By Pepper Parr
January 4th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
City Council has one more week before it has to assemble and deal with the business of the city.
On Monday the 13th they will answer to the Role Call, and assuming they are all there, they will get on with the business of the city. Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan, resident of ward 2, seems to spend more time with his Federation of Canadian Municipalities than he does on City of Burlington work.
Nisan was appointed as the FCM representative for the City. Might be time to follow up and learn more about the work of that organization.
The Agenda for the meeting on the 13th is quite light. The biggest item is an update on how the city plans to remunerate Councillors Sharman and Betivegna for the OMERS pension benefit they no longer get because they are over the age of 71.
Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman
Ward 6 Councillor Angelo Bentivegna
Finding a way to provide this benefit is fair but the optics from a Councillor point of view are terrible. One expects they will learn to live with it.
In setting out the Agendas the City Clerk alerts the public as to what is ahead for City Council. In the February cycle there will be a report on the Bateman Community Centre. This development is something that has generated a lot of concern within the city – it has cost the city a fortune. It does turn a high school that was declared surplus by the school board into usable space. However, a lot of that space will be occupied by the Brock University which is calling the space it will use as the Brock University Burlington Campus (BUBC).
They expect to move in sometime in 2025.
The Brock students are currently renting space in what was the former Lester B. Pearson High school.
There might also be some mention of the new Skyview site in the eastern part of the city that should be nearing completion. The $39,021,769.55 price tag to build what is a very attractive-looking site.
Rendering of the front street level of the structure.
Staff asked that Council to
Approve the revised total budget of $39,433,100 with revised financing proposed.
Authorize the additional funding of $2,000,000 from Tax Supported Debt; $403,000 from the Corporate Accessibility Implementation Project and $4,710,100 from the infrastructure renewal reserve fund.
The city borrowed millions to cover the balance.
The Skyway arena is in ward 5, Sharman territory. He said: Just slightly more than half of this cost is more than the city expected, but this is not a unique situation- that’s happening to everything. The question raised from time to time is should we wait for things to get better?
The city has gone all out in making the site as environmentally responsible as they could – cost just wasn’t an issue.
The Staff report concludes that it’s going to be at least five years before the current pressure on costs decreases.This is not going to get better. If we don’t do it now.
It’ll just get worse and where does that leave us? It raises all sorts of concerns about improving the infrastructure in the city and increasing the infrastructure in the city. And we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. But for now, I believe that we’re doing something that is badly needed by the city. We need the ice pads and the community rooms and the walking track.
A skating rink and a library renovation? Sounds like the city council is in full “amenities” mode!
I’m wondering has anyone been terminated as a result of the budget debacle ?
Has Nisan walked back his support of Admin staff ?
Or did they sweep that under the rug over the Holidays ?
Here is the thing, it will take five (5) years for things to get better because too many governments including our council have the attitude we had better spend it now. If they all backed off on the “lets spend it now mentality” prices would drop like a rock.
I for one am looking forward to the new Library at Bateman and the walking track at Skyway Arena.
“We NEED the ice pads and the community rooms and the walking track”. Really!!!!
Talk about someone who has blinders on what some of the real issues in Burlington really are.
For the homeless in Burlington, for the residents who have to use the food banks, for those residents dealing with physical and mental health issues ( who have to wait and wait and wait for services) ask them if the Ice Pads, the Community Rooms and of course the Walking Track are high on their list of priorities.
I realize that some of the above mentioned issues are not dealt with at the Municipal level but certainly they could be advocating for better services at the other levels of government and not foolishly saying that these are NEEDED.