By Pepper Parr
August 27th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Kearns: Anxiety and a tight grip.
Lisa Kearns – City Councillor for ward 2 held a Town Hall meeting at the Lions Club on Monday. The house was packed – ward residents wanted to know what the plans for a 29 storey tower on Caroline Street between John and Elizabeth was about – most people understood that the development was going to be a six to eight storey structure.
When Kearns puts on a community meeting two things usually happen: she does most of the talking and let’s go with some pretty chirpy comments.
I’d not crossed paths with Kearns for some time. One has to appreciate that she is consistent in keeping in touch with her constituents. She has done that from the day she was elected.
The first thing Kearns told me was that the Mayor and her husband were attending; something pays close attention to. What the Mayor does is of significant interest to Lisa Kearns. ““She is here as a resident”, said Kearns.
Kearns is probably going to run for the Office of Mayor; if not probably (she could change her minds – she has done that before) – it is something that occupies her mind. . Mayor Meed Ward’s decision to keep some of the Strong Mayor powers to herself did not go down all that well with Kearns along with Councillors Stolte, Nisan and Galbraith.
Nisan and Galbraith drifted away – they got over it. Stolte hung in – Kearns took on a certain state of resolve. There is now a level of ‘electricy’ in the air at Council meetings when the two of them tangle – which happens at almost every meeting of Council.
The Mayor didn’t ask any questions during the meeting – but I left at the 90 minute point – Kearns had said she would stay and answer questions for as long as necessary.
Kearns didn’t fail to find a different way to explain something she couldn’t completely remember. Referring to the amount of time the city has to respond to a development application she said: “It used to be a lot of days then it became a little bit less of days.”
Kearns: a sense of humour with a quick repartee.
When she relaxes Kearns can be very funny and still stay on topic. She has the best mind on this council. She wraps her mind around the technical stuff and often out ‘Sharmans’ Councillor Sharman.
She is a diehard policy wonk. If she could drop the anxiety and summon up the kahonies she demonstrated when she strut into the Reverse Town Hall then Mayor Goldring was holding and basically took over his meeting, she would be a shoe in for a higher level of office. Rick didn’t see it coming and wasn’t able to regain control.
Kearns: She can be tough – it just isn’t consistent.
The back and forth between the Mayor and Kearns at times leaves the impression that we are watching two cats with their claws out.. Meeow!
Kearns works hard – she sits on the Police Services Board representing the Region – a level at which Kearns is not as efficient as she is at Council.
The arc of her political experience up to this point has her standing as a nominee for the provincial Liberal seat – which she dropped out of within three days when it appeared someone else would be running. The reason given was a little limp.
There are times when Kearns presses the panic button. There was an occasion when she blurted out some confidential information during virtual meeting of the Burlington Downtown Business Association related to the amount of money the city was prepared to spend on defending a position at a Land Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT), now known as the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Kearns went to speed dial to the city’s Integrity Commissioner and pleading with the Gazette to pull the story we had published.
One wonders how she would handle real pressure – a crisis somewhere. Seeing her as rock solid on an issue isn’t easy to do.
Were Kearns to run against Meed Ward – what would the outcome be? Meed Ward lost at her first two attempts for a public office; she ran against PC Joyce Savoline for the Burlington seat in the provincial and then lost to Rick Craven in ward 1 for a seat on Council. She then moved from that ward into ward 2 where Peter Thoem was easier to beat.
Kearns has the better mind, she thinks faster than Meed Ward, would have a deeper understanding of the technical stuff. But Meed Ward has been at the game for far longer.
They both have this addiction to photo ops. On the confidence side – Meed Ward is the stronger of the two.
Meed Ward will have served the city for four terms: two as the ward 2 Councillor and two as Mayor. The bloom does go off the rose over time – and that is certainly the case with Meed Ward. In 2018 those who voted for her, and the vast majority of them did, believing she would solve what most saw as over development in the downtown core.
Meed Ward will take the position that she managed to get the Urban Growth Centre boundaries moved north, she certainly deserves at least some of the credit for that, but she didn’t come through with anything in the way of an initiative to save the “football’ that space between Old Lakeshore Road and Lakeshore Road. When completed it will be as dense as Manhatten.
At some point the location will re-open.
The only saving grace is that Emma’s Back Porch will reopen when the high rise construction comes to an end. Late in the Goldring term of office there were some 18 different property owners within the football – the developers saw the opportunity and began assembling the land.
Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie once told the Waterfront Advisory committee that there was an opportunity – but Goldring didn’t pick up on it. Meed Ward basically owned the volunteer Save the Waterfront Committee and made saving the waterfront her single election platform in 2010
Were Kearns to throw her hat into the Mayoralty race, she hasn’t said publicly that she is even interested, – who would step up to the plate for the ward 2 seat.
Related news story:
Town Hall meeting about 2030 Caroline
Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
My take, a 24 to 29 storey structure will be built. As to all the trimmings around involvement etc, they are just that trimmings, as the tall building goose was cooked and served long ago. As to who can beat MMW at the polls. People eventually tire of incumbents irrespective of how good or bad we think they are. The exception to that rule of thumb was Hurricane Hazel.
Joe, I totally agree with you as regards to the goose being cooked. That’s a concept that seems to evade many who comment on Gazette articles regarding high rises. The city must still go through the farce of holding public meetings, hearing delegations to Council etc. and coming to what it believes is an appropriate response to the developer’s application. That position of course is likely to be at odds with what the developer wants. So guess what? It goes to the OLT which decides in favor of the developer, because that’s what Doug Ford wants. Last Word.
Hi David: – well, I think that the relative intransigence of the OLT has been a theme of mine for quite awhile. However, I am actually proposing that Council bring this out for all to see and demonstrate a certain ‘standing’ as they do.
If you believe “what council does or says has proven to be of little consequence at the OLT” and I agree, then what do you believe is the point in Lisa Kearns’ meeting? And that was also the point that I was making. Better I think for lisa to provide gift cards to some psychologist so that residences can freely express their frustrations and get help with their sense of civic duty which, obviously, is ill-placed.
The process may be futile in that the OLT will do what it wants and not what it should do. However, if you don’t follow the process then the OLT and the Ford government will be able to point the finger at the City and say you didn’t follow the process and they find in favour of the developer each and every time.
Lisa is rightly following the process. The City cannot be seen to be going rogue. The City must always take the high road.
I will take this opportunity to correct some information that appeared in the comment section.
1. It was ECoB – Jim Young and myself who went to speak to Jane McKenna . I had requested that someone from her Ottawa office be available to answer any questions about un-designating the John Street bus terminal as a MTSA and the possibility of moving the downtown Urban Growth Centre.
When I asked these questions I was told this had never been asked for but they would look into it. It was after this that Jane McKenna sent out her newsletter indicating this was possible.
For some background history. In 2018 I contacted a friend ( an engineer) who worked with Metrolinx asking if it was possible to make changes to the designations. I was told that any Municipality that was working on their Official Plan had one year from 2017-2018 to change their MTSA’s and Urban Growth Centres. I had called 15 days after the year was up.
I remember asking MMW at the time if she knew about this. I actually thought the she would not know this. Her response was ” yes, but they didn’t see these designations as an issue”.
It was at this point that I contacted Gary Scobie and provided him the name of the person I had been dealing with at Metrolinx who was told the same thing. Needless to say we were both shocked that this opportunity had been wasted.
Not to see the overdevelopment of an area that impacts one of the natural resources that Burlington has had many of us shaking our heads in amazement.
As we all know we are responsible for the people we elect and I too have admitted many times that “I drank the Kool-Aid – starting with the “Save our Waterfront Campaign”.
Fool me once shame of you. Fool me twice shame on you.
For the record I no longer drink Kool-Aid.
Apologies Penny and Jim Young for the mix up. Glad you could clarify with MMW’s comment which makes the siutation worse and her position at the July 9, 2024 3:52:44 COW even more difficult to accept.
It is impossible to improve on Lynn’s comment or to match her level of obvious frustration and well-placed indignation. When will this Council stop going through the empty motions of public engagement when they admit that there is no chance of either influencing downtown development proposals or winning at the OLT? To what practical end was Kearns’ townhall meeting (a term that seems to have gained a certain currency)? However, there is one possible action that would give this Council a degree of long-awaited gravitas, perhaps even a certain integrity after the fact. I will leave proper explanation of this idea to its originator, should he decide to comment.
RE: Homelessness t-shirt should say:
GO!
MOVE!
SHIFT!
Where to begin? There’s two articles on this project so I’m sticking my comment here and referring to both.
The cat/meow part has gotta go.
The Mayor and her husband attended as residents? Riiiiiiiight.
Meed Ward/Council got rid of the MTSA designation much too late. She and council should be taken to task, along with staff, for the disaster this entire site project has been from the beginning and ever since.
Carriage Gate promised not only the medical centre and significant parking (which could be used by guests of those buying in the Berkeley on evenings and weekends), but also a portion of affordable units. Council and staff at the time touted that as the reason for giving them the added height in return. Shocking nobody except apparently council and staff, they only built the condo tower – and surely reaped some tidy profits. More valuable perhaps, he now had a precedent for height which came in handy when he applied for more taller buildings elsewhere downtown and lo and behold, right here.
For years and years the site has been nothing but an eyesore. It looks in no way like the artist renderings (do any of them ever??), they cut down even the small trees from the sidewalk, painted one side of the building in this ugly black and white checkerboard pattern, and had a gravel mess of land with weeds growing out of it (psst: that doesn’t count as the promised plantings). Conveniently, this was then used by Carriage Gate as parking for the crews building his other towers. A wonderful view for his first customers to stare at. And as mentioned here, the reneging on the affordable units which was supposed to at least inflict a measly $300,000 fine, was also fumbled and apparently never collected. I recall Mary Lou Tanner touting that fine as if that solved everything.
The question/answer period was probably the part of the meeting which needed to be heard the most. Apparently, several residents of the Berkeley asked why a sign said comments were to be closed on the project August 15, when Lisa was now telling everyone where to send comments. Three of them had petitions circulating and took them down on the 15th. Then again, when have our comments ever mattered?
We are all watching to see what every council member does on this now. The fact that Lisa couldn’t share her opinions on it is perhaps what the rules state, but the old Ward 2 councillor MMW certainly managed to get her opinions out on every development application downtown to her followers/delegators/letter writers when she wanted to. Of course MMW is now on a homelessness brigade – she even has a t-shirt – so I’m guessing she’s “moved on”. We shall soon see.
Lynn we will be forwarding you a transcript where the Mayor takes full credit for working with the Province to move the UGC . We know that was you and we believe Gary Scobie seeking assistance from Jane McKenna and then when you got the go ahead; council took 2 years to act. We delegated early on in 2019 at the Interim Control Bylaw Stat Public Meeting, reading from MPP McKenna’s literature and asking why the delay in moving the UGC and removing the down town bus stop being designated as an MTSA. Our condo of 284 owners shares a common boundary with the Brant/Ghent (784 Brant Street) Molinaro Development.
The City had us in the UGC beginning at Ghent the Region did not. It took us a long time to have the City admit we were wrongly included in the City version of the UGC. You can bet your bottom dollar if we had not pursued it we would have been included along with the town home community across the road and nobody any the wiser.
There was no Town Hall called by Lisa or a 2nd Statutory Public Meeting to satisfy the Planning Act requirement before a July 16, 2024 Council meeting (the second day of the flood which seems like divine intervention to us) gave approval for Part A of the three part – three corner of Brant and Ghent Molinaro development consisting of two 24 and 18 floor towers that replaced 5 single homes. START DATE FOR SHOVELS IN 2025.
We have been unable to find out thus far from the Conservation Authority (new CAO starts in September) and it certainly is not contained in the July 16, Minutes (as we believe it should be) in terms of what agreements the City and Developer had to give in terms of water spillage hazards before they can proceed on Plan A only.
We are hopeful (as we always are) – Anne sang about the ant moving the rubber tree plant in one delegation to Council – that Councillor Kearns will apologise for the lack of transparency in not holding a Town Hall before moving the approval of this development application with its hush, hush agreements. We will keep you posted as to whether Councillor Kearns, the Conservation Authority and the rest of Council and our CAO who came from the Authority step up to the plate in early September. There are after all 284 of Councillor Kearns and MMW’s constituents who are property owner next door neighbors (with a common one-side boundary) of those who are having to sign what remains a hush, hush agreement to their immediate neighbors on water spillage HAZARDS. Flooding was experienced by those close to our propperty on July 15-16, 2024.
Thanks Anne. Yes, as Penny said it wasn’t I who went to Mckenna but I was one of several along with Blair and Gary and others who addressed the fact in delegations that McKenna publicly stated that the designation could be moved and we urged council to do so asap and stop wasting time on downtown studies etc. As Penny states, moving them asap was a key campaign promise in 2018. The two year delay saw a bombardment of developer applications for towers using the understandable logic that if they got their applications in prior to any change, they should be valid.
As for David “last word” Barker, I don’t need to let you know anything. My post is clear about the fiasco of this project, I stand by my entire comment and opinions and your continual posts which you direct at individual commenters are rude and disrespectful and don’t deserve a response.
Why is it you cannot accept the mayor attending the event in her private capacity? The event was put on by the ward 2 counselor not by the City.
We were all naïve back in 2018 when we believed that city council would be able to block all the high-rises from being built. We should have seen quite clearly that the OLT backed by the Ford government would ride roughshod over the wishes of the residents of Burlington. The moving of the urban growth center a little bit north, thus saving the Waterfront Hotel lot from being a super high-rise, was merely a sop from the Ford government.
A deal was done with the developer whereby concession were made by the City in regard to the now constructed high rise in return for the subsequent construction of the multi-storey parking lot and medical building. A financial penalty clause was included in the deal. The developer would be required to pay a large penalty should the parking lot and medical building not be built within a set timeframe. I’m not sure why, maybe somebody here can enlighten us all, but the City was unable to impose the financial penalty. So the developer got off scot-free. If the inability to impose the fine was the result of poor staff work one cannot put that blame on the Mayor or Council.
Perhaps Lynn you could let us all know what you think the City should have done differently both as to this specific development and the downtown high rises in general. And what do you suggest the City do now that a new proposal is about to be presented for the development of this property.
Council make decisions, staff can only follow direction of Council. The buck stops at the desk of MMW as CEO and Head of Council. Does that help you David in figuring out what the city should have done differently to meet taxpayer expectations I.e.act immediately on the province agreement with moving U G C and cancelling a bus stop being treated as an MTSA that set OLT precedents. Moving the UGC was an election issue that Stolte used to get herself elected against Jack Dennison. But once elected she forgot to keep on at her fellow councillors to get it done!
Editor’s note: Some of this comment is a little unfair. The Mayor has one vote om am issue (yes, I know the Strong Mayor powers do change that a bit) but the reality is on a day to day basis the Mayor casts one vote. So the buck does not step at her desk. Council as a body is responsible.
No, Anne & Dave, that does not help!
Yes, Council makes the ultimate decision. But each and every decision it makes is taken after considering multiple avenues of input, including from residents. But the main avenue of advice, some might even say expert advice, is from staff, – planning, legal etc. Council members are not planning or legal experts. Yes, the buck stops with Council, but recognize where the advice key to it’s decision making comes from.
If you took advice from a lawyer only to find out the advice was erroneous, are you saying the blame for the decision you made is yours, and yours alone. Or would you blame your lawyer?
Did McKenna’s literature reflect an official Provincial Government announced decision?
Even if the MTC designation had been removed do you seriously think that would have made an ounce of a difference to the outcomes of the various appeals to the OLT. If you do think it would have, well, say no more!
Please note I am not defending or being an apologist (LOL) for this council. I’m saying focus your blame on staff who didn’t even do a second rate job. It was third rate.,
David:
What the City could do now, and this idea is not mine but that of a much more practical and objective observer, is return to the original 2010 approvals for this site and demand that they be enforced. This is the case that Council should bring to the OLT; demonstrate both Council’s resolve and test the ability of the OLT to act as an unbiased quasi-judicial body. Citizens should know where they stand and this will show them.
Blair, do you really think that will sway the OLT (and the Ford government)? With respect in my opinion that is severely naive thinking.
How would that position stack up with the City’s positions in the new (not yet fully in force) OP which has been and is being defended by the City at the OLT?
Please get a grasp on reality. What council does or says has proven to be of little consequence at the OLT.