Paul Sharman takes a chance and uses some spare committee time to let people just speak extemporaneously to council - and it worked.

By Pepper Parr

November 30th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

It was an absolutely remarkable hour and a quarter.

The afternoon session of the Standing Committee meeting was basically complete – all the developers who had things to say about the draft Official Plan had completed their delegations. The Halton Hamilton Hone Builders Association once again made their point that more time was needed before attempting to pass the Draft of the Official Plan

Each of them had what they felt were strong and compelling arguments for the points they were making and the ask they had of Council.

Gloria Reid gently suggested to Council that they could learn to do things differently – that were other community engagement tools they may not be aware of.

Jeremy Skinner gave a superb delegation – if there is an award for the best delegation to Council this year – it would go to Skinner. We hope to be able to publish that delegation in the near future.

He was followed by Gloria Reid who delegated on behalf of BurlingtonGreen. She gently suggested to Council that they were talking the talk when it came to civic engagement but they weren’t necessarily walking that talk. We will report in more depth on what the “teachable moment” from Reid was.

There was still about an hour left on the clock and Committee chair Paul Sharman decided to open up the meeting to anyone who wanted to come forward and address the committee.

Councillor Sharman was exceptionally engaging with speakers that were invited to talk to committee.

What followed was truly remarkable. The atmosphere was relaxed. No one had anything prepared – they were just winging it – and what we got to see was real dialogue.

No one had rock hard positions – the speakers were told that they had ten minutes. Every one of them ended up being at the podium for at least twenty minutes while back and forth questioning and answering took place.

Sasha Menzies spoke, Christine Dobbs spoke, Don Fletcher spoke.

Hearing Councillor talk about Aldershot grow by 27,000 was a stunner.

It was relaxed – we learned that Fletcher once lived in Aldershot and while talking about intensification mentioned that he and his wife had four children in five years – someone on Council mention that that was certainly intensification – and no one was offended. Fletcher added that he is a sculpture who works with nude female models.

Fletcher learned a lot about how the Official Plan is going to get to the point where it is the law of the land and how it will get revised going forward. Few people in the city understand how complex that process is.

Several of these “add-on” delegation thought the Official Plan should be made an election issue.

Dobbs wanted to know how “information gets out there” and came up with half a dozen ideas straight from the cuff that Council members wanted to talk about.

One of the speakers thought the city should rename itself and use Tyendaga and let that reflect our heritage more accurately.

During the conversation there was an astounding bit of information from Councillor Craven. At maximum build out Aldershot will grow by 27,000 people. That should shake up some of the good folks in Aldershot.

Fletcher talked about the “polarity of this council” – that this Council was not uniform on its vision for the city.

Remembered, respected and never to be in the shadow of an office tower.

Menzies didn’t think the Cenotaph should ever be in the shadow of any building. She talked of her 9/11 experience and what she referred to as the “sniper” experience in the United States. She spoke movingly of what it was about Canada and Burlington that she appreciated. We sometimes have to hear from others just how good things are for us in this country.

Sharman as chair of the meeting took a chance and opened things up – not what we usually see from him.

What Council saw was that they are capable of dialoguing with members of Council – and that citizens do have a contribution to make.

Will any of it stick? Gloria Read made the point that “these things take time”. And they do but city council got to see what it is like when they open things up a bit and listen and dialogue with people.

It does work.