By Pepper Parr
July 3rd, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Last night ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns held a ward meeting that was both live for the 40 odd people in the room and for anyone who wanted to take part virtually.
It is something every member of Council might consider doing.
Kearns held that audience for a full three hours – answered every question she was given and ventured into areas that are not city matters – the school board being one of them.
This sort of thing isn’t for everyone – but it does give the public an opportunity to ask questions and challenge the Council member.
Lisa Kearns being Lisa Kearns. Sharp wit, quick with her responses and prepared to accept the consequences if she gets it wrong. Does she have an agenda? Of course she has an agenda. Good for her.
This is what transparency and accountability are about. Nisan, Galbraith and Sharman need to step up and be publicly accountable. Bentivegna would stumble a bit but in time he would get the hang of it and be a better Councillor for it. Stolte, not the Councillor the ward elected.
In the days ahead we will focus on some of the issues Kearns spoke about and the response from her audience.
The Mayor will be providing an opportunity to speak to her on Friday, July 12th at the Burlington Senior Centre from 9-10am.
I was a little surprised at the time as many seniors need more time to get ready and out in the mornings.
How many times have you heard” Burlington loves its seniors”.
An addendum to my comment below – and apologies for its length.
Today, my frustrations with trying to connect to the Clerk, Samantha Yew, or anyone in the Clerk’s Office, continued and were amplified. Again, I called, again I was put to Ms. Yew’s “personal voicemail” but, this time I zero’d out and went on a long, circuitous, automated messaging journey that finally (and with a 10 minute hold) ended with a live voice at Service Burlington. There I encountered a very well-intentioned customer service representative who explained that Service Burlington worked for all City departments and that if I would explain my issue then she would ensure that I was routed to the right place. I patiently but somewhat testily said that I knew where I wanted to go and to whom I needed to speak – I just was having a great deal of difficulty in soliciting any response, from anyone in the Clerk’s Office. She explained with equal patience and a small amount of verbal head patting, that I could not be sure that that was the correct place to answer my query but that she could get to the bottom of it. When she said that I realized that I had been soundly defeated. I obediently told her what I wanted, she recorded my request (to get the link to the Integrity Commissioner’s Annual Reports) and later I received an acknowledgement that I had indeed contacted the City of Burlington:
“Dear Blair Smith,
Thank you for contacting the City of Burlington. Your Committee Meetings, Agendas, Minutes, Reports and Videos request has been received by the city.
We have noted the service address as XXX. and captured some details of your case: Customer is asking for the annual report of cases reviewed, cannot see it on our website
If you have questions or new information to provide for this request, contact Service Burlington with the reference number CAS-289434-S7Q1H1
The Service Burlington team is available to assist you Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Sincerely,
Service Burlington
905-335-7777
city@burlington.ca
http://www.burlington.ca
Done and done!
So, why this long preamble and the addendum to my original comment – simply because how citizens are “engaged” by the City is almost diametrically opposed to any form of ‘open government’ best practice and is years/decades behind standard protocols in other jurisdictions and more senior levels of government – and it is shameful. Shameful.
All governments cede control of information grudgingly. It is the medium by which citizens eventually gain some measure of self-direction over decisions that affect their interests. Knowledge of ‘who does what’ within an organization is particularly precious because it allows the individual to target their concerns and reach those responsible to address them; it removes the anonymity that provides a cover to transparency of governance and accountability for acts and decisions. The Provincial Government has had a robust, information-rich directory of staff and organizational structures for over twenty years. A link is provided below:
https://www.infogo.gov.on.ca
It also has rather stringent customer service standards that are applied to all levels within the organization. It simply is not possible for an officer of the government to continuously avoid contact. And these standards and protocols have been in place for decades. Is the Provincial Government more responsive to the citizen? That’s a totally different question (and I’m finished with that level of conjecture) but it certainly has a much more transparent governance and organizational presence on display.
The City of Burlington is an ‘open government’ and citizen engagement dinosaur. It provides multiple layers of protective buffer between those responsible for actions and decisions and their accountability to the public. It is a safe haven for institutional indifference and, in my opinion, arrogance. It could be and should be much, much different.
When the current administration took office in 2018, it was provided with an ‘open government’ roadmap; a sequenced array of simple initiatives that would make Burlington the jewel of the ‘open government’ movement. Not a single initiative has been implemented despite much campaign rhetoric and populist promises.
In most measures that actually matter, the City of Burlington is more closed and insular now than it was on October 28, 2018.
A footnote – email protocols for an organization follow standard structures. Those for the City of Burlington staff are firstname.lastname@burlington.ca So, for example the City Clerk would be Samantha.yew@burlington.ca and the new General Manager/Chief Administrative Officer would be Hassaan.Basit@burlington.ca in case you want to make contact directly rather than through Service Burlington, as proposed on the COB website.
Paul Sharman was at 2815 Appleby Line on June 12 and Shawna was at 4457 New Street on June 19. I am not a robot or using AI. I await your apology.
Editor’s response: Why would you want an apology from ‘fake news’? We don’t have a crystal ball that tells us when a Councillor is holding a public meeting.
I appreciate very much that Lisa has proper constituent meetings at city hall where she stands at the podium and takes any questions thrown at her by either attendees or those on zoom. All members of council should be doing this and aren’t. This is far better than silly “one-on-one” greets at a food court where the group as a whole can’t hear the questions or the answers – not real engagement at all imo. I attended this meeting of Lisa’s – I counted 15 people in attendance, not 40 – and I said this, thanked her for doing this actual engagement exercise and doing so regularly. She also didn’t need a staff person as a buffer – it was just her and us and the technical staff to make sure everything worked.
I have been at events hosted by both Sharman and Stolte in the past six weeks. Your information needs updating or is it fake news?
Editor’s question: Let’s be sure this isn’t a fake comment or that the Barnett that commented isn’t a fake person. When did the events you claim took place – take place?
Editor: perhaps Jim means the food court or other coffee events some council members hold. Following their social media accounts or their newsletters is how to find out about them. And certainly Jim is a real person – one of the most engaged citizens we have in Burlington. I enjoy seeing him at council meetings and other events.
Kudos to Councillor Kearns – she walks the talk and it is refreshing. I wish that
Council as a whole and COB staff, in selective part, would follow her example. I will provide a case in point.
On June 11th I sent the following message to the Clerk’s Department – “I
understand that the City’s Integrity Commissioner is required to publish an
annual report of cases reviewed/disposed for each applicable municipality.
These reports are public information and are intended to be on each
municipality’s website for review. I can not find these annual reports on the COB
website. Could you please provide me with the appropriate link. Many thanks.” I
received an automatic acknowledgement of receipt of my email but no
subsequent follow-up.
Accordingly, Approximately 2 weeks later I phoned Samantha Yew, the new City
Clerk, and left a voice message repeating my request. When I had no reply
within over a week, I phoned again on Tuesday, July 2nd, and again requested
the information. I have had no response so I am creating this post to, hopefully,
generate some action or, at least, provide a perspective on the continued and disappointing reluctance of City staff to appropriately engage.
It is no secret why I would like to see the annual reports – I want to compare the number of investigations conducted or requested in Burlington against those of comparable jurisdictions. Two things to note – first, relative population has nothing to do with the number of investigations. The Integrity Commissioner only entertains complaints against members of Council and/or members of Boards and Commissions. So, it is easy to look at the size of the various ‘elected complement’ and determine which jurisdictions seem to draw complaints through the conduct of their politicians. Secondly, the number of complaints as a ratio against the elected cohort provides a reasonable measure to assess the health of an organization and how well the cohort works together and with the public that they serve. Is it an exact measure – no, but it’s an awfully interesting one particularly when presented as an annual statistic.
For an example of good practice, I have provided a link to the City of Windsor’s website and the very open publication of the annual Integrity Commissioner reports.
https://www.citywindsor.ca/city-hall/municipal-accountability-and-transparency/integrity-commissioner/reports
The City of Windsor employs the same Integrity Commissioner, Principles Integrity, as does the City of Burlington.
Thanks for all the info, Blair. I reviewed the Windsor report – fact-filled and understandable. What I don’t understand is why Burlington will not follow its own rules and inform citizens likewise? Another example of poor civic engagement and transparency in our City government. Begs the question – What other information are they hiding from citizens?
I called the Integrity Commissioner from Principles Integrity and asked for this information and it was he who told me it is required to be on the city website and that they have provided three reports to the city. That they aren’t there or easily found and that Blair asked the Clerk and she refuses to respond is unacceptable.
Agree with Jim that despite the massive money they’ve spent on the website, it is terrible. One can’t help thinking that in many instances, it’s deliberate rather than incompetent.
The only thing propping up any idea of the Clerk enforcing the transparency and accountability codes of conduct is naivety and totally misplaced trust. My experience with the Clerk involved my complaint to the Integrity Commissioner about Councilor Galbraith’s conflicts of interest and property ownership in the MTSA.
In this experience, I entered it with a mind that had always trusted the process. If anyone still does have any trust in the issue on this Table, you are, as Blair said, done and done for by this naivety.
At the time for me with the IC complaint, despite a number of failures and violations of Codes of Conduct and Governance, Procedures, pledges of transparency, and accountability, I still maintained hope.
However, the system completely failed me, and the community, including worse of all by the actions of the IC, and the Legal, Mayor and Councilor, and Council as a whole. I believe the Mayor hires the Head of Counsel; and the Head of Council hires the Clerk; and the Clerk I believe is supposed to ensure the procedural Codes of conduct and Governance are followed and enforced.
Note that recently, the people that have left City that I corresponded with as well – former head of legal, former Clerk, former City Commissioner, former Senior planner.
There is no trust left in me, as I see nothing much being done about the systemic rot that I see so apparent in this community betrayal. There is no integrity – doing the right thing – that I see. If someone truly does, please tell us.
In my IC complaint experience, what I saw as a minimum was;
Almost everything that IC said and advised Councilor Galbraith in the March 8/22 Advice, was somehow changed or absent in the Disposition Report.
I find it shocking and not credible that these two reports were written by the same 2-person Integrity Commissioner.
This period was filled with many actions, but chiefly:
Political intervention and interference led mainly by the Mayor and the Councilor and followed by the IC:
The fabrication of distance numbers by the Councilor and the IC; and failure to disclose and correct this fabrication, and the resulting large errors by the IC;
And subsequently, all of Council as they were informed by me;
The failure of the IC to follow the full and proper Code of Good Governance Procedure in their investigation as per the Procedural Code of City Council;
The failure of the Clerk, IC and Council to have this Procedural Code enforced and failures corrected;
Failure to disclose the business relationship and Agreement Body or Memorandum of Intent to develop their adjoining properties together between the Councilor and Emshih Development;
And other general failures of correct process, changing evidence and conclusions and evidence selection bias between the March 8/22 Advice memorandum Report and the Disposition Report.
None of these reports has been publicly released by the City and I believe I know of more than the three Lynn mentions – I know of at least 2 in my case. And Lynn mentions that the Clerk refuses to respond to Blair.
The Clerk, Legal and the Mayor are top of the chain of command in this, and the City is stated to be required to release all these reports by the IC.
Nothing in this IC Conflict of pecuniary interest matters can be believed coming out of the Clerk’s Office. Legal, or the Mayor. The IC also has dirt on its hands in my case, – no Integrity there allowing clear interference by Mayor and Councilors, as has the entire Council for having completely allowed this to happen with no concern apparent, even when I presented them with the evidence long ago.
Given other problems in the Clerks Office, did they even get the mail?
The only thing propping up any idea of the Clerk enforcing the transparency and accountability codes of conduct and procedural matters is naivety and totally misplaced trust. My experience with the Clerk involved my complaint to the Integrity Commissioner about Councilor Galbraith’s conflicts of interest and property ownership in the MTSA.
In this experience, I entered it with a mind that had always trusted the process. If anyone still does have any trust in the issue on this Table, you are, as Blair said, done and done for by this naivety.
At the time for me with the IC complaint, despite a number of failures and violations of Codes of Conduct and Governance, Procedures, pledges of transparency, and accountability, I still maintained hope.
However, the system completely failed me, and the community, including worse of all by the actions of the IC, and the Legal, Mayor and Councilor, and Council as a whole. I believe the Mayor hires the Head of Counsel; and the Head of Council hires the Clerk; and the Clerk I believe is supposed to ensure the procedural Codes of conduct and Governance are followed and enforced.
Note that recently, the people that have left City that I corresponded with as well – former head of legal, former Clerk, former City Commissioner, former Senior planner.
There is no trust left in me, as I see nothing much being done about the systemic rot that I see so apparent in this community betrayal. There is no integrity – doing the right thing – that I see. If someone truly does, please tell us.
In my IC complaint experience, what I saw as a minimum was;
Almost everything that IC said and advised Councilor Galbraith in the March 8/22 Advice, was somehow changed or absent in the Disposition Report.
I find it shocking and not credible that these two reports were written by the same 2-person Integrity Commissioner.
This period was filled with many actions, but chiefly:
Political intervention and interference led mainly by the Mayor and the Councilor and followed by the IC:
The fabrication of distance numbers by the Councilor and the IC; and failure to disclose and correct this fabrication, and the resulting large errors by the IC;
And subsequently, all of Council as they were informed by me;
The failure of the IC to follow the full and proper Code of Good Governance Procedure in their investigation as per the Procedural Code of City Council;
The failure of the Clerk, IC and Council to have this Procedural Code enforced and failures corrected;
Failure to disclose the business relationship and Agreement Body or Memorandum of Intent to develop their adjoining properties together between the Councilor and Emshih Development;
And other general failures of correct process, changing evidence and conclusions and evidence selection bias between the March 8/22 Advice memorandum Report and the Disposition Report.
None of these reports has been publicly released by the City and I believe I know of more than the three Lynn mentions – I know of at least 2 in my case. And Lynn mentions that the Clerk refuses to respond to Blair.
The Clerk, Legal and the Mayor are top of the chain of command in this, and the City is stated to be required to release all these reports by the IC.
Nothing in this IC Conflict of pecuniary interest matters can be believed coming out of the Clerk’s Office. Legal, or the Mayor. The IC also has dirt on its hands in my case, – no Integrity there allowing clear interference by Mayor and Councilors, as has the entire Council for having completely allowed this to happen with no concern apparent, even when I presented them with the evidence long ago. They never even acknowledged receipt of my correspondence, despite my request for such in every instance, and to the IC.
Given other problems in the Clerks Office, did they even get the mail?
Does Bentivegna have what it takes for a job this important.?
Editor’s note: Bentivegna has his limitations – don’t we all. BUT he is the best retail politician on this Council. His constituents love him and he delivers for them.
I’d say No.