By Pepper Parr
March 6th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Updated: 9:40 am
Yet another update: Note from Councillor Shawna Stolte: Kelvin made the “time sucking” comment about issues in his ward…then I, as the Chair of Committee of the Whole, jokingly alluded to using this phrase in reference to our Committee having taken 20 hours, over 2 days, to debate what should have taken 12.
Funny bunch of people
How often do we hear members of Council tell you it is an honour to serve you? Often, especially during elections
During discussion on changing the ward boundaries and taking a hard look at the size of Council (Mayor Meed Ward has no problem with a larger council) Ward 1 Councillor Kelvin Galbraith let us know how he sees the job he has when he said:
Ward 1 Councillor Kelvin Galbraith: the job is a time sucker.
“RBG, Beachway, hospital – there’s a lot of time sucking features in my ward that need to be considered and they will be ongoing whether it’s me or somebody else.”
Galbraith seems to resent having to attend meetings that focus on the needs and interests of the people he was elected to represent.
Moments after Galbraith made his comment, a Council member said: “Could you use that time sucking quote frequently – there are many opportunities for that.”
They represent you – how do you feel about that?
The point isn’t whether it is Galbraith ”or someone else.” The point would be that there would be someone else in addition to take some of it and the boundaries could be redrawn accordingly.
There was a meeting last week with Galbraith and the Mayor on a new Branthaven development project on the Aldershot greenhouse lands. Developer was given permission at some point to change zoning. The Mayor and Galbraith were met by a group of residents who were not happy and, I am told by someone who attended over Zoom, gave the Mayor directly quite an earful. For all the residents not on Galbraith’s online newsletter list who didn’t know about the meeting, I’m afraid you can’t watch it back. Apparently it’s not going to be posted anywhere despite the fact it was recorded. Transparency – what’s that?
In all fairness, Ciuncillors Galbraith and Kearns are, perhaps, only voicing the frustration of too much work and too little time. With the size of Council, the highest ratio of Councillor to constituents of any tier 2 municipality, the workload is unsustainable and, if one actually wants to do a respectable job, it’s virtually impossible. This is the even-handed view of things. A more cynical view, and one supported by actual behaviours, is that they find effective representation to be too time-consuming for their other interests. And, of course, our Mayor does not mind entertaining a larger Council. She has the autocratic powers bestowed by the Province on Strong Mayors and she has these whether the Council is seven or seven hundred.