By Staff
October 15th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
City Hall at its best.
A public holiday, great weather – and Spencer Smith Park is packed.
No surprises there.
The tall structure is the Discovery Centre, to the left is Spencers restaurant. At the lower level, where the pond is located, there is a small shop that sells hot dogs and ice cream and soft drinks. It was apparently closed. Who is going to take responsibility for that decision?
The surprise was that the public washrooms were closed.
The building that houses the washrooms closed. A notice advised that due to the holiday the building was closed.
Anne Marsden wrote the Ward Councillor and the Mayor (no surprise there) saying “We understand the reason City Hall washrooms are closed when City Hall is closed but why close the building that houses the public washrooms that are the only ones that serve Spencer Smith visitors?”
The building that houses the washrooms was closed. A notice advised that due to the holiday, the building was closed.
Indeed – why were the public washrooms closed?
It’s not due to a lack of staff or overtime, the City has regulars shifts 27/7 365 day a year working out the Harvester Ops Center
This may appear to be a small issue but, as with so many things in Burlington, it is reflective of how unthinking and isolated City Hall is from the general needs of the citizens. I believe that the status of a City in terms of general “livability” is not to be gauged by the number of rainbow or orange crosswalks, the time off given to City employees to ‘ponder the truth and reconcile with it’, the number of symbolic ‘walks’ and ceremonies recorded for posterity by City social media, the quantum of donations made to neighbourhoods to show that they ‘love their hood’ by holding a party, the amount of ‘junk food’ distributed to voters in return for their unrecorded and unverifiable “feedback” or the number of empty engagement exercises including cynical surveys with pre-determined outcomes. It is measured by how completely the City anticipates and provides its public with the basic services, amenities and general infrastructure that allows them to live well and comfortably.
There are a LOT of articles on the subject of public bathrooms in cities. The common thread is that if a city values their residents, wants to attract tourists, encourages walkability and respects the dignity of everyone either living in or passing through their city, then public bathrooms should be a priority. They should be open 365 days a year, they should also be clean and spacious and able to accommodate those with disabilities and parents with strollers.
Burlington doesn’t have nearly enough public bathrooms and considering all the new buildings they’re cramming in, perhaps we can stop paying for things like neighbourhood street parties and trips to Japan for the mayor and six council members/staff and focus on keeping public bathrooms open and building considerably more of them. But then, I suppose toilets don’t make the best photo ops for their social media posts.
I suppose that people’s urinary and gastrointestinal systems are supposed to be on holiday too… I’m sorry, I just can’t help but inject some humour; if we didn’t laugh, we’d cry about the frustrating state of affairs at city hall.
It is incidences like this (closed washrooms on a Statutory holiday) that make me question how we can continue to brag that our City is the greatest place to Live, Work and Play, but not to Pee. The last holiday of the fall is often in many cities the last day to use semi-outdoor public washrooms, but not in Burlington.
Here it is the first day of washroom closure in most cases for the long stretch through fall and winter and into spring where you need to carry both your own water bottle and pee bottle and find an inconspicuous place to use the latter.
I have to ask, when will this uncaring attitude by City Hall toward our citizens and visitors ever end?
There was a cost to taxpayers for the necessary facilities to serve the general public and those with disabilities were available at Spencer Smith. We did our bit but somehow the City of Burlington and particularly Ward 2 has an issue with providing the services we paid for (wasn’t there an uproar about the public washrooms at the Bus Terminal not being available to the public?).