December 5, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. Burlington now has just two Standing Committees that preview staff reports that eventually go to city council for a vote – where it must be said again – the way each Council member votes is not public unless a member of Council asks for a recorded vote.
Reports on Planning & Building, Engineering, Transportation, Roads and Parks Maintenance matters go to the Development & Infrastructure Standing Committee
Reports on matters relating to Clerks, Information Technology, Legal, Finance, Human Resources, Transit, Corporate Strategic Initiatives, Parks and Recreation and Fire go to the Community & Corporate Services Standing Committee.
Councillor Lancaster preps for a Standing Committee meeting which she will chair for the first time.
Councillor Lancaster is chair of the Development & Infrastructure Committee with Councilor Craven serving as the vice chair. Councilor Meed Ward serves as chair of Community and Corporate committee where Councilor Sharman serves as vice chair. The budget will be run through the Community and Corporate committee.
There is also an Audit Committee which will meet on Wednesday’s at 3:30 p.m. and only the meetings required will be scheduled.
Committee of the Whole meetings will be used for Council training, workshops on complex matters and meetings with other levels of government and outside agencies and will be held on Thursday’s at 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. Council will get its first peek at a draft of the budget city hall is preparing later this week.
Municipal elections put a bit of a crimp in what council can do during an election year which means there will not be any Committee of the Whole meetings after July 1st, 2014.
As we go into 2014 the politicians begin to change colour and to some degree character. They become more acutely aware of a public they will be appealing to in a short period of time and some may want to think in terms of polishing up the image so they don’t have to polish up the resume come October 2014.
Where is the evening meeting – see title and see content – seems to be a disconnect.
Editor’s note: All meetings are at city hall.
Why does it always seem like you are fixating on Lancaster? You have a crush or something? Try being objective!
Lancaster is a big girl, and a seasoned politician who should be able to take the heat. This article is boring and somewhat educational. Lancaster is shown hard at work in her new role as chair, and now we know what she does.