Mayor blocks citizens group from commenting on her Linked In site

By Staff

December 11th, 2024

BURLINGTON, ON

During the City Council meeting yesterday, the Mayor said, as part of her Personal Privilege remark that:

“I would like to address comments made at the Special Council meeting on the budget. This is the soonest opportunity, as I was not at that meeting due to attending a funding announcement at the hospital, one of the delegates mused that perhaps our CAO knowingly misrepresented the budget increase percentage. Now normally I don’t repeat personal attacks or defamatory statements, but it’s critically important to clarify what is in bounds and out of bounds when we are aiming for respectful dialog and respect in the workplace.

On that “soonest opportunity” the Mayor attended an event where she didn’t get to say a word.  Some believe the Mayor didn’t attend the Council meeting because she was pretty sure Council was going to vote against her on two matters – which they did.

The Burlington Residents’ Action Group (BRAG) replied pointing out that the exact statement made by the delegate was:

“It was interesting to watch Mr. Basit present a 4.97% on November 4th when the Halton Police budget had been made public on October 30th. Did Mr. Basit knowingly misrepresent the truth?”

“The statement poses a question. The facts are the facts and the police budget increase was widely reported as being 13.8% well before the November 4^th meeting.

“As I understand it, after factoring in new revenue from new homes the police increase works out to 11.8% (that number has since increased to 14.3) to existing taxpayers. The increase to the “overall” tax increase number the City of Burlington loves to use looks like this:

The 7.51% has since been increased. The 5.76%, which will also be increased, is a true number – but not all that relevant. The number that matters to the people of Burlington is the one that explains how much their city taxes are going to increase, in terms of a %.  Burlington city Council is responsible for what they spend and what they have to collect.

To add insult to injust the Mayor has now blocked BRAG from commenting on her LinkedIn site.