.1 of Urgent Business is a motion by the Mayor which should properly be under section 17. Motion of Members or possibly section 20. Notice of Motion
I’m not clear on the difference between sections 17 and 20 of the agenda, but per the Procedures Bylaw Section 32.4, only staff reports with time sensitive recommendations qualify as Urgent Business.
Don’t know what happened to our first attempt to post this but it obviously did not go. Our apologies to Tom. The more accurate word we should have used was “comment” not “opinion” we certainly did not mean to cast doubt on the facts of his comment. Rather the intention was to be supportive.
We have multiple examples from 2014 on of the current engagement charter, the Procedure By-law and other rules and regulations put in place to protect best interests and democratic principles, being ignored. The latest examples being set out in the pages of the Gazette to read and digest what it means for two members of the community to have their email registering to delegate at Council, ie engage with Council, diverted and then senior staff deceive Council into believing they never registered in accordance with the Procedure By-law. Apart from the die hard commentators this does not seem to bother other media outlets,the remaining 14,000 Gazette readership, membership of Council or senior staff who fully understand the risk attached to such behaviour. CLERK Kevin Arjoon refuses to advise us who deceived Chair Stolte July 11, 2023.
The Municipal Act legislation and the duty of the Audit Committee in terms of ability to engage as we should, and be heard, have repeatedly been set aside with the blessing of Council. The latest one being the Engagement of citizens in the purchase of an asbestos ridden building, Stolte lost pay over trying to put out an alert to the community on that which she clearly under-estimated the actual cost and problem and the back lash.. Now Council are proposing to eradicate the name Bateman, a world recognized nature artist, who has blessed us all with his artistic creations. The city’s purpose is to try and release from the electorate memory what they did before the next election.
Surely out of 14,000 Gazette readers we can get 50 informed citizens who understand how manipulative this Council and some staff are with the use of the words “democratic process”. Let’s take a stand when this comes before Council in memory of Mayor Mulkewich and his team that put a darned good Engagement Charter together, Paul Sharman being part of that team, that saw his election. Let’s stand at the lectern when it appears on an agenda and tell Council and Senior Staff to follow it not change it. That fellow Gazette readers and local journalists who look the other way would demonstrate appreciation of the millons who sacrificed so much to give us the democratic process that a team of seven elected councillors and senior staff are playing self interest games with, on your dime. How much did Summer 2023 City Talk that came out in September and is delivered to the waste baskets of the majority of recipients , cost?