By Staff
January 27th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The federal government is putting significant amount of the money they have to borrow into the Canada 150 program – that events that lets all of us celebrate the 150 anniversary of the formal creation of this country we call Canada,
Burlington MPP Eleanor McMahon sitting at a loom at the Art Gallery of Burlington
The province has announced its program – support for 367 exciting local initiatives — including multicultural events, art exhibitions, sporting events and local food festivals — that will bring people together to commemorate the qualities and values that define Ontario and revel in this historic milestone.
Eleanor McMahon, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, was at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto today to announce the recipients of the Community Celebration Program, which supports communities in hosting their own celebrations for Ontario’s anniversary.
Burlington’s Mayor has let us know last night that he too has his hopes.
He wants the city’s Love My Hood program to come up with 150 events in the city that get celebrated in this sesquicentennial year.
He has said he will try to attend as many of the hoped for 150 events as he can. Bless him for that.
Love My Hood is a program designed to build a healthier Burlington by engaging and empowering residents to come together and provide events celebrating their Burlington neighbourhoods.
The city run program helps residents bring events to all neighbourhoods throughout the city by supporting and encouraging Burlington residents to hold their own neighbourhood gatherings, activities or parties where neighbours can get to know each other. Love My Hood provides resources, support, funding up to $300 and eliminates some common barriers in event hosting.
Events can be as small or as big as you like. There is more detail in the Planning Ideas and Resources section of the city web site. Link to: https://www.burlington.ca/en/your-city/love-my-hood.asp
The next municipal election will be held Monday, October 22, 2018. Those thinking they have a future career in municipal politics can file nomination papers from Tuesday, May 1, 2018 up until 2 p.m. on Friday, July 27, 2018. This city desperately needs viable candidates to run against the Keystone Kops currently occupying the Council Chambers.
There is some information (briefly explained) on the elections ontario website – cut and paste link below
https://www.elections.on.ca/content/dam/NGW/sitecontent/2016/compliance/A%20Quick%20Guide%20For%20Candidates.pdf
Anyone who feels they have the skills, staying power and indeed stomach to run against any of the incumbents please give it some serious thought. It certainly won’t be easy – for every member of the community that will be happy to get involved and help in anyway they can there are probably ten that are just not interested – there was however a reported 59.2% turnout in Burlington in 2014 election – a lot of voters in Burlington certainly will turnout yet again for the incumbents but there must surely be an equal amount of voters who would gladly turnout to elect any another candidate. City of Burlington Council is fast becoming an embarrassment, their behaviour towards one another is deplorable and the attitude of some councillors toward the residents they profess to represent is just outright insulting- the council is totally dysfunctional and provide no leadership at all to city staff – it has to change. This is a heartfelt plea – if you sincerely feel you can do the job better than the current council please, please seriously think about running for office.
In the hood, really!…I don’t want to live in the hood!… I don’t ever want to live in any hood.
Who is this guy?
The Mayor I want is someone who understands family values, who understands that like minded people usually find each other and live in the same neighbourhoods.
I am so tired of being part of any social experiment.
That’s why the mayor & council are helping to destroy my neighborhood in South Burlington with the New Street Fiasco. Why my councillor, Dennison, is helping destroy the character of Roseland by defying the planning department in his appeal to the OMB. Why the city seems hell bent of turning downtown Burlington into Mississauga South. Nice rhetoric, Goldring!!!
It truly is astounding that a city councillor would go against his own planning department and take the city he works for to the OMB. Surely he will not be re-elected after this????
Sadly, Lynn, this issue was known before the last election but Dennison was still reelected. One of the main reasons for this was the miracle of the great flood in South Burlington–Dennison took great advantage to present himself as the “great helper” which won many votes. Quite astute but if the electorate had been properly informed, they would have seen through Dennison’s political ploy. Both he and Goldring took full advantage of the flood to both send out personal emails “informing” residents of how they could be helped. Actually, this information was also sent out by the City of Burlington so that their “newsletters” were redundant but they served the purpose of boosting their name recognition and image prior to the vote.
This gave them an unfair advantage over their political opponents who couldn’t campaign yet. This is a problem of municipal elections in Burlington–the incumbents have a huge unfair advantage over their opponents. Name recognition is critical but opponents need to start 6 months to a year out to get their name out there; this rarely happens. Candidates are prevented from campaigning until several weeks before election but it doesn’t stop the councillors and mayor from “de facto” campaigning with their newsletters. Hopefully the next election will be different; I’m sensing visible anger out in the community against the current cabal at city hall.