By Pepper Parr
April 8th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
So this is how they handled it.
Last November Burlington Green delegated to City Council asking for $50,000 in the way of support..
If you want to count what Burlington Green has don for the city – start at about 500 – this is the woman that moved the needle. Amy Schnurr, Executive Director BurlingtonGreen
There wasn’t much in the way of discussion at the time. A number of Gazette readers pointed out that not for profits were not entitled to grants. The policy setting out that position was due for review in 2023 but wasn’t given any attention.
With the ask in front of them – Council had to make a decision.
BurlingtonGreen has Holy Grail status in this city – a status that is much deserved.
There are some that feel the Gazette is gunning for BurlingtonGreen. The record will show that we have given them more ink than any other media.
The concern we were focusing on was the practice of taking care of your friends that we were seeing at Council meetings. Everyone from the City Manager down on the Staff side and every member of Council looked for some way to give BurlingtonGreen the funds they needed.
The Staff report was an embarrassment – it failed to look at the risks and didn’t look for something unique.
They show up – every time.
The need at BurlingtonGreen was real. Funding from the federal and provincial levels had not dried up but it wasn’t providing what Burlington Green felt they needed.
They had also gone as far as they could go with the Trillium Fund Foundation.
The city decided to:
Approve one time funding for 2024 in the maximum amount of $62,000 from the Green Initiatives Reserve Fund (we were not aware that there was such a fund) as a fee for services provided by BurlingtonGreen
Direct the Executive Director of Environment, Infrastructure and Community Services to execute a Memorandum of Understanding between the City and BurlingtonGreen outlining the services to be provided in 2024, including performance measures in form satisfactory to the Executive Director of Legal Services and Corporation Counsel; and
Consider an ongoing fee for services approach with BurlingtonGreen in the amount of 62,000 per calendar year during the Mayor’s 2025 budget process.
We would like to see that list of services and how they determine the dollar value of each service. The details do matter.
More importantly is the policy environment – and that appears to have been neglected. Policy is the reason Council exists – they look to Staff to come forward with reports and they determine what the policy is – and if the policy needs a revision and perhaps an upgrade then Council turns to Staff for input.
Clearly the funding environment has changed – Climate Change is a fact of life. The question is: How are we going to deal with it on a person to person on the ground level?
Planting, planting, planting – it is in the tens of thousands.
This is where the rubber hits the road for the BurlingtonGreen people. They show up and get the job done.
That is where BurlingtonGreen has led the way. They literally create events and occasions to improve the environment which is the critical part of getting a handle on Climate Change. And, most importantly, they have a membership that shows up and delivers. People who decide they want to run for public could learn a lot about organization from this group.
Their Green Up – Clean Up is not just a public service it brings out people in the hundreds to do the job and celebrate what was done. On one occasion a local hospitality organization showed up with their BBQ’s and fed hundreds in Civic Square – an occasion for which they should have been given a Key to the City.
How the new funding approach plays out will call for transparency and accountability. This Council and Staff didn’t do all that well on this one.
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