Burlington council approves committee recommendations to control ‘nighttime activities’ among others

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Published July 16, 2021 at 4:07 pm

council

At a recent meeting, Burlington council approved various recommendations from the July cycle of committee meetings. 

One of the recommendations included addressing “nighttime activities” and ways the City can control them.

As a result, the City approved providing interim service delivery modifications approved by the Burlington Leadership Team, Emergency Control Group and/or service leads for parking ambassadors and night-time activity – parking management service – transportation and directing the Chief Financial Officer to track and monitor the financial implications of the changes to service delivery programs in the ongoing COVID-19 financial impact reporting to Council.

“Nighttime activities – particularly illegal ones – continue to occur at the Beachway and continue to be an issue of community safety for our city. We will continue to monitor things and take the appropriate actions necessary to deter the illegal behaviour and ensure our amenities continue to be safe for continued public use, especially during the summer,” said Mayor Marianne Meed Ward. 

At the meeting, the recommendation for receiving and filing a finance department report F-25-21 regarding the 2022 budget framework was also approved. 

In response to this, Meed Ward stated that she was looking forward to staff giving them in-depth information on what they need for a growing community.

“We get to decide as a Council how quickly we address the issues being presented – what is truly urgent and what can wait. This is truly a two-term Council exercise to ‘right the ship.’ We’re looking for what’s reasonable, balanced and what the community can absorb. They trust us to do that. What will be valuable to our community is to see where we’re headed. Budgets are about the why as much as they are about the how,” said Meed Ward.

The recommendation to direct the Director of Transportation Services to proceed with the installation of occupancy sensors in all Municipally owned off-street parking facilities in downtown Burlington for a total cost of $165,000 to be funded from the Downtown Parking District Reserve Fund was also approved.

Meed Ward described this as “valuable data” to have for planning purposes, noting that many of the city’s residents have been asking about it.

Lastly, the recommendation to authorize the Director of Recreation, Community and Culture to re-purpose the budget that has previously been allocated for the Kite Festival, to support in 2022, an enhanced Canada Day civic recognition element and to include a kite component with the Children’s Festival to be hosted at Brant Hills in 2022 was approved.

Additionally, the authorization of the Director of Recreation, Community and Culture to hold an event in April 2022 to commemorate the Cenotaph’s 100 anniversary, with the event to be funded from existing resources and as needed, with support from the Community Investment Fund and the direction of the Director of Recreation, Community and Culture to report back in Q1 2022 on the concept of a “Celebrate Burlington” was also approved.

“I’m absolutely thrilled by a Celebrate Burlington event — we have so much to celebrate in our community and we have people to celebrate and recognize. I’m really looking forward to the additional dialogue in shaping this event with the community, City staff and Council,” said Meed Ward.

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