By Pepper Parr
August 7th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Anne Marsden made the following delegation at a Special meeting of City Council on Wednesday August 7th:
The process adopted for the applications includes the one we are delegating on – an application for official plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment for the for 1393 Grahams Lane development is blatantly wrong.
The applications on this council agenda see the public input reduced from the comparable norm prior to August 7 by by removing the committee review process.
Marsden: “Councillors need to take a stand on this one and have this application go to the appropriate September committee.”
Committee, according to you folks, is where the work is done and recommendations only are made to council. All we hear is Council. Committee does not approve. Only Council can approve. Rarely do we delegate at both committee and council on the same subject, unless there is something drastically wrong with the process, as there was earlier this year.
Our mayor’s memory is short. She encouraged and led a huge number of delegates to stop the 10 minutes of committee being reduced to five. However, she removes 10 minutes public delegation time on an application that one member of the public states developing a residential building in this area does not seem to be based on logical thought.
If this works for applications, why do we not do away with Standing Committees altogether? How can councillors, in all conscience make a decision on this application to change the zoning by law and approve the application based on a 94 page report that was only available on the calendar less than a week ago, with a holiday weekend and kids and grandkids home from school in between. We find it an impossible task to consider the full report for this delegation in the time that has been made available to us.
Councillors need to take a stand on this one and have this application go to the appropriate September committee and return the 10 minutes public delegation time back to the public Bill 185 removed the refund provisions of Bill 109 and therefore the city would not have to provide any fee refund as a result of failing to make a decision within 120 days, September will give the community where I live that was reputedly consulted on this, to this, on objections to this change in zoning and low rise to high rise the opportunity to review it properly.
Most that I talked to in my community had no knowledge of the issue, and our condo board have not been able to give the time to allow our community to come up with a joint present position, as they know most are unaware of the application, never mind the 94 page report.
Anne Marsden delegates regularly at City Council. She has run for the Office of Mayor in the past
If councillors allow themselves to be making any decision on this at all, it should be number two, refuse the application. However, we believe the four councillors who we supported in their efforts to restore democracy to our governments could and should have their own plans to end the current plan to drastically diminish public input into what is supposed to be a democratic decision making process by a transparent and accountable Council.
Members of Council should not be making the decision without properly hearing from the public. 33% of the normal delegation time is not hearing from the public or compliant with engagement charter. The mayor has, throughout made comments that the community has been heard, but from an advocate’s perspective, they certainly were not. This is particularly disturbing, bypassing committee in the month of August, when the public does not expect such decisions, they usually don’t even meet. You are committed to work for the best interests of the city.
It is not in the best city’s best interests to drastically reduce public input. Not only that, why would you allow the committee where someone else is in the chair of the now strong mayor to be reduced to a dispensable process. Four of you stood up for a democratic process previously. You can and should do it again. If what you said previously was from the heart, what is the use of having committee chairs other than the mayor? If committees are being bypassed, and you are all allowing it to happen.
Ms Marsden does at time ramble a bit – but on this one – we think she is dead on. Deciding to skip the Standing Committee stage meant there was no opportunity to get public input – what we are seeing is a continuing practice of taking short cuts.
The Statutory Meetings for developments were for staff approval recommendations, which in this day of the City housing target commitment – none of which are affordable by any means – are rubber stamped by Council. They have all bought in to the Ford-Meed Ward Plan.
It doesn’t matter what residents think, so 5 minutes helps speed things up.
The delegation short cut of flood victims is just a power manipulation by the Mayor of the hapless victims. She clearly does have no shame,, she is not alone in this among the Council members who all just go along.
Thank you to Anne Marsden for once again calling out our Mayor and Council for NOT Complying with the Legislated Rules and Procedures.
This is Not acceptable!!
It’s the mayor’s world, we just live in it … and pay for it.
I too wish the council members who stood up for democracy on the totally undemocratic strong mayor powers issue – losing of course, thus proving their own point – would continue to stand up for it.
That perhaps is the biggest disappointment. You know the amount of work and effort that many of us put into supporting the four councillors in terms of the issues of democracy that we believed they were trying hard to protect. None of them saw anything wrong with the removal of the Committee review and reduction of public input time by 66%. Neither would they give any consideration to the Applicant’s request to defer that could have seen it go to Committee.
Once again Council didn’t follow it’s Procedure By-law . So much for transparency and accountability.
Not only that, in this year of the Engagement Charter review Council is demonstrating that citizen engagement on major issues like this flood is missing in action. I see someone from my Ward is looking into a class action lawsuit against the City for negligence in clearing debris away from watercourses and drainage grates on a regular basis. Doing so after the floods (in 2014 and now again in 2024) just does not cut it.