By Pepper Parr
June 20th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
There was an interesting comment made by a woman who attended the first of two community meetings on the creation of Heritage Designated areas.
A Burlington downtown resident who lives in one of the areas the city wants to designate a Heritage Cultural Area questions both the idea and the way the city is working with residents.
She made these comments on the differences between ZOOM (virtual) meetings that the bureaucrats seem to prefer. City meetings are webcast – it is not unusual to have close to half the members of Council working from their homes.
“If you’ve watched any of the Zoom meetings the City had regarding this matter, where they all blabbed away and at the end of it said “that went well thanks everyone “
Citizens will show up for a meeting if you make it interesting enough and promote it effectively. This crowd was going through the city budget. Virtual or Zoom meetings are not popular to citizens.
“The meeting last night was the equivalent of a Zoom meeting – the City and the consultant struggled so much and came across as ill prepared and uninformed because … they had to sit in a room face to face with real people, real business owners with real questions.
“Zoom meetings are not a substitute for real life – they really need to stop “working from home”
“When Zoom meeting participants have to confront real life… they can’t cope”
The city and the consultant(s) were completely bewildered as to why everyone wasn’t going yeah – let’s do it and do it twice
Does she have a point?
