Mayor packs his bags. He and the Misses doing a little R&R and working for the people while he is at it.

By Staff

BURLINGTON, ON June 6, 2011 – Travel broadens the mind, gives the traveler a different perspective and often results in the traveler bringing home new ideas and different approaches to problems. And maybe a T shirt or two as souvenirs

Not exactly Mt Nemo is it? Part of the geography our Mayor is going to take in during his two day visit to Portland Oregon.

Thus it is that Mayor Rick Goldring will visit Portland, Oregon while he is on vacation and attending a family wedding. And no, the travel to and from the wedding is not an expense the city is picking up – Goldring is making the stop over in Portland on his own dime except perhaps for some entertainment and hotel accommodation the two days he is in Portland.

Why Portland? Well the Mayor spends a lot of time on the internet, researching and learning what other cities are doing and he found a lot of similarities between Portland and Burlington. He has appointments lined up with the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability Monday morning and then with the Mayor of Portland Sam Adams and with the Portland Bureau of Transportation later in the same day. This is clearly not a vacation.

OK – so they have a little more to work with. But they don’t have a lake at one end of the city and a biosphere at the other end – do they?

Later in the week the Mayor Goldring will meet with The Office of Neighborhood Involvement and later that day with Portland’s BEST Business Centre (our BEDC) and then First Stop Portland

Can you see where he is going with all this?

Some questions we think the Mayor will be asking:

Have you ever tried to build a Pier?

How did THAT work out for you?

What have you got in the way of a waterfront?

Want some ideas on how to develop it – we’ve got dozens of ideas – and can afford to give away a few.

We have much nicer bike racks – perhaps our Mayor can license our design to Portland.

To be serious Portland, Oregon while much bigger than Burlington is the kind of progressive city Rick Goldring wants Burlington to become. When you look at their web site (don’t compare it to ours) you can get a sense of where Goldring wants to go. There are 95 neighbourhoods in the city that says it was built to walk around in. That’s not language one hears of Burlington but it is language Goldring – but he would add in cycling which is a big deal in Portland.

Expect our Mayor to return filled with new idea and innovations he will want to put forward. This would make an excellent Cogeco cable show – the program our Mayor did on Strategic planning was a bit of a bust.

Portland has produced a 48 page cycling report – expect Goldring to snag a copy of that and pass it along to our cycling people.

We hope to follow the Mayor as he spends the next three days in Portland.

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