By Pepper Parr
June 9th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
The community reaction to the tax increase that was before Council last year amounted to four people who were certainly vocal – but four people doesn’t quite cut it when pressing city council to take another look at what they are doing.
Chapman startled his ward Councillor when he shoved a copy of his tax bill under the nose of Kelven Galbraith.
It will be quite a bit different this time around.
On Monday Council will be getting a 21 deck delegation from Lydia Thomas who was one of the four that pushed the city last time around.
This year she is giving council data that compares Burlington with what Markham has been able to do.
The community support for a different approach to the amount of tax money that is collected and how it is spent will be much stronger.
There is a group of between 15 and 25 people who are pulling together plans for a concentrated effort to press the council to do a different form of financial management and be at least more prudent. The group hasn’t come up with an identifying name – they don’t seem to be ready to put their cards on the table as it were. But they are there and their numbers should at least raise an eyebrow,
Close to 4000 followers at this point in the tax rate debates is significant; will the current council listen to the public concern?
This second group, while smaller at this point, is looking for ideas and people who want to do more than register their concern.
There is an active group on the Nextdoor social network. The group was started in 2023 to share information on the 2024 property tax increase and is still active.
You can follow this link to join the group.
The city via its council are purposely invested in its highly curated “ engagement “ initiative. They set the rules of engagement from the what and how of delegations to council members dumping town hall type meetings for one-on-one sessions. In their defence the proverbial “we” elected them to do a job and going after them after that is too late and easily dismissed as incumbents are nearly impossible to defeat. The moral of the story is be careful who you vote for.