By Pepper Parr
June 23rd, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
On Tuesday of this week there were two public meetings that involved city council.
One was a meeting of the Audit Committee – which is a Standing Committee of Council which took place at 10:30 am. There were some problems with the sound and the meeting was cut short with everything deferred until the July meeting.
The other was a meeting of Council which took place at 1:00 pm and was over shortly before 5:00 pm.
Both were public meetings delivered to the public as a web cast.
For people who were not able to watch the web cast as it was being broadcast there is an opportunity to go to the city web site and watch the meeting later.
Note the word live. You can click on that and watch the meeting.
Here is what you will see for the Audit Committee on the City Calendar. Notice that there is a link that you can click on – the word LIVE in green lettering.
Now look at what is on the city calendar for the meeting of Council.
You can’t watch a rebroadcast.
Why not – the Audit Committee met at 10:30 and their meeting is available.
Note that the word lice does not appear. That is because the city technical people have not yet loaded the webcast. The big questions is – why has it not been loaded?
We may get told that there were technical difficulties and the broadcast is not available and may never be available.
The Gazette has a transcript of who said what when.
At one point the Mayor said she wanted remarks that were made by Councillor Stolte, as the two bickered back and forth, be “stricken from the record”.
Our transcript can be converted to an MP3 file which means you can hears the words for yourself.
It just might come to that.
Chris and Mary miss the point of the change in agenda order. The Mayor placed Ms. Stolte’s
(imo absolutely unnecessary) apology at the beginning of the meeting so that, as part of the
open Council agenda rather Member’s Statement, it could be debated by Council. Ms. Stolte
was absolutely correct in demanding that the agenda not be so rearranged. I expect that she
was anticipating another public ‘shaming’ directed by a strangely vengeful Meed Ward. The
rationale that it was so Ms. Gartside (and host of friends) could witness the apology rather
than waiting for the end of the meeting, begs “the willing suspension of disbelief”. This
consideration certainly isn’t evident in the video of the meeting itself where one has to wait
through approximately 40 minutes of dead air before the meeting begins. Hard to believe that
this is not an intentional discouragement to public viewing of a very inappropriate
performance by the Mayor. And certainly not the first such.
If the video of this meeting is not available the residents of Burlington need to start asking some really hard questions that demand answers.
I watched the meeting and “disgraceful” is not nearly strong enough a word to describe what transpired. The body language of the mayor and her insistence on controlling the meeting was shameful.
The fact that the mayor, in my opinion, went as far as to change the order of the agenda because she would not be available when the Councillors comments were read ( she was attending her daughter’s graduation in London) indicates just how determined she was to create havoc.
Learning that a resolution had been in place and the fact that the Integrity Commission indicated it was NOT necessary for this to be discussed at a council meeting makes what transpired more outrageous. Why did the mayor weigh in on a private matter between Councillor Stolte and Georgie Gartside?
As I watched what was happening my first thought was why does no one stop the tirade. Where was the clerk? Where was the City Manager? Where were the 4 other councillors that sat mute and watched this play out. ? It was only Councillor Kearns who tried to stop what was transpiring.
How many people in Burlington would have known that the unnamed assistant in a previous article was Georgie Gartside? Few if any. How many of those who knew who the unnamed assistant was would have thought twice about the fact that it might have impeded her career? No one. City staff is constantly being switched from one department to another. Does the term making a mountain out of a molehill come to mind?
This is not the first time that the mayor has gone after councillor Stolte in an unprofessional manner. Whatever happened to her statement that appears just about everywhere ” BE KIND TO EACH OTHER”.
Councillor Galbraith and Nisan opened a pandora’s box. I wonder if they now think that this could have been handled differently. Something tells me there will be more complaints to be investigated by the Integrity Commission.
There is a saying “be careful what you wish for”.
No need – Cogeco ran the whole meeting that evening (so they have a copy that works) and there are individuals who taped it. Our Mayor can not undo what has been done.
Is this something for the integrity commissioner or the proviince to look into? It almost sounds like a criminal act with holding public info?