By Pepper Parr
July 16th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Well – the fat is certainly in the fire now.
Focus Burlington, using data provided by Jim Thomson, who delegated at City Council earlier this week, published a piece from which we have excerpted the important stuff.
EXCERPT
“The City of Burlington issued two RFPs in 2025 related to renting pool time. The two RFPs were issued a little over a month apart. The same city staff member handled both RPFS, but the treatment of the groups that responded to the RFPs was very different.
RFP-25-203 “Competitive Adult Swimming – Program Provider” – March 14, 2025
Summary “the allotted amount of pool time (375 hours/year) that must be purchased from the City for the expressed purpose of delivering the Adult Swimming Programs as contemplated in this Request for Proposals.”
Cost: 375 hours at $134.00 per hour or $50,250 a year.
Overview: A swim club charges members a fee for coaching services and pool time. The club uses part of the fee to pay the City of Burlington $50,250 a year for pool time.
RFP-25-202 “Competitive Youth Swimming – Program Provider” – April 17, 2025
Summary “the allotted amount of pool time (2000 hours/year) that must be purchased from the City for the expressed purpose of delivering the Youth Competitive and Development Swimming Programs as contemplated in this Request for Proposals.”
Cost: 2,000 hours at $110.00 per hour or $220,000 a year.
Overview: A swim club charges members a fee for coaching services and pool time. The club uses part of the fee to pay the City of Burlington $220,000 a year for pool time.
“This adds up to $270,250 a year, money that swim clubs pay to the city for pool rentals. The swim clubs are customers, buying pool time from the city.
Competitive swimmers in Burlington pools.
“Two non-profit organizations submitted proposals for the youth program, Golden Horseshoe Aquatics Club (GHAC) and the Burlington Aquatic Devilrays (BAD).
GHAC has advised the Gazette that these swimmers are members of their club.
“It has been well publicized that Burlington has awarded the right to rent pool time for the youth program to GHAC. BAD’s bid was disqualified on what appears to be a technicality.
“The technicality was that BAD was unable to meet the bid requirements to provide a “Certificate of Incorporation”.
“Looking at the details of the RFP for the adult program, two groups submitted proposals GHAC and the Burlington Masters Swim Club.
“One of these two groups asked a question through the formal RFP process:
If this information is true – then the city has to suspend the award given to GHAC and agree with BAD that a Judicial Review is now necessary.
Jim Thomson delegating: “something stinks”
“Focus Burlington provided Jim Thomson with a copy of RFP-25-203 on July 14th.
“For the adult swim program RFP, issued on March 14th, groups submitting proposals did not have to provide a certificate of incorporation.
“For the youth swim program RPF, issued on April 17th, BAD was disqualified for not being able to produce a certificate of incorporation.
“The same city employee is managing both RPFs.
“Is there another layer to this disqualification?
“Is this why Councillor Kearns has called for an external audit of the process?”
Focus Burlington is currently the only community group keeping tabs on city hall.
Jim Thomson has done a fine piece of work making these details public.
Focus Burlington can be reached at: https://www.focusburlington.ca/
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That was a joke go say least.
Shovel, shovel, shovel!!! Time to wake up and smell the dung at Burlington cityhall.
Much credit to Jim for his persistence and his ability to suss things out.