ECoB now has a home on the internet - bookmark this one.

News 100 yellowBy Pepper Parr

December 18th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

 

I want you to look at this time line.

Sometime in October 2017 – First email about the idea of creating a city wide citizens movement.

November 26th, 2017 First group meeting

November 30th, 2017 First delegation to city hall

December 13th, 2017 First Public meeting

December 17th, 2017 Home page for their web site – up and operational.

Bookmark this one:  engagedburlington.ca

To follow is the setting up of a crowd funding account to raise the funds that will be needed.

 

ECoB home page

Engageburlington.ca – a web site you will want to book mark

A former Mayor of Burlington once told me that “city hall can be beaten” – the more cynical citizens would say they knew that – the developers do it all the time.

When the elected fail to hear what the electors have to say – change takes place. We once heard a council member say that the citizens of the city get to choose their leaders every four years and given that he had been re-elected for more than 20 years the electors must be happy.

ECoB Dec 13 # 1

This crowd of 150+ people did not come out on a cold winter night because they had nothing better to do. They are upset with the direction they see their city going in and they wanted a bigger voice to amplify their concerns – now thay have one.

Voters trust those they put in office – the expect them to do what is right and best for the community. They expect those they elected to look after the minor matters that impact them directly and at the same time to bring wisdom and experience to the bigger picture.

The only reason protest movements get any traction is because those elected to office don’t listen or who wear out their welcome. The smarter politicians leave at the top of their game.

421 Brant

To the developer who brought this project to the city – the protests might seem unfair, they did eveything they were required to do and put significant assets at risk. It was the Planning department that failed to paint a more detailed picture for the members of council. Council also appears to have had cotton in their ears and not heard the voices that saw the development of their city quite a bit differently.

ECoB was formed to do a number of things. The task on the front burner of their stove is the filing an appeal to the OMB on the city council decision to approve the building of a 23 storey condominium on the corner of Brant and James Streets, across from city hall.

That task has a critical time element to it.

Another task was to get the city to slow down with the adoption of a new Official Plan. On that matter ECoB has already scored a win – the original end of January 2018 date for the approval of a new Official Plan has been moved to a sometime in April date.

ECoB appears to want to argue for the Official Plan becoming an election issue. Ballots for the next city council get cast in October of 2018

There is a critical city council meeting on January 23rd that ECoB will be delegating at.

The longer term objective is to continuing to engage and educate the residents of Burlington through word of mouth and social media. Their tag line for 2018 will be “grow engaged”.

The ECoB core committee is very small – four people. That needs to grow. While there was representation at the December 13th meeting from every ward in the city ECoB is not as in touch as they need to be on the numerous community issues that matter.

To their huge credit they are off to a great start. If all they manage to do in their first year is change the attitude of those elected when delegations appear – they will have done the city a huge service.

Jim Young, one of the ECoB founders, once told city council that the seats they sit in are not theirs – they are held in trust by the elected on behalf of the electors.  That message has not gotten though to this city council yet – it might or they won’t sit in those seats for much longer.

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2 comments to ECoB now has a home on the internet – bookmark this one.

  • Hans

    “grow engaged” is a big improvement over “grow bold”, IMO.

  • Penny

    Look what 4 people can accomplish. We invite all interested residents to become involved in making Burlington the best place to live. Everyone has something to contribute our tag line is “GROW ENGAGED”