By Staff
December 31st, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Many people actually write out New Year resolutions for themselves – setting out the things they want to achieve during the year they are going into.
History suggests that the resolutions don’t get met.
ECoB – Engaged Citizens of Burlington has set out their resolutions for 2018.
They are a little scattered:
• We will champion real engagement that is not merely holding public meetings; it means to actually listen to what residents are saying and follow through.
• To question why Council, led by Staff, failed to know that the province never mandated that the downtown be a mobility hub? We will challenge the effect of the Downtown Anchor Hub relative to its unproven value.
• We will protect the character of Brant Street and ask Council to not ratify their decision to allow the development of 421 Brant to move forward. We will expose why Council voted for this development, did having to defend this at the OMB by the developers play into their decision to approve?
• We will challenge why the Official Plan, the most important municipal document, is never really official and that that it seems to be used as a starting point in negotiations.
• To enforce the City’s Strategic Plan for an Engaging City by vetting new candidates for each ward for the upcoming municipal election where an incumbent has voted on the official plan as drafted.
• We will champion “A Made in Burlington Solution” – what works in Vancouver or Portland does not necessarily work in Burlington.
Laudable but a little confusing. “Exposing why Council voted” suggests there was something not quite on the level about that 5-2 vote city council meeting to approve the 421 Brant Street project.
New and worth keeping an eye on.
The “vetting” of candidates is interesting; how does an organization do that? Who sets the criteria. Does a candidate who has been “vetted” mean the candidate has been endorsed?
ECoB is new, a little thin on the ground at this point but these things take time and they were getting started during the biggest festive season of the year. Let’s see where they are by the end of March.
Their web site is worth keeping an eye on.
What a disappointment.
I sure hope that ECoB has a good lawyer – to suggest complicity? Wow …
Could perhaps the purpose was to have residents question their councillors, to become actively involved? Any organization needs people who are prepared to stand up for what they believe in.
Mr White, I am sure that ECoB would welcome your participation.
Lots of nice motherhood statements, but weak in terms of concrete actions.
Things like questioning “…why Council, led by Staff, failed to know that the province never mandated that the downtown be a mobility hub” and “vetting new candidates for each ward for the upcoming municipal election” are pretty lame. We don’t need to vet new candidates….we need ECoB to actually identify candidates in each ward who subscribe to a list of core values to protect and preserve neighbourhoods, then screen them, and then run a slate of candidates with support from ECoB members to take out the existing incumbents. As for questioning staff, the time for questioning is long past. They aren’t going to change their minds, they are resolutely stubborn and clearly don’t listen to public opinion, and spending time trying to get them to change their mind is time wasted.