By Pepper Parr
June 21st, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
Kwab Ako-Adjei: Director of Corporate Communications and Engagement
How does one explain this ?
Newsletters get sent out by the city communications department for each of the six ward Councillors.
Those newsletters always have listings of events that are taking place in the ward.
So why this?
A ward newsletter dated June 2nd, sent out on the 21st of June at 10:15 am. The Post Office provides better service than this.
In ward 1 there were closes to half a dozen events that had already taken place by the time we got the information
One of the prime parts of the Communications department mandate is to foster, promote and deliver on Community Engagement.
From my direct experience, I found that getting the complete and accurate newsletter information to residents in a timely manner was not a priority of Councilor Galbraith. Accurate information about developments in Eagle Heights were too much to ask for.
I actually found that development related public meetings were provided with the wrong date, the wrong time, would not fully download, arrived at my house a few hours too late for a meeting, Zoom addresses that were wrong, or didn’t work, or was in a last minute newsletter Pdf format Zoom address that does not operate in Zoom.
I asked for an explanation and apology to residents for the most serious problems involving meetings but to no avail.
For my efforts I was excommunicated completely as a constituent by the Councilor so now I receive no newsletters. or any communication and he refuses to communicate with me on anything, since last November.
So with no contact I didn’t see this and not surprising, it looks like nothing has changed.
What a joke. Does the ward 1 councillor or the City not actually want the information to be received on time? Perhaps they don’t want to hear from us on anything? It is it simply carelessness?
Or is it that communicating with the public and the media – which serves the public and holds our public officials to account – is not something they really want to do? There seems to be a lot of evidence to indicate it’s the latter. Exhibit A: Bateman.