Report on role advisory committees play at city hall to be discussed on Tuesday.

News 100 blueBy Staff

February 25th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

 

It is billed as the Report of the Volunteer Members of the Citizen Advisory Committee Review Team.

It is a lengthy report that, in the words of the authors: “Our recommendations are based, wherever possible, on the feedback received from the public, advisory committee members and staff collected during 2019.

Jim Young 2

Jim Young

Roland Tanner June 11-

Roland Tanner

The Review Team is comprised of volunteer residents of Burlington: Michael Budd, Perla Lopez, Jason Manayathu, Roland Tanner and Jim Young

As far as possible, they have only made recommendations where there was either a clearly expressed desire for a solution or a clearly identified problem that existed for which a solution needed to be identified.

“The engagement data we had available, however, did not include any evidence on several key elements on which we were tasked by council to provide recommendations. In those cases, we have inevitably provided our own conclusions on the best route forward based on our own knowledge of the city, advisory committees and background research we conducted.

“The report and its recommendations represent the fourth occasion on which citizens have been asked to provide advice to council on Advisory Committee reform, beginning in 1997.

Adv Committee report“On each occasion, while the recommendations have differed since 1997, the initial conclusions were similar. Advisory committees far too often did not work as intended and were not properly integrated into the decision-making process.

Poor structure, poor terms of reference, misunderstandings, lack of relevant training, and selection methods open to influence all worked to undermine the role advisory committees should have in establishing citizen voices with appropriate input at the centre of City Hall.”

That is from the first page of content. We will report in detail on what comes out of the Workshop.

Much of what was learned was set out in the Shape Burlington report.

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