By Pepper Parr
November 22, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
After a twelve hour session during which Motions were withdrawn or deferred Council reported on what they had achieved. It was a 5.06% increase for the city’s portion; the blended rate came in at 6.74%.
But they weren’t done.
They will be back at it on Thursday when they expect to complete the budgeting exercise.
Chief Information Officer Chad Macdonald
For a bunch of important technical reasons the tax recommendation is expected to go to City Council on November 28th.
Mayor Meed Ward lost one battle on a project she dearly wanted. She appeared to have lost track of what had been deferred and what had been withdrawn. It will be interesting to see how the Mayor manages the process to get the item back on.
There were a number of technical jobs that are going to go unfilled. There were three in particular that Chief Information Officer Chad Macdonald wanted but didn’t get.
Both he and City Manager were not happy.
Commisso gave it a shrug as he looked toward Macdonald
Did we just dodge an “Arrive-Can” bullet?
It appears that Council is putting a great deal of faith in and dollars towards (directly and in staff support) the digital services vision of Messrs Commisso and MacDonald. I hope that they’re correct because it would appear to be a roll of the dice. It may provide dividends in the future but that is problematic and will either gentleman be here to answer if the promise fails.