Welcome to our first Burlington Residents’ Action Group (BRAG) newsletter!
We at BRAG are grateful for everyone who has visited our website, signed up for our newsletter, passed the link to friends, donated, or provided us with feedback. We also appreciate those residents who have offered to help us with research and share valuable knowledge on particular topics of interest, as well as those who have written articles for our website.
Launching the group has involved a lot of work, and we are learning as we go, what works, what doesn’t, and where we can improve. Please continue to provide your feedback in the Contact section of the www.goBRAG.ca website. We want to represent the views of the community, even if those views don’t align with our own!
Our biggest project, right now, is the 2025 budget, as this is time-sensitive and happening now. BRAG had representatives at all of the mayor’s recent pre-budget meetings. We were disappointed by the low turnout at the meetings, as well as the sense we got that they weren’t really about engagement but rather “selling the narrative”. That fact, combined with the fact that the mayor has not released a draft version of the budget, might explain the low turnout, as people often don’t want to show up if they feel their input isn’t being heard. Our budget committee is preparing to review the detailed budget as soon as the city makes it available. Thank you to those residents who are helping with this.
We compared the quite different budget processes in Oakville and Burlington – spoiler alert: we prefer Oakville’s process! Click here to read the full article.
Development is also a major concern for residents. We are watching the 2030 Caroline development with interest. The proposed 27-storey tower beside the Berkeley is receiving significant opposition from residents. Joan Little, of the Hamilton Spectator, reminds us of just how far back, at least to 2010, this whole saga goes in her recent article. Click here to read more.
Speaking of development, BRAG’s Stephen White wrote about the city’s “lovely dashboard to monitor the construction of housing units” and the committee to oversee it. Stephen notes “the housing problem in this community is seriously awry, and the problem has nothing to do with addition or counting.” Click here to read the full article.
There’s plenty more on our website, we hope you visit often and comment on the articles.
Upcoming topics will include the city’s study on revising ward boundaries and adding additional council members. We’ll also look at how strong mayor powers are relevant to this issue. Once we see a budget there will be articles and surveys to help understand what services are important to residents.
Speaking of surveys, please take a moment to answer our first BRAG survey: Click here to fill out the survey, it will take a minute or two.
Thank you for reading our first newsletter. Please share this with your Burlington friends and family.
Wishing you all a healthy and happy Thanksgiving!
The BRAG team.
If you had signed up for our newsletter and didn’t get the email please check your spam folder. The newsletter was sent from newsletter@gobrag.ca. You can mark this email address as a safe sender. We did have a technical glitch and lost a day or two worth of signups. If you are one of the roughly 15 people affected by this problem please sign up again.
