September 22, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. What was that line – it takes a village to raise the child? What does it take to create a community that is more than the “vibrant community” line that city hall spouts? How do you develop a caring, compassionate community that sees beyond galas?
Brenda Richards, a resident of New Brunswick was the winner of the bike that was donated by Mountain Equipment Coop – now known as MEC. Ms Richards got pulled into the contest by her sister, a Burlington resident.
BurlingtonGreen was named as one of five organizations in Canada to participate and compete in the Jamieson Vitamins Call for the Wild contest that would see $100,000 in prize money shared by the five organizations based on the number of people each was able to get to vote for them.
BurlingtonGreen was the smallest organization in terms of the community it represented and they were up against some pretty impressive organizations; the Vancouver Aquarium had a large audience to draw on and the McGill University Bird Sanctuary had an international reputation.
But Burlington was up to the challenge and, as Amy Schnurr, Executive Director of BurlingtonGreen commented “we beat Calgary which is five times bigger than we are”. On a day by day basis the race soon settled into Burlington fighting to keep its third place spot.
Mountain Equipment Coop, now known as MEC got behind the Burlington effort with the donation of an MEC bike that was won – wait for it – by a resident of New Brunswick. How did that happen? Well, Brenda Richard, the winner of the bike draw, has a sister who lives in Burlington. The sister spread the word to the family and as a result there were votes from outside the city that allowed us to literally inch ahead of Calgary by xx votes.
The winner picked up her bike from the MEC shop in Halifax. Perhaps we will see her on the bike testing herself on Guelph Line one summer afternoon.
It was a good race for the cause and a good run for Burlington Green. It will be interesting to hear what BurlingtonGreen decides to do with the funds they earned. Will they take us beyond that “vibrant community” line coming out of city hall and perhaps get us to the point where we are a city with a responsible tree preservation program?
BG will be at Council Monday Sept. 23 doing their best to make logical, practical points to support a flexible private tree bylaw for residents. Members of BurlingtonGreen are Burlington residents that are concerned about tree loss, and believe preservation, as well as, more planting and education are ALL required to maintain Burlington’s attractive and ecologically functioning tree canopy.
A private tree bylaw would also allow the city’s planning department to have oversight when speculators and developers assemble multiple properties for infill development when trees may be required to come down. Without a private tree bylaw in place the city planning negotiators have no control until a site plan permit application is submitted. This is the major tool that the city needs.
A private tree bylaw should not be seen as a negative to residents, but a way to help educate property owners, inform neighbours, and preserve trees that really should be preserved because of the net community benefit they offer.
At this stage BurlingtonGreen is only asking that city staff given direction to work on drafting up a bylaw for Burlington residents to review via the consultation process. Can we even get that far? That is up to council Monday evening.