By Pepper Parr
November 8th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
The Wendy Fletcher Petition to keep the property taxes lower is still drawing signatures.
It climbs a little high each day.
The Telephone Town Hall last night drew a reported 5,000 people on the call. Nothing all that new – it was a bit of a grandstand for the Mayor who was joined by one of her Deputy Mayors – Paul Sharman
As of 8:30 today there were:
A farce. That is the best word to describe the “Town Hall.” When you actually want to engage citizens, you let them speak – as many as possible. You don’t spend the majority of time listening to yourselves and fourteen staff people over and over again. You don’t sit there tooting your own horn (“I am the Chair of the Big City Mayors”, “Paul Sharman and I have been on council for 14 years.” “Let us both say that several more times.” You don’t vet the calls so that names and topics you don’t want to hear from don’t get on the call. I and others I know were in the queue early. Repeatedly while we waited they asked for people to press 3 to get on the queue. Yet somehow, none of those with familiar names or tough questions made it on. The whole thing was so obviously carefully staged just like their social media, scripted statements and dealings with only the preferred media.
This should have been at city hall or a city facility, in person, with as many people asking questions as possible. And their ridiculous surveys were just as pointless and skewed as they always are.
Oh, and there were several absolute incorrect statements made. One being the fallacy that the mayor has to write her own budget due to provincial strong mayor legislation. No, she and council could have refused that undemocratic power as several other mayors did.
Another theme was that our city salaries haven’t been competitive. Sorry, but, wrong. Staff won’t stay without better salaries, they claim. Hmmm, considering the big turnover and the fact your salaries compare very well with Oakville and Toronto, perhaps it’s a toxic workplace that is at issue?
Worst comment of all? The claim that they at the City have “the same hardships as you at home” in these times. Really??? Your staff isn’t able to pay for food?
No mention was made of the petition presented to council last week. How dare they claim to be responding to resident concerns and ignore 2200 plus signatures and comments! That was what my question was going to be: have you read it, and read the comments? And if not, then get on it. The person vetting the calls told me he wasn’t familiar with any such petition. I said well it was presented last week to council and the mayor in chambers by a delegate during the budget meeting, addressed to them, so they certainly are aware of it!
Lisa, Rory and Kelvin all have in person ward events this evening, tomorrow and next Thursday respectively. Suggest people go to one and say your thoughts in person.
My phone rang at 7:01 pm. As it was a 1-888 #, I assumed it was sales, scam, etc. I was trying to figure out how to listen to the call so I ignored it. Imagine my surprise to call it back and find out it was MMW. LOL. I assumed I’d be one of the last people on the planet. Not that I think they’d have ever let my call actually go thru as people were indeed vetted. I spoke with someone who said a man came on the line and asked their name and what was their question. Others, they waited the entire 1.5 hrs and were never picked despite them asking several times for callers to press 3 to ask a question. With so so many people in the queue, why weren’t they letting any of them thru? So staged
And Blair, I absolutely agree about the quality of the questions. Some were not ever appropriate as they really had little if anything to do with the budget. I have no issues with Handi-van and actually believe it’s a truly beneficial and needed service. But we didn’t need to devote 10 min to it. There’s 1 new vehicle, it was bought last yr, what’s in the budget this yr is operating costs. ie more salaries. Why, I’m not sure since we have enough drivers. But any excuse to light a match to another 100K+
I very much agree with you Lynn that it is likely a toxic work environment that is why retention of staff is so difficult. I am so tired of this rampage of untruths coming out of council about how wages are not and have not been competitive to other municipalities. As per the consolidated, audited financial statements for both Burlington and Oakville. In 2022 Oakville spent 169m on salaries and had ~1890 employees. Burlington spent 154K on salaries and had 1330 employees (before the 160 hires in 2023). That works out to an avg salary of 89K in Oakville and 116K in Burlington. That’s $27,000 MORE on avg that Burlington paid. $27,000! But Sharman has the audacity to say we don’t pay as much as other municipalities.
Oakville pays alot less, they don’t have a full on hybrid work environment, and yet their employees are happy. How is that? Do you know what else? They have about 20 bylaw officers compared to our 6. Maybe its bc they know what kind of staff are truly needed. It makes me wonder of the numerous positions council has created how many of them are for friends or friends of family or other favours.
I think that the next delegation I make that I will include copies of the consolidated Income Statements for both cities for 2021 + 2022. I will say something about how this is what Mr. Sharman says but this is what the FS’s show so as to not be shut down by Ms. Kearns. I will send in the FS’s to be part of the delegation. I don’t think Mr. Arjoon will try to censor me after the ordeal last time but we shall see.
Question. I have a group called Stop the 2024 Burlington Property Tax Increase of (up to) 7.82% and 32% over 5 yrs. I just changed it to include the “up to” given the issues I had with the petition. Should I delegate for the petition under the group? If I do can I also delegate as myself too? I’m just wondering if that will work so I can have 20 minutes instead of 10 on Nov 14?
I know Burlington is about 190,000 people. Still, I feel like my petition is not small. I have close to 2400 signatures. Since Oct 20. But is that wishful thinking? Is it too small for what I’m trying to achieve? Am I out of my league here? I feel like if this was Toronto people would be talking about it. As well some of these issues that border on outright unethical and deceit to the public, it’d be flushed out there. Here council just says whatever they want as there’s nobody to call them out. Its shameful and awful what’s going on here. But here we have a few small papers. The rest of them just parrot what MMW and council say rather than being investigative journalism. How can I fight them when there’s no real way to get the message out and nobody seems to care?
Hi Wendy, I can’t answer your procedural questions about delegations. However, if you want this to gain attention, contact every news outlet (CBC, CTV, Global, The Star, The Spec, etc.) and see if they’d like to pick up the story. If you know anyone savvy on social media get their help – get an account and start posting (on all the platforms). Old school door-to-door making people aware and asking if they’d like to sign the petition (if you have the capacity for that and maybe some people willing to help?) In Burlington, many residents aren’t aware of what’s happening (IMO). They are too busy working, commuting, taking care of family, etc. to get involved in politics and how the city is being run/managed.
I’ve signed your petition as I think what’s happening fiscally in Burlington is outrageous. I’ve also shared it for others to sign.
Wendy agree 100%. I waited to ask my question after pressing 3 and having my question screened, which was, “Has there been any consideration at city hall to cut services and unnecessary projects to reduce the budget increase for the city to near zero?”
I waited for 45 min to ask the question but got fed up listening to answers toting their own horn.
The mayor believes that peoples pockets are wide open to fund things like its 1999. I will soon no longer be able to live here when our taxes go up 30% as forecasted by 2027. I love Burlington but it wants only people with $200K plus incomes to live here.
Wendy, I agree with all you’ve said. I think you can submit to delegate on the petition from your group and then separately as yourself on the budget. Let them try to tell you no, and then ask why exactly they keep claiming to care about improving engagement? And if you don’t want them to see your delegation text in advance, don’t send it. If you want the financial statements on the screen you can send those.
You are bang on with respect to the fact that we don’t have the bigger media doing their jobs here. Just today Joan Little has her weekly column in the Spectator and the subject is the budget. With all due respect, it is severely lacking. She too bought the line that the mayor has to do a budget because the province legislated strong mayor powers on her; I know I’m a broken record, but no they didn’t. She chose to accept them despite her old mantra about respecting democracy. Council members also didn’t object. They could have and in some municipalities, they did.
I suggest you send a letter to the editor to the Spectator about that piece and you can talk about the petition, urge readers to sign it and state some actual facts. This “blaming everyone else” stuff is really getting old. And Joan should have reported on your and the other delegations from the budget meeting and the 2400 signatures on a petition which was out on the public record.
Agree with Karolina’s post and suggestions.
To answer your other question, I don’t think you’re wasting your time because it is important to inform the public of the facts, especially considering the spin machine that is COB, Council and the Mayor. Many of us feel your same pain. I think we’ve seen enough here to know that they will cram the budget in anyway and do what they want as usual. But if we keep spreading the word of what this council is doing and illustrating it’s penchant for manipulating facts to suit their own agenda, maybe we can get new people to run and get elected in 2024. At the very least, someone has to inform the public of what is happening at our city, and it sure isn’t them. Spread your message far and wide; many of us are and many people are getting it. 5000 people supposedly on the phone call town hall? IMO people aren’t spending their night on that unless they’re ticked off. I expect it was tough to vet all the angry people which likely explains why so many never got a chance to speak.
Agree Joan Little’s column was pathetic. We also sent an email to Burlington Today saying their coverage was dreadful.
Good idea on Burlington Today. I keep meaning to do that too. Burlington Toadie?
We did not waste our time as learnt our lesson lo ago it is staged.
I have the perfect way for the City to raise money to apply to reducing our tax bill. Have escalating fines for those who rake their leaves to the street three to four weeks before the City’s leaf pick-up dates or after the pick-up has passed. Even lawn companies leave piles of “blowings” on the street in front of clients’ homes.
I’ll bet the fines would pay for the service and the bylaw officers to ticket it, with cash left over.
Or get rid of the service altogether and save money – as well as saving many homeowners the task of raking and bagging everyone else’s waste when it blows around for a month…..
The Mayor’s Town Hall was all “Pomp and Circumstance”. The Mayor, Paul Sharman and her entourage orchestrated it very well. They all talked over residents who were trying to ask legitimate questions about the Proposed tax budget. But all they did in answering questions, was to blow their own horns!!
The fact is that this Council has not been fiscally responsible with our Property tax dollars.
This Council continues to spend money on projects that the citizens of Burlington have no money for. Our Council got us into this mess and now they have to fix it. Council must take projects and items off their “To do list” now and reduce our property taxes for 2024.
The telephone town hall was a farce – imho. The questions that were asked were soft, slow pitches that had no force or moment – “how do I get from a to b with our transit?”; “how do I stop my loud neighbour from being loud?”; “Will I continue to be able to play golf at Tyandaga?” If there were 5000 callers, it was only because they had to keep trolling for the ‘puffball questions’. And the survey questions that were asked throughout the Town Hall were, as per usual, designed to yield the responses that COB wants. I really wonder what has happened to Paul Sharman. In 2018, I doubted whether he had a soul. Today, I realize that he just sold it. What an absolute disappointment.