By Pepper Parr
March 6th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Completing a Council meeting was a bit of a stretch this week.
Convened on Tuesday, they ran out of time and had to adjourn to Thursday.
The delegation on the parking problems was important: did the three business people have to repeat what was said previously? Brian Dean, on the right, did a good delegation.
The Tuesday parking spaces delegation went on and on with members of the four person delegation speaking several times, basically repeating what had been said previously. Better management of that delegation would have helped.
Delegations are important; the amount of time taken up by Council member questions is getting out of hand. For some reason, every Council member feels they have to say something. All too frequently, they don’t add anything to the debate.
Indwell has a great story to tell. It didn’t get told at the Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday.
There was an incredibly moving delegation on what Indwell does as an organization. The problem was the Indwell didn’t do all that well in explaining just what they do and who will live in the units they want to create on Waterdown Road on land they want to rent from the city on a 30-year lease. More on the Indwell project once it clears Council next week
The Thursday meeting started at 1 and went into a CLOSED session shortly after 2:00 and remained there until just before 4:30
There were a number of small items that did not get dealt with. They were referred to the Council meeting that will take place on the 10th.
There was at least one group attending the Thursday Council meeting waiting to delegate and answer questions that were left sitting.
City Clerk Michael de Rond
The Clerk’s office is going to have to do some serious thinking about how the CLOSED sessions are dealt with.
The Chair of a Committee meeting is required to report publicly on what took place within the CLOSED session.
Thought could be given to setting aside one full day for nothing but closed session, and get away from breaking up the flow of regular Standing Committee meetings.
This week was just a very chaotic one for council and those delegating.
Discover more from Burlington Gazette - Local News, Politics, Community
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I could not agree more to the following:
“The Clerk’s office is going to have to do some serious thinking about how the CLOSED sessions are dealt with.
The Chair of a Committee meeting is required to report publicly on what took place within the CLOSED session.
Thought could be given to setting aside one full day for nothing but closed session, and get away from breaking up the flow of regular Standing Committee meetings”.
I totally agree. The way it is now, residents listening Live online or attending personnaly in council chambers are interrupted by in-confidence closed meetings. This is ridiculous! Put all of these closed in-confidence meetings aside to another date and then report on them at the next council meeting!