A year from today you will cast ballots to decide who will lead Burlington city council, the School Boards and representatives on Regional Council.

By Pepper Parr

October 23rd, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

A year from today the people of Burlington will troop out to the polls to elect a Mayor, members of city council and school Board trustees.

Who will be in the races and what will the issues be?

We now know that the current Mayor will be in the race; he declared that last week.

Meed Ward with the Mayor.

Mike Wallace is understood to be lining up support and Marianne Meed Ward is understood to be on the same trajectory – one that will have her wearing the Chain of Office. That is something she has wanted to wear since the day she decided to move into ward 2 from ward 1 and run for that seat. She handily defeated Peter Thoem SPELL by focusing her campaign on saving the waterfront. She literally romped to victory in her second term and has grown to be a very effective representative for the people of ward 2 and has spread her impact into literally every ward in the city.

There is at least one new candidate for the office of Mayor. Aldershot resident Greg Woodruff has indicated that he plans to run.  Woodruff ran for the office of Regional chair in 2014.

Three of the our Burlington public School Board trustees sitting as observers during the PARC meetings.

Election of school Board trustees is going to be contentious. The decision by the Board of Education to close two of the city’s seven high schools has divided communities and set them against each other. Parents from two of the school scheduled to be closed organized and filed requests for Administrative Reviews which were approved by the Ministry of Education. A decision from the appointed Facilitator should be in hand before the election.
The public School Board issues are clear; the same cannot be said for the municipal issues.

How the waterfront is managed is still very much an issue; added to that is just how the city is going to grow in the next decade has to be determined. That the population will increase significantly is a given – the province has mandated that Burlington grow and the developers have for taken proposals to the Planning department.

In 2014 the city decided their Strategic Plan would cover a 20 year time frame rather than the traditional four years. That led to the creation of a new approach to growing the city based on the creation of four mobility hubs. The Mayor talked about the need to intensify while one of his rivals maintained that the city was already meeting the population growth targets.

Programs to meet the needs of the growing senior’s population became an issue that was being given more in the way of the public attention – not all that much more in the way of funding.

Public transit was found to have been seriously underfunded during the last decade – the need for as much as $1 million a year for a number of years was part of the discussion.

The planned look of the Joseph Brant Museum. The hope is that, weather permitting, the museum will open in 18 months.

City council decided Burlington needed to transform the Joseph Brant museum and approved a $10 million plus project.

Citizens will also elect a Chair of the Regional council. Each member of the city council is also elected as a Regional Councillor – basically half of their salary come from the Region.

In 2014 every member of Council was returned to office.

Nominations officially open on May 1st of 2018.