Are they having any fun at city hall?

By Pepper Parr

July 18th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

We just might be hearing the phrase “Common Sense Coalition” when the municipal election gets more active .

There are candidates who are getting together and talking about identifying themselves as a coalition where they will have a statement they all endorse that is city wide.

The individual candidates will then have issues they want to identify and work with within their own wards.

The people behind this idea point out that there is nothing partisan about what they want to do. “We are just candidates for public office that want to tell the public that we can work together and avoid the rancor that exists on the council we have now.”

One of the concerns the Gazette hears again and again is the lack of civility at council meetings. There are some very very poor relationships between some council members. There are two that just will not let up – they go at each other as if there were working on a long standing family feud.

Citizens standing for the National Anthem at the start of a council meeting. Twelve people delegated – not many smiles from even one of them.

We hear from people who have delegated at council and say that they will never do that again. They felt they were humiliated and not respected. Some people don’t have experience delegating and they are nervous, lose their train of thought and then wander off from the issue.

There is the sense that the delegator and the council member come across as combatants – the council members don’t come across as leaders.

Frequently a council member challenges a delegator in a dismissive diminishing manner.

There is rarely the sense that they are all in the room to achieve the same goal.

On Monday there were people delegating and talking about how well their community worked for them. They were the personification of that phrase city hall trots out with every media release: Burlington is one of Canada’s best and most livable cities, a place where people, nature and business thrive.   A comment from a Georgian Court reader went like this:  “Our city counselors totally let us down, and in the process were disrespectful. I have lost all faith and confidence in our city government”.

Walter Mulkewich

Rob MacIsaac

When we meet with people we ask: Who is the best Mayor the city had in the past? Rob MacIsaac   and Walter Mulkewich are always at the top of the list. “Rob was always informed, knew what he was talking about and was a pleasure to work with” was the way one citizen described a past Mayor.

During a conversation with someone who knows MacIsaac  well told us that he was at an event with MacIsaac recently and asked him which of the several jobs he has had in the past did he like the most. We were told that MacIsaac said he had fund while he was Mayor.

One seldom gets the sense that anyone is having any fun at city hall. The planners are almost under siege. They are over worked – the development applications arrive almost daily.

At times the work for the planners is both exciting and challenging but the pace is relentless and fatigue sets in.

City Council is off for the month of August – the planners aren’t going to have that luxury.

Perhaps Parks and Recreation could put on an event for the Planning department – let them all hop onto a trampoline and just have fun.

How about the City Manager on a trampoline?  That might be asking for too much!

Salt with Pepper is the opinions, reflections, musings and observations of the Gazette publisher.