By Pepper Parr
November 9th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
Between now and November 21st, City Councillors will be meeting with their constituents to get their position on the budget the Mayor is going to put forward later in the year.
Because the Budget will come from the Mayor the schedule is quite a bit different.
Earlier this week Staff presented reports to Council on what they had proposed in the way of spending in 2024.
One item that raised more than a few eyebrows was the creation of two new departments and a lot of new staff hires – all necessary for a city that is at the front edge of a massive growth in population. Mayor Meed Ward explains every opportunity she gets that the city is committed to creating 29,000 homes by 2031.
Citizens are permitted to delegate to Council – they just don’t seem to be able to get their point across – on occasion they are chastised by the Chair of a meeting that they should not have said what they just said.
The Gazette has a comments section that is very “robust”.
Wendy Fletcher had this to say about the DEOO – Designing and Evolving our Organization
“People are very upset about all the new hires and rightfully so imo. 200 new people when the Bank of Canada rate has increased 10x since March 2022 and people are struggling to not lose their homes bc their 500-750K mortgage just went from 2% to 6.5-7.5%. I know people who have 9K mortgages terrified about this property tax increase. The Bank of Canada and CHMC currently considering their positions because of the anticipated impact of interest rates on the flux of mortgages expected to come due next year.
Mayor Marianne Meed Wad – not missing a beat
“But here’s the Burlington Mayor and council who don’t miss a beat in telling you how their costs are all increased because of inflation and commodity costs fluctuating because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Yet when it comes to them having the foggiest about the impact of them hiring 200 new people on the lives of Burlington citizens, they are either too daft to get it or they are just that cold hearted and lacking in all compassion and empathy. I truly am not sure which. Given the ease with which they make false statements to the press, I have to think the latter.
“The DEOO(Designing and Evolving our Organization) isn’t new. This mayor and council came up with it 3-4 yrs ago. 2019 I think. It’s probably what they spent much of covid on. With months long delays in things and unable to get any service for months, they certainly didn’t seem like they were working very hard. The rest of the world was working. Yet city hall didn’t start answering phones again until, late 2022 I think? Uncalled for. And now council has decided it will by a completely hybrid work system. Taxpayers didn’t agree to that, just like they didn’t ever agree to implementing the DEOO
Mayor Meed Ward responding to a Staff comment at a Standing Committee meeting.
“But MMW and council have made it clear that they don’t care what taxpayers think or want.
“Maybe someone can explain to me how, as a customer, I’m getting this great customer experience they’re claiming, when there aren’t people at city hall to meet me, in person, when its convenient to me? Which means if I have time to go in on the fly, someone in that dept, is there right then. Not make an appointment for when its convenient to *them*. That’s not customer service. Further, what is the point of spending 6.5m on renos for it to be half empty, all the time? Or 1.32 m of taxpayer $ on Civic Garden?
“Oh wait, I forgot. Can we get a pic for the mag for the next edition of Best Place in Canada to Live?
“As a taxpayer, I have quite a bit of animosity towards all the money being wasted so MMW and council can have this grandiose illusion of what city hall at destination Burlington should look like.
“Just be sure to tell them to keep the cameras off the buses. They’re pretty being so shiny and new but as there’s no one in them, people will think its a ghost town they’re coming to. Of course it will be bc nobody can afford to live here anymore. They all went bankrupt from the 2000 city hall employees they had to support.”
Ted Gamble started with:
Here is my rant:
“A few of the positions are intuitively needed by their descriptions. Has the City ever recently undertaken steps to review, flow chart, modernize job descriptions and possibly amalgamate positions to cap the total employee count. Not a big fan of consultants generally despite hiring them extensively however some management consultants are worth their value. I suggest a cap on total employee numbers. Many organizations I have worked with had to do this multiple times or worse.
“Proceed with Top Priority only, re evaluate semi annually.
“A new department in 2024? Why?
“Scrap the onerous tree by law, associated staff and in my opinion is an infringement on my rights as a residential property owner. Use some of those funds to properly prune and keep hydro lines from falling! Clear invasive species and replace and encourage homeowners as well to plant native plants.
The province permits a municipality to borrow as much as 25% of a previous year’s Net Revenue. If interest rates come down enough borrowing could be a wise strategy.
“Increase borrowing so that needed infrastructure for massive condo’s towers are paid for by those who are supposedly coming.
Borrow as needed to keep tax increases 1% below inflation. Apparently we borrow to a level of half of what we can. While laudable, these times call for a different approach.”
Councillor Paul Sharman made the following comment at the close of the two day session where Staff made their pitch for funding when he said:
Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman: “We will find out in the next two years how bad we are.”
“Because of the circumstances I would prefer to provide services funding programs to support those people who need it, rather than for the people who don’t need it. I didn’t want to see us coming back with another 7.6 next year or 8% next year or the year after. I think that would be a disaster. We’re not going to do that I can tell you right now it will have will be back to cut, cut, cut cut.
“I’m just hoping that what we tried to set up two years ago we can actually aspire to doing and make it happen. Now having said that. I’m not sitting here saying we’ve done bad.
“We’re not finished yet. We will find out in the next two years how bad we are.”
Indeed with a municipal election taking place in 2026 the public can decide if this Council should be re-elected.
You can call it a slate, a party, a coalition, a “slate of common interest’ or whatever. Whatever name you apply, the reality is we need to do something very different in this City because the present arrangement of municipal engagement by concerned residents clearly doesn’t work, and no one at City Hall appears to be listening.
The recent budget discussions highlight two distinct realities: 1) the present arrangement of electing independent Councillors who are responsive to voters’ perspectives isn’t effective; 2) there are no effective checks on the actions of Council and the public service, and no mechanism to hold them accountable.
More than anything else I think we need a clear statement or platform on what citizens want regarding transportation, development, affordable housing, finances, public transit, etc. This City has a lot of bright, talented, educated people, and I’m confident we could forge an effective coalition that would present a common front on what is needed.
We need to get off this “hamster wheel” of continually responding to municipal issues and bouncing from crisis to crisis. Not only is it ridiculously time consuming but it’s frustrating and unproductive. It’s time residents took control of the agenda and stated clearly and unequivocally our expectations of this Council and its public service. A good place to start is with the budget, and anything in excess of 2-3% certainly doesn’t cut it.
Well said Stephen. Non-accountability and mechanisms to deal with what should not be happening will we hope see you expressing these views to the Halton Governance Investigation committee at the very least. We need more like you to speak who identify the problem and then come up with the fix. Here is the link to making an application
The Committee agreed to open up the consultations to 6 additional regions including:
Halton Region
Waterloo Region
Niagara Region
Durham Region
York Region
Simcoe County
If one of these regions is suitable you may request to appear there (link below).
https://www.ola.org/en/get-involved/participate-committees
Hope there will be many who have their say on Halton and Lower Tier Burlington governance.
Blair, I don’t think 2026 is too soon. Too late maybe, but not too soon. Imo, this mayor and council will not be re-elected. I suspect it will be a bit like Wynne. Voters will have such disdain for particularly MMW & Sharman that they will elect hamsters rather than them. I think any reasonably suited candidate whose mandate is to take an aggressive approach to cutting taxes and restoring fiscal responsibility to city hall will be an easy, automatic choice for taxpayers.
What I find amazing is that MMW and Sharman believe they’re going to get re-elected after they do this to taxpayers. We know from the 5 yr plan, they’re not done. The plan is 32% over 5 yrs. The true impact to our tax bills will be more in the order of a 40-60% increase from 2022. Yet they don’t see any problem with that.
I don’t recall this Mayor and Council saying during the last election, we’ve going to implement this new plan at city hall which completely restructures it inside and out. Its going to cost upwards of 30-40 m and over 20 m of that will be every year forever. More bc it will need generous salary increases as well as pension and benefits. Are you the taxpayers okay with this very material change? I just feel like they wouldn’t have been elected. I also question if this will fall under violation of the Municipal Act as the lack of transparency seems extensive.
Anne and Dave, Lynn, Wendy, Lydia, Eric, Ted, Jim, Stephen et al
Your voices are strong and true and focused on exactly the right issues. Unfortunately, you fight from a position of great disadvantage. Literally, the Mayor, Council and COB senior management control both the media and the message. And the results are totally predictable.
Perhaps, it is time to consider how citizens can regain a degree of control by offering a clearer choice – an open alternative that allows issues to be simply stated and positions to be compared; that provides a selection of Ward and Mayoral candidates who represent a common philosophy of fiscal and social stewardship; and who are all truly responsive to local issues first and foremost.
This is certainly not my brainchild. Several of us have started to ‘ponder’ what a “slate” of candidates might look like for the 2026 election. How they would be selected? What the selection and vetting criteria might be? How to position ‘a list of candidates’ within the boundaries of the Municipal Election Act? Obviously, there are many dimensions to be investigated and many logistical issures to be addressed. Perhaps 2026 is too soon for an operative approach. But, I believe that the basic idea needs consideration. It might address the weak candidate, ‘best of a bad lot’ and ‘the devil we know’ conditions that have plagued (arguably) every election (2018 excepted) since 2002. It would introduce the benefits of a common, well articulated platform to our current municipal environment – not a party per se but a “slate of common interest”.
Blair: Where there is a will there is a way. Future democratic right-shipping needs to be strategic and focussed. Right now its a, pardon the euphemism, a ‘blunderbuss’ (quasi effective only at short range, lacking accuracy at long distances).
Bingo right-shipping
Thanks Blair, this has been our focus since 1997 – yes we are weary of repeating ourselves but continue to believe every wall surrounding those who believe they are indestructible, must fall. While your plan is a good one there is nothing to say we won’t be fooled again. We voted for Meedward when she got elected as Ward 2 councillor. She was the Christian community choice and a pastor we knew at the time campaigned for her.. Her first task after becoming Mayor, her goal in going for Ward 2, was to work to eradicate the sight of panhandlers from our streets. The opposite to Christian teaching, “love thy neighbor as thyself”, a teaching that is a predominant part of Burlington families’ actions whether Christian or not
We are looking for accountability and justice for those affected by very poor and questionable Governance practices that rule of law says we must have. Rule of law that has been bought at a major sacrifice. You personally know the pain and suffering that incompetent Governance of health services for example can bring. This is not about what has passed but stopping it extending to bringing harm to our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. We can and will, however, support any such plan that will, if we don’t see it before Oct 2024 see an end to this self-centred group who actually believe they are a gift to this community and always get it right. They are blinded by status and income they have enjoyed and are not prepared to give it up. It is our job to make sure we are not victims of them or those like them ever again.
The Illustrious Marianne likes to talk about thinking for 7 generations.
I guess that’s how long it’s going to take to pay off the unfunded liabilities.
When will you be delegating Blair?
I’ve seen Wendy, Lydia, Eric, and especially Anne and Dave.
Where are you?
The public only knows what the City lets them know. Our research this last election was hampered by the removal of years of council minutes and videos (despite legislation requiring accurate minutes in our experience a lot is missing from the minutes that should not be that can be checked through the video). Prior to the 2022 election we raised this issue with the Clerk, he still has not responded with anything other than it will be fixed and the Clerks can get you any information you want which is hogwash.
The info remains exactly the same, with posted false claims in terms of what publc can access. Further summary audit reports are missing from the Audit Committee files and the City Clerk who has the ultimate responsibility, tells us our efforts to contact the committee clerk who received it are not welcome (the first stages of their recently introduced by law to ban people from council). Further, the person responsible for this state of affairs now admits to the diversion of all our emails, no matter who addressed to, so we cannot get our questions answered by anyone who should know the answer the City Clerk does’t or pretends he doesnt. Further still, the IT person responsible suddenly does not have a job without any explanation and we now face new hires for numerous persons. . Did he walk out with a huge pay out like Ridge?
Prior to the 2026 election we need the many very gifted Gazette readers to get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth out. Lets pull together folks and tear down and destroy any indicator that Burlington is heading to be the world capital of spin. Lynn Crosby was right when she suggested our city flag could well be a spinning top.
Maybe I’m missing something but can I ask why complaints haven’t been filed with the Information and Privacy Commissioner as well as the Ombudsman? You can only claim I can’t find it to an extent. If they’re claiming an entire period of data went missing, it’d have to be documented. The law always trips up bad apples bc you can’t think of everything.
It has been well documented Wendy, complaints to the Ombudsman, the Minister etc never got heard. We personally addressed Minister Clarke and the Seniors Minister with indisputable facts. We hired Andre Marin former Ombudsaman to verify our legislative compliance audit findings. When there are multiple levels of government involved in such things it is very difficult to get them to do the right thing.
Take the truck driver who after getting police instruction not to move his truck at Fearmans drove it straight at a human being and killed her and yet was not charged criminally and the police instruction was missing when it went before the JP for a plea bargain. Legislation had come out just a few days previous that protected the truck driver in protest situations that we and others discussed with believe no criminal charge is to protect the legislation.
Justice and accountbility no matter how serious are the issues are very difficult to get through the layers with a huge amount of legal support. You can see for yourself on the agenda and minutes pages that minutes and recordings stated to be there are not. Most families give up knowing it may well totally destroy them. Try asking Kevin why, the same kevin who denied you your petition at council until there was an uproar. You won’t get an answer. We don’t have a strong enough media presence in Burlington and the villains know that. How can we contact you, there are those who find it concerning that there is no contact info for you. We have some ideas we wished to put past you but cannot. Our email is all over the place anneandave@gmail.com