By Gazette Staff
January 22, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
ROMA – Rural Ontario Mayors Association met in Toronto last Sunday. The organization was created to give municipalities with populations of under 100,000 an opportunity to meet with senior civil servants and Cabinet Ministers.
Bentivegna represents part of Burlington’s rural north.
Ward 6 Councillor Angelo Bentivegna represents a significant number of rural residents – having him at the annual ROMA event made sense.
Why, a person who reached out to the Gazette asked, was Burlington Mayor Meed Ward attending this event? She gets to do her thing at the OBMA Ontario Big Mayors Association.
Mayor Meed Ward was in Japan representing the City.
Registration for ROMA events is $1000 – add in the cost of the hotel for the three-day event – and you’re looking at close to $3000 each for Bentivegna and Meed Ward.
Why was the Mayor a delegate? Our reader suggested it “was another chance to get in front of a microphone and talk about the Ontario Big City Mayors Association.”
There doesn’t appear to be any limit on how much the Mayor can spend going to events.
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MMW took the Strong Mayor powers for purpose. That guarantees – really includes – a self selected ability to disregard ethics and taxpayers. Ethics become like putty. Even lying is okay when needed. At the least, fabrication and misrepresentation, turning truth into pseudo fraud, is common.
That is the point of Strong – gets Power – and easy to get when MMW can just choose it. and then do anything she wants, and bestow favours for any staff too.
She did the same thing, for the big staff caravan that got the free-ride on the Taxpayer to Japan.
It would be nice if she found a place at the Province.
BTW, Curt Benson CAO at the City of Burlington was also in attendance at the ROMA Conference. So there were 3 people from the COB that attended, and not 2.
MMW IS blatantly running for a higher office while being payed by taxpayers . If you sift through her social media posts it tells a story of a higher office yearning
Please vote her out of office in 2026 and let’s elect a person who is not a virtue signalling Liberal
Mayor Meed Ward is displaying a callous disregard for Ethics and Taxpayers. Not only the frivolous expense of admission – if they included hotel and meal costs while thousands of Burlingtonians must commute via Go Train or other – it is a WASTE of taxpayer $. Add to this the insult of allowing the Flag of a PROVEN Genocidal War Criminal to be flown at City Hall – it disgusts me how we are being represented!
Time to DUMP this immoral, unethical, supporter of Genocidal War Criminals in the midst of its Ethnic Cleansing. She doesnt represent Burlington or its Canadian Morals, Laws and Values!