By Pepper Parr
October 15th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
More changes to the city staff organization chart.
Leah Bortolotti, now the Head of Corporate Affairs, had her first council meeting responding to community engagement issues related to the Ward Boundary – Size of City Council issue.
Councillor Kearns:
“I have looked at it again in the actual report on engagement matters, which says that the product, the project, will involve extensive public engagement.
“We don’t always see that qualifier around public engagement. It says that there will be extensive engagement and that a communications plan is being finalized to ensure residents are aware of the review.
Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns: Asked questions that have not been asked before.
“So what we’ve seen so far with the turnouts on the currently scheduled events is certainly not the type of turnout that I would hope we would have concerning such a serious matter that will be considered before the next election. So I’d like to hear from staff on what will we expect back although it’s an ongoing engagement and a plan is being finalized. When will we see that plan, and when will we know more about what we’re going to receive back in terms of engagement the staff member like to comment on that please.
Leah Bortolotti: We are also putting together a communications kit for all council to use.
Leah Bortolotti: “What we did so far on this was a blast out on September 23. We did a news release, social media, Get Involved Burlington, and we did continued updates on the website. We’re doing a full comms plan starting January, once the final kind of results come in to update everybody. We also are doing an update on social media tomorrow, on the two other dates. That was the plan. I apologize if it wasn’t soon enough for everybody. Given other initiatives for common engagement. We felt that was still timely enough to let people know about the two other engagement sessions.
“We are also putting together a communications kit for all council to use, and that should be coming this week as well, to communicate this to their constituents. I’m open to, obviously, if there’s a need for more communications on this to to respond to those needs or wants. But we feel, as it currently stands, that that plan was extensive for what we’re what current phase that we are in, there is a second phase in January. I mentioned, that we’ll have a bigger budget to do even more communications and engagement and to report back on the initial findings of Watson’s review.”
Kearns: “With the response that you’ve received thus far. How would you measure it against the efforts being put out by the city?”
Leah Bortolotti: “Being relatively new to the city, I can say that it seems like the response is low given our efforts. I don’t necessarily think it’s a lack of communication. I can’t speak to why residents aren’t more actively civically engaged on this, but I can say that we’ve been communicating publicly. I don’t know the respondent demographics when it comes to age, background – but what I can say is we can continue to communicate on social media. I’m not sure if you will see an influx in more respondents, but we’re happy to do so.
Kearns has a second set of questions – they are only permitted two at a time.
Kearns: “I think it’s fair to agree that we do need some robust engagement on this. How will staff get to the root cause of not having the engagement that we need to make the appropriate decisions? What will you do to find the root cause of this lack of engagement?”
Leah Bortolotti: you think people will be very interested in a specific item, and they’re not.
Leah Bortolotti: “Sorry, I don’t have an answer for you on that, because I don’t necessarily think that that’s a just a staff exercise. We can continue to communicate as much as we would like, and what is asked of us – we can’t hand-hold someone to these sessions and force them to respond or to respond online. The best we can do is to work with Watson to ensure that we are communicating as broadly as possible.
Bortolotti added – we don’t have just have this survey. We have two different sections where if people aren’t comfortable with responding to that, maybe the rigor of a survey or the structure is too much for some people – they can also put their feedback directly to those spots on the website. “We’re trying to be as accommodating and flexible as possible with that. I will say that at this point in time, I don’t have an answer for you on what the root cause is.
“I’ve seen this before, working provincially, you think that people will be very interested in a specific item, and they’re not. We’re happy to collaborate with Watson and and take feedback on maybe where there are gaps or opportunities. I don’t think that currently, anything that has been done right now would indicate that there’s not a for lack of trying, we definitely are working to ensure that as many people are responding to these questions and participating as possible.”
City Solicitor Blake Hurley was sitting in as Interim CAO.
Interim CAO Blake Hurley: “This is something that the city staff and our consultants are looking to get that engagement from the members of the public, and to answer your question about, what can we do to determine what the cause is of the out the turnout or lack of turnout so far at our sessions. That’s one of the benefits of working with our consultant who’s very experienced In this area. I think we can draw upon them to determine whether or not this is normal, or whether or not they’re used to seeing more engagement in other municipalities that they’ve done this work in and similar consultation, the advice we’ve heard so far from our consultant is that we have a robust engagement plan. I don’t want to draw a conclusion yet that it’s a communication plan issue, because our consultant has advised us that, yes, we are consulting appropriately and in line with what they’ve done before.
Tonight is our first online session for consultation on this matter that provides an alternative opportunity for members of the public to engage if for some reason, coming out to one of the sessions, I think we’ve had a few in the evening and one in the daytime. If those times have not worked for people, tonight’s online. Tonight’s online session may provide an additional opportunity that provides some more flexibility to them. I also want to make sure that it’s not lost on everyone that in order to provide comments, you don’t have to just attend one of these sessions. There is an opportunity to just write in to our staff and our consultant working on this and that feedback is more than welcome and welcome as much as feedback received in person. So, for those who find the time does not work for them for whatever reason in their personal lives, if they do want to comment, staff is very receptive to receiving those comments via email.
Council Kearns: “Sure, I appreciate that. There is a very significant difference between having a plan and having an outcome. I think we want to be outcome-driven on this approach. I think there’s also opportunity to continue the engagement and receive a report back through a council information report on any changes that are made or more enhancements that are made to the communication piece on this.
“I won’t table a motion. I’ll let you allow the next two sessions or more to unfold with a monitor on outcomes and getting those numbers up, we have just heard that it is lower than expected, so let’s at least get aligned which will be great. Maybe a council information package would be useful? Council information report would be helpful in the next month or so to see where we are.
“I didn’t want this to fall into consent at all. I think this is an important conversation. I won’t table a motion, but I’ll look for an information report. Is that fair?”
Bortolotti : Yeah, that’s absolutely fair.
Kearns: “I just want to make sure that we all have on record what currently has been done, just so we have that awareness.
“The initial report to council, came March 2024 and then the procurement happened. We did a soft launch at Food for Feedback in September and that received a lot of interest.
Leah Bortolotti was direct when she said she did not have answers. That was a good first step.
“We did media releases supporting social media, digital ads, posters all across the city’s facilities, five media articles to date, the reach was 876,000 based on circulation publication. The sentiment at that time, not currently, was 100% neutral for media stories, so not any interest either way.
“City Talk article was featured in 2020 June, there’s also one upcoming in December. We sent it out to 7000 plus subscribers at the Get Involved Burlington. We did an online survey. On October 7, we did a video launch, as well as a document library containing lots of reference material on the Get Involved Burlington page. We are more than happy to continue that push, and we will get a report on the engagement to you.”
And that was it.
A woman, Leah Bortolotti, new to the job was direct when she said she did not have answers. That was a good first step.
Now to get some people who understand communications around the table – think outside the box people.
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