By Pepper Parr
May 2nd, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
When there is a public event that brings different interest groups together one has to watch carefully what is taking place in the room; who is talking to whom.
Last week the Burlington Chamber of Commerce hosted an event on Red Tape Reduction. It wasn’t particularly well attended – a little over 100 people took part.
Lou Frapporti, second from the right is keeping a close eye on City Manager Tim Commisso, with his back to the camera. Frapporti is a Partner at Gowlings, a Hamilton law firm and corporate Counsel for Alinea. Dave Pitblado, second from the left is attentive. John Hutter is on the far left runs King Paving.
A decent number of people from City Hall attended: Mayor Meed Ward was on hand to chat people up, she wasn’t one of the speakers. City Manager Tim Commisso was on hand as well is as city Executive Director Jackie Johnson who is responsible for Communications and Engagement. Neither spoke
Three city councillors were on hand: Paul Sharman, Angelo Bentivegna and Kelvin Galbraith; he was one of the panel speakers.
A number of politicians did speak: provincial Minister of Red Tape Reduction Parm Gill whose riding includes parts of northern Burlington: he addressed the attendees,. Natalie Pierre who is the MPP for Burlington said a few words.
Lou Frapporti, a partner at law firm Gowlings, spoke and told the audience that he was corporate counsel for Alinea , an organization that had taken over Paletta International, the largest land holder in Halton Region.
After the formal part of the event people gathered in small groups to chat. One group of four caught my attention. Dave Pitblado of Alinea who does a lot of the stick handling for different Alinea developments. Two of the developments on the go are 1200 King Road and Bronte Meadows. Recent changes made by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing made changes to the Regional Official Plan that opened up the kind of development that would be permitted on those two properties.
Recently Burlington City Council went into a CLOSED session to discuss an Alinea property. There was no detail given when Council came out of the CLOSED session.
Dave Pitblado listens carefully to what City Manager Tim Commisso has to say. It was clear that Commisso was explaining something that was important to Pitblado and it wasn’t whether or not the Leafs were going to win the first round of the Stanley Cup finals. This was business – big business.
So, when we spotted City Manager Tim Commisso in discussion with Dave Pitblado, Lou Frapporti, Corporate counsel for Alinea and John Hutter of King Paving we wondered what that conversation was about.
Time to take some pictures.
The two that are part of this story offer one interpretation of what the conversation is about.
We expect City Council to get brought up to speed when they are next in a CLOSED session.
When the public will hear anything from the City Communications department is anyone’s guess.
