By Pepper Parr
June 8tjh, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
I was about to write a piece on the failure on the part of City Council to address the problems behind the swimming pool allocation problem involving two swimming clubs; The Burlington Aquatic Deveilrays (BAD) and the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club (GHAC), when the Mayor announces that she has called a Special Council meeting to take place on Thursday at 9:00 am.
The Mayor didn’t say a word about this during the Standing Committee that adjourned at 2:15 this afternoon – nor was there any mention at the Special Council meeting that took place immediately after the Standing Committee.
Hopefuly, the city staff members that made some of the decisions will be asked to explain what they did. We would like to hear from the City Treasurer Craig Millar, the Director of Parks Recreation and Culture Emilie Cote on why she chose to send the issues to City staff who were asked to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) and where the Chief Administrative Officer was when all this was happening.
City Treasurer Craig Millar
Director of Parks, Recreation and Culture Emilie Cote
Chief Administrative Officer Hassaan Basit
The public deserved to be told where the city failed at both transparency and accountability.
Mayor Meed Ward does deserve credit for calling the meeting. Let’s expect that the kimonos will be wide open.
Marianne Meed Ward delegating before City Council
Is Mayor Meed WArd returning to her transparency and accountability roots?
After publishing news of the Special Council meeting we went looking for the agenda.
Here is what we found:
As soon as the meeting begins Council will go into a Closed Session, which means viewers will be looking at a notice. When the Closed session ends Counil might say what took place in the meeting.
This isn’t a meeting to inform the public – this is a meeting at which council will try and figure out of the hole they are in.
When you are in a hole you dug for yourself – rule 1 – STOP digging
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Again I will advise there are several legal outs in the inappropriately worded and used RFP that I have read to abandon the RFP process that was taken and any award that may have been given.
The longer our well paid beaurocratic group of administrators and politicians wait to take positive action the more the “injury and damage” to a 40 grass roots community non profit organization BAD builds. BAD have a legitimate claim.
Under the terms of the RFP that I have read GFANZ have zero recourse following termination.
Until such time as documented evidence is presented to explain how this situation unfolded, there is only speculation.
It would appear, until evidence says otherwise, that the lack of documented policies, procedures and protocols to be followed contributed to the situation or if they existed, they were not followed. Robust policies and procedures that clearly document processes to be followed by staff who have been assigned responsibility and accountability for compliance to those policies and procedures should have prevented this situation.
Maybe City council should not be involved in the procurement process but why do swim clubs need to put in an RFP when NO OTHER sporting organization in the entire city is required to do this? If swim teams have to do this, then hockey teams, soccer teams, and all other sports teams should be required to do the same. The city also struggles to manage field schedules and arena/ice time, why are those not managed with an RFP? The RFP process works for contractors and construction companies but have no place in youth sports.
Also, if this process had been followed appropriately, there would not be such an uproar. Something about this whole process smells bad and it is up to the officials we elected to get to the bottom of it. This is exactly why we elect counsel members, to respond and manage concerns from the people living within their city.
The kids and parents deserve answers, the public deserves to know what happened as does anyone contemplating the submission of an RFP. Because beyond that what we have is a vacuum being filled with uncertainty and unanswered questions.
City Council should not be involved in any procurement process as it is interference and sets a dangerous precedent !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The process was followed and contract rewarded and sorry but the other group lost . Why are we wasting valuable council time on an issue not within their scope
Eve: I agree on the interference aspect of your comment and Council are more than aware of that as well. IMO we have no insight about the process that awarded the contract to one of the parties. The other party has raised issues about process that we and council should care about. In the interest of transparency and the possibility of legal action, everyone should care about the process. On top of that the city and BAD are talking to see if things can be ameliorated.