We Love Burlington gets recognized by the Town of Oakville. Huh?

News 100 yellowBy Pepper Parr

November 25th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The We Love Burlington (WLB) crowd finally got some  recognition for the work they did to prevent a change in the status of the municipalities in the Region of Halton.

The provincial government did a Provincial Review and, after a lot of banging away by the municipalities across the province, the top tier governments and citizens groups, the province backed off and said there would not be any changes in the status of the cities.

Fenn and Seiling

Michael Fenn and Robert Seiling were the two members of the Provincial Review panel. Their report was never made public.

Many thought the plan was to create a city of Halton with the existing three towns and city becoming almost administrative units.

The city of Burlington didn’t get all that fussed over the issue. Other than the Mayor, little was heard from individual Councillors even though half of their pay cheque comes from the Region.

Blair Smith and Lynn Crosby were the leads on what the Burlington We Loves were doing. They had patterned themselves on the We Love Oakville group and worked closely with them. Burlington and Oakville were not able to raise much in the way of interest in Milton. Halton Hills Mayor Bonnette did take a strong position and worked closely with Mayor Meed Ward at the Regional level.

The Burlington We Love people have sort of morphed themselves into a group that is going to pay a lot more attention to the way Burlington is getting itself to the point where it will have an Official Plan that meets its needs, will get approved by the Region and be something they can defend at LPAT hearings and any other tribunal it finds it has to run up against.
We Love wants to ensure that citizen interests are front and center as the process the city is currently involved in works its way forward.

Food ticket

A reported 1000 people took the city up on the offer.

At this point there are two “concept” for the downtown core that have come out of the Action Labs, surveys, Food for Feedback plus the Walking Tour. WLB hopes to generate stronger citizen involvement.

We Love in Oakville.

From the left: Blair Smith, Jorge Gomez (Chief of Staff to Mayor Burton), Mayor Burton and Lynn Crosby

Back to the event at the Oakville Town Hall. Mayor Rob Burton and several members of Oakville Town Council acknowledged the efforts of the citizen groups that fought against regional amalgamation and the Halton MegaCity. The celebration was primarily focused on WeLoveOakville and the residence associations, Mayor Burton publicly thanked and recognized WeLoveBurlington as well, and presented them with a certificate of appreciation.

For the first time in Oakville history, Keys to the City were presented by the Mayor and the inaugural recipients were the WeLoveOakville committee.

Related news stories:

We love Burlington delegates at Provincial Review

Decision pushed back – again.

Minister decides not to make any changes – report doesn’t get released.

 

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3 comments to We Love Burlington gets recognized by the Town of Oakville. Huh?

  • Bev Jacobs

    I congratulate this hard working Committee . Their dedication to this endeavour means that BURLINGTON will remain BURLINGTON and not be amalgamated into the City of HALTON. This group should should also be recognized by this Community as well. If it wasn’t for their dedication and efforts, our beautiful city would have suffered. No thanks to our MPP.

  • Hans Jacobs

    This is the kind of positive news that there should be more of – well done!

  • Gary Scobie

    Well-deserved recognition for this group by our sister municipality. Can we expect the same from the City of Burlington?