By Pepper Parr
September 8th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
In the 12 years we have been covering Burlington Council meetings we have seen it all.
There have been some brilliant delegations. We watched as a single parent, quite young, not particularly well educated, speak to council and drive home the challenge single parents with jobs that don’t pay very well cope on a day to day basis.
We watched a woman turn to then Mayor Goldring and tell him to be quiet while she was speaking.
We have watched presentations from developers who tried to control the information Council was going to be given.
The evening a decent sized group of mothers who played soccer filled the room with babes in arms and strollers all over the place – made their point – they wanted a fairer distribution of the time available on the soccer pitches in Sheridan Forest park was one to remember.
Things are not like that anymore. The group of people who would delegate regularly is much smaller these days – some of that is a hangover from the Covid 19 concerns.
We watched recently, as the Mayor was just plain rude to a frequent delegator.
The procedure at the opening of Council meetings now has the Mayor reading this statement:
Mayor Meed Ward
As a reminder, delegates are required by the procedure bylaw to speak only to the report and the item on the agenda. Further delegates must be respectful of staff council members and other members of the public who may have a different perspective on an item. Personal attacks will not be tolerated and we do have a respectful workplace which includes council chambers. So please focus on the issue that you have registered to delegate to and note that those who spoke at committee on an item are required to bring new information forward only and are not to repeat what they said at committee.
Not exactly a welcoming statement.
That procedural bylaw has been described as badly outdated but no mention as to when it will be revised.
At a Council meeting the Mayor announced Anne and Dave Marsden in council chambers said they will speak to two items on the agenda. The first one is the 2024 proposed budget and tax levy for the business improvement area. And the second one is the motion memorandum calling for a new Halton courthouse in Oakville.
“You have five minutes for each of those” she said.
Anne Marsden
Marsden began by saying: “Over two weeks ago, we did start email conversations with every member of council and the only on this subject, a very serious subject. And the only response we got was a confirmation from Mayor Meed Ward. We’ve had no correspondence at all, no interest shown by any member of council in this very serious matter. The recommendation before Council on this agenda item is approve the 2024 proposed budget for the Burlington Downtown Business Association improvement area. Burlington BIA members pay a tax levy of over a million dollars. This report presents an overview of the 2024 Burlington downtown business improvement area,
Marsden went on for the time she was permitted.
At one point the Mayor interrupted Marsden saying: “sorry you are we are not dealing with that by law. So please restrict yourselves to the by law that we are dealing with thank you, we are not dealing with that 2015 bylaw
Mayor intercedes again “ I’m going to have to interrupt you. We’re not dealing with a 2015 authorizing bylaw. We are dealing only with the budget today. So please confine your remarks to the budget today. I’m sorry that is not relevant to our budget deliberations today.
Marsden: The last time you interrupted me and said I couldn’t speak on a certain item I corrected you and the clerk agreed with that correction. There was no apology from you for interrupting members the public who are trying to ensure that residents are treated fairly.
Mayor: Thank you very much for your delegation. Moving now to your second delegation, which is on the motion memorandum regarding the call for the new Halton courthouse in Oakville. Once again I will advise you to follow our procedure Bylaw and stick to the item in front of us on today’s agenda, you have five minutes.
Marsden begins her delegation.
She gets through the five minutes without any interruptions from the Mayor.
Mayor Meed Ward responds: “Thank you very much for your delegation. We know it’s not easy to present and these issues we are very passionate about.”
Marsden was having a very difficult day – she was in tears part of the time.
Councillor Lisa Kearns
Councillor Shawna Stolte
Councillor Paul Sharman
We have seen other delegators come close to breaking down with one saying she had to get some professional help due to the stress related to her delegations.
These are people who care deeply about issues in their community.
There has to be a better way to treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve. Councillors Kearns and Stolte and Councillor Sharman have managed to be kind, considerate and helpful when delegates struggle to make their point.
It can be done.
Can someone/anyone give me one good reason why MMW is deserving of a Kings medal?
Because she’s going to run for the Liberals in Damoff’s riding – Oakville North/Burlington. Gould would normally have given the medal to her but Karina plans to run again and Damoff is retiring from that version of politics. Oh you said “deserving” – no idea.
My take, the days when citizens could delegate, will soon come to an end. You dont need tea leaves to see that the downward trajectory of this democratic device has gone south under this administration. The voice of the electorate is being muted and then silenced and then replaced by the tightly controlled Community Panel a.ka. citizen engagement “machina”.
The only tool we have left is the right to vote.
Agree Joe. The Community Panel application is truly a thing to behold. Ten pages long, asks for two references and their contact information, your resume, a police check. What data are they collecting here? There’s another whole thing to fill out online before you even get to that which asks for so much data – and your social media handles if you’ll give them (!) – that I exited out of it. Tightly controlled it most certainly will be. The opposite of transparent and they’ll decide whose voices they’ll hear/manipulate, thank you very much.
In the “Mayor’s Rant” I particularly like the part in which she directs the Clerk – “I will ask that all those remarks particularly those that challenge my integrity be struck from the record as violating the code of good governance.” Well, Your Worship it’s on video so queue for posterity ‘the Meed Ward missing minutes’ 😉
Ha! Yes that was really something.
I also always question why exactly someone cannot “challenge her integrity? If one feels it’s lacking, why can’t that be raised? She could then defend her position. That’s democracy …
The Marsden’s would make anyone loose patience…
I’ve been at meetings with Marsden delegating and sometimes she seemed a bit much to listen to….more like a dog with a bone and not everyone agrees with her stand…fully understand why some councilors loose patience with her. Sometimes I just rolled my eyes and shook my head thinking lets get on with other things.
This is both rude and completely not the point. Our elected officials, who work for us, are paid by us, and represent us, don’t get to choose which delegates they feel like listening to, which ones they’ll treat with respect, which ones they’ll treat with disdain. If Council members don’t have the patience to listen to citizens for five or ten minutes, then they should quit their jobs.
It’s rich indeed to hear the Mayor recite her big “respect” and “personal attacks” speech as if it’s a regular occurrence for members of the public to act like hooligans who can’t be trusted to behave appropriately without being pre-scolded like we’re unruly toddlers. One doesn’t get to demand respect without giving respect, either.
Hear hear
It seems we are hearing more and more negatives about our Mayor. Are things really as bad as they seem, have things changed that much, or is the reporting changing? I dont attend meetings so I respect all of those who work and speak on our vehalf. Its just hard to read between the lines.
Here are a some short videos to watch
Mayor spins her survey results
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5UDqCi4YZQ
How Dan Chapman feels about the tax situation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxt0Shm4glE&feature=youtu.be
The Mayor’s rant
You forgot “We don’t take question from delegates”
November 2,2023 at the 30 minute mark in the video.
Paraphrased as:
“We do not answer questions.”
Everyone in Burlington needs to watch these 2 Videos posted here by Eric Stern. They are quite eye opening to say the least. Our Mayor, Marianne Meed Ward, has an ongoing issue with treating Delegates and even members of her Council with the dignity and respect they all deserve.
Listen and Judge for yourself.
Also, as I recall the 1st Video was attended by our Mayor thru video conferencing as she was in London at the time, attending her daughter’s graduation from University.
P.S. There are 3 Videos to watch and listen to. The last one being our Mayor ‘s Rant. All very informative.
Sharon,
You need to Watch and listen to the 3 Videos posted here by Eric Stern in this comment section. These Videos will give you a pretty clear understanding of what’s going on at our Burlington City Council meetings! And why residents are complaining.
Listen and Judge for yourself.
The issue we had with the Mayor’s behaviour was she repeated a contravention of the Code of Good Governance and her repeated position that the Council Chambers is a place where the City policy of respect in the workplace is enforced. Our delegation was not contrary to the Procedure By-law, we were addressing the authority of Council to approve the motion before them on the Downtown BIA tax levy. The evidence that there is no such authority was the subject of a meeting that included our head of legal and city manager that took almost two years to arrange, January 24th. We only get one opportunity a year to address these authority issues at Council.
The Mayor’s behavioutr was not a direct result of wanting to ensure a procedure by-law was followed but rather to prevent the evidenced facts associated with this tax levy being heard.
The tears were not for us but for the victims of this behaviour and the illusion of democracy that we taxpayers believe we have. We are reminded of the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept’ when he wept over the city.