By Pepper Parr
March 17th. 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
They finally turned on her.
It was a fractured, toxic environment that on occasion drew in the City Manger.
Find a movement that the public wants to be part of and turn it into a campaign committee.
The bickering, the manufactured pleasantries, the degree to which the Mayor wielded her Strong Mayor powers along with her need to be the focus of attention grew to the point where they didn’t want to take it anymore.
What was the issue that brought Councillors Galbraith and Nisan to work with Councillor Stolte will take some time to work its way to the surface. Whatever it was, it had to be deep enough to have Stolte climb in bed with Nisan and Galbraith; the two Councillors who filed a complaint with the Integrity Commissioner who docked Stolte five days pay for making public how much money had been spent on the refurbishing of the former Bateman High School..
Marianne Meed Ward on the other side of the podium.
It will all be on display at the City Council meeting on Tuesday the 19th. Will the public fill the Council Chamber?
How will the Mayor handle the Motion when it is tabled? What will her response be?
The fabled Meed Ward ability to read a room and convince the audience that she could be trusted has been dripping away for the last 18 months.
There were some wins in the first term; the second terms has been a consistent disaster.
When the vote on the Motion takes place on Tuesday – expect it to be unanimous with the Citizen Mayor perhaps abstaining.
Sworn in. Power reveals
Does she have it in her to rise above the mistakes; give Councillors and the City Manager the power she she took away from them as slickly as a pickpocket takes your wallet. The Councillors took becoming Deputy Mayors more seriously than the Mayor. It was close to a “Let them eat cake” moment.
Will she apologize?
The decisions Marianne Meed Ward comes to during the next two days will determine what she has left in the way of a career in politics.
Power reveals.
Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
I remember many of us speaking out against the strong mayor powers at the time and urging the Mayor and council to not accept them, for many of the reasons outlined in this motion. The fact that council unanimously supported it then and yet is now doing this is very telling.
In my opinion, the motion – very well and carefully written – could he seen to be speaking to what is happening here, or could happen, now that the powers are being exercised. And the cautions they site about how they could be abused is perhaps to be read a bit more literally. Council was ok with all this before – despite the fact that everything they cite in their motion was true back then too – but now, after seeing how it’s working HERE, they are not ok. That is how I personally read it. And of course maybe I’m completely wrong.
Some of the clauses seem quite specific. I think the powers around hiring city managers and senior staff and appointing people to committees and then the potential for even the appearance of there then being pressure to do a strong mayor’s bidding, are particularly interesting. I believe they demonstrate that these powers are most dangerous in things behind the scenes. It’s not just about overriding votes at meetings, which the mayor can easily say she won’t do. But there’s much more to this than that.
I hope the motion passes unanimously. I expect it very well may, and that the spin machine is in overdrive right now. But the horse can’t be put back in the barn now, and despite the spin to come, this is telling us all we already suspected and it’s changed everything.
In my experience, there are two things that Marianne Meed Ward never does. The first is to admit that she has, personally, made a mistake. Things may go south or be ill-conceived but the problem always lies elsewhere. So, don’t expect anything in the way of an apology. The second thing is to forgive and forget. It will make for very interesting times over the next 24 months or so.