Putting the Mayor’s State of the City in context.

SwP thumbnail graphicBy Pepper Parr

January 29th, 2016

BURLINGTON, ON

He is getting better  as a speaker; one of his council colleagues suggested he was getting some training.

Another council colleague said “he went on to long”.

Ok – but what did he say?

There were no “announcements” – he just ran through the things that had been done, mentioned several of the senior staff additions and got one decent joke in.

There wasn’t a standing ovation.

Flood Fairview plaza

Business people know that problems like this need a resolution – all they heard on Thursday was that more money was going to be thrown at it.

The Mayor made very small mention of a possible storm water tax levy – his audience was a combination of senior city hall staff and business people.

Intensification got several paragraphs. If we understood the Mayor correctly, Burlington has already reached its 2031 target.

The Mayor made much better use of good visual aids – at one point he put up three pictures; one of Waterdown Road as it is today – with its widening and a nice new coat of asphalt; a second on what is possible in terms of height under existing zoning and told the audience that if the people of Aldershot wanted a supermarket all they had to do was go along with those higher buildings.

It is clear that the Mayor hasn’t taken in a planning meeting in Aldershot – those folks want to keep their bungalows and streets without sidewalks.

There was quite a bit of time spent on the strategic Plan – he did mention that it was late – made no mention of the cost and didn’t touch on the content – not even a couple of tease lines. The audience he was talking to Thursday morning is going to be very disappointed when they see the final document – unless there are massage changes from the draft versions.

It was a dull speech – the Mayor doesn’t do barn burners – but gosh, golly, gee could he not have said something that would have the business men and woman in the room sitting up in their chairs?

The city planning department has been working on the concept of mobility hubs and there are still those prosperity corridors being talked up.

Mobility hubs

While the city council has not actually said that the |Aldershot GO station is where the first mobility hub is going to be located – all the signs point to that location.

Those start ups the Mayor is so hungry for got another mention and the Advanced Manufacturing Hub that former Prime Minister promised us is still in the works. But he didn’t drill down into just what this would mean for the business community.

The Mayor did mention the newest speaker he has coming to town – this time it is going to be Brent  Toderian who has said  “good planning is not a popularity contest.”    Toderian will talk about the need for city’s to grow “up” and not out at the Royal Botanical Gardens February 12th.

Mayor Goldring seems to want to go back to the Burlington of the 1970’s when he knew everyone in Roseland where he lived at the time – he longs for that “small town fee”.

He touched on the Community Investment Plan that is going to put small amount of money into community groups and let them plan and run recreational event in their communities.

“We are an engaged city” said the Mayor – it would be really wonderful if the he expanded on what he means by “engaged” because Mayor Rick Goldring certainly didn’t engage his audience Thursday morning over breakfast at the Burlington Convention Centre

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