Minutes of the meeting of the Burlington Central Rotary Club of 21st, of April 2016.
The breakfast meeting was chaired by President Bryce Leggett. The Four Way Test was presented to us by Bernie Scrivner who assured us that he was reading it from memory. (Actually he didn't need to read it.)
Andrew Gaydon introduced our guests: his worship the mayor of Burlington Rick Goldring. Tina Depco-Denver, the mayor's communication assistant; Steve Soepboer, husband of Johanna Haan; Augustina, our exchange student, and Camilla her good friend and outbound student.
Next week there will be the club social night at Salvatore Restaurant on Tuesday 26th, at 6 PM. They are a welcome new addition to Lakeside a la Carte whom we are very pleased to support.
Karmel Sakran told us of the highly successful gathering at JC's Bagels last night, a small and intimate group who got together for a fundraiser for the Syrian refugee family who are being sponsored. They managed to get an impressive $7000 to add to the current fund bringing it up to $12,000. They are a third of the way to the goal. The family is waiting in Lebanon and are fully aware that they have been chosen for this. Where they are now is in an appalling situation: there is no school, no work, no status, and their rent costs them $500 of the $600 that they have. All this requires is a sign off and formal submission to the government but before this will happen the full amount of money that is required is around $42,000 that needs to be in hand. Karmel reminded us that this is real; it's not hypothetical.
Peter Skoretz is one of the two permanent directors on the board of the Carpenter's Hospice and informed us of the major renovations for which funds are needed. There will be a Hike for the Hospice on May 28 and pledges are requested in support and can be done online or via pledge sheets. We were reminded that it was our Rotary club that thought to make the development this hospice happen many years ago.
Bruce Maybury has returned from Grande Prairie Alberta where he and Randy Reeve did quite well but were unfortunately eliminated before the final, but had a great time and put in a very fine showing. They were there with curlers from Canada, Scotland, and the United States. They had better weather there then we had here, by far.
Andrew Gaydon is now co-chair of the golf committee along with Nancy Brady. Ron Lambert has stepped aside, not down, and will continue to be involved with the organisation. The partner for this year will be Liberty for Youth and many will remember Frederick Dryden, charismatic leader of this excellent organisation that takes care of at risk youth keeping them from reoffending and being perpetually involved in the criminal justice system. They will be active participants in the process of fundraising and ultimately will receive close to half of the funds coming from this golf tournament. It will be on July 21 and a brochure is forthcoming. They are looking for contributors to the silent auction. They will also like club members to get as many sponsors for the tournament as possible, and at $200 this shouldn't be too difficult.
Augustina and Camilla gave a lively account of their activities in the past week or so.
Our sergeant at arms was Bernie Hanna.
Karmel Sakran introduced our guest speaker His Worship the Mayor of Burlington, Rick Goldring, a Rotarian and Paul Harris awardee himself.
Burlington is a thriving community, one of the very best in which to live in Canada. There has been a tremendous amount of work done in the last 12 months towards a long-term strategic plan that will take us to 2040. This is a complete re-doing of the city building blueprint looking at transportation, rural and agriculture, and community energy plan. The city has to grow, has to move, has to remain healthy and engaged. This takes into consideration the residential component and economic development. In the past the goal has been to keep businesses happy where they are and much less looking out for new business. Start-ups and growth of new business will be a much greater focus. There will be an innovation district around the de Groote School of business close to the highway and there is a good relationship with post secondary schools who are producing 10,000 graduates every year! There will be an advanced manufacturing hub with public-private and academic partnerships. Siemens will be leading the manufacturing hub along with 13 other companies to help businesses become more globally competitive and more attractive to Burlington.
The census has gone up to close to 183,000 with official numbers coming out soon. There is no more greenfield growth possible in Burlington and all that is left is for intensification. Greatly needed are mobility hubs, revamping of the Uptown area, old retail plazas like Roseland at Eastway and the Plains Rd./Fairview corridor.
Recently Brent Toderian, a well-known urban planner gave a talk at the RBG on Urban change and development, on the subject of "density done well"; it was quite a shakeup to the listeners with many new and important concepts put forward. Firstly he recommended that the city needed to reimagine itself in a number of areas and to be "less suburban" if they really wanted to be an urban entity and force. Burlington's preoccupation with keeping buildings low most likely came from the fact that most of the taller buildings in Burlington are eyesores; understandably we don't want any more of those! If that can be re-imagined there is plenty of room for upward growth of quality creating an attractive city that connects well with the street.
There needs to be a proactive approach to development of properties that are currently static to inject into their owners the vision of what they could become and to "make it happen"; the planning department apparently took this to heart, something that our mayor has been proposing for some time.
We saw a series of excellent artist's concepts of changes to a number of the well-known and very bland areas of Burlington that can become mobility hubs which need to be close to the GO train and to be walkable to other areas to make them entities unto themselves. There is even the possibility of one more GO station, perhaps around Walker's line and Cumberland.
Most important is "it's not how big we grow but how we grow big". More thoughts will be given to bikeability and walkability since there are many many thousands of trips done per day within Burlington, of less than 5 km that might be cycled or walked if those walk and cycle ways are attractive enough.
There will be a $50 million beach development along the regional waterfront.
The community energy plan calls for changing over to LEDs throughout Burlington.
There is a 9000 acre stretch of land between Coutt's Paradise and the Escarpment 50% of which is public and which will be developed over the next 25 years.
The mayor was very excited by a new advisory committee to be known as the Mayor's Millennial Advisory Committee of young people who have been brought in to bring their fresh and youthful perspective on planning. They were amazed by the quality of the 18 applicants, they were all inspiring, and are now part of this committee. Burlington needs to be made as attractive as possible to use if young people are to be induced to stay in or to come back to Burlington to live and to raise their families.
There were questions around the possibility of developing more recreational areas in the Kings Road- Surrey Lane areas, such a needy area of lower income where children desperately need attractive, but above all accessible spaces to play. The Mayor said he would make a note of this and give it consideration.
A question on how Burlington transit could be increased in a practical and financially satisfactory way was met with the answer that it is a very major challenge. In Oakville, for example, where they spent one hundred percent more on transit, there was only a 30% increase in ridership, not a very good precedent for simply pumping more money into the system for a citizenry that is currently so dependent on and in love with its cars. Travel within Burlington is just too easy (for some).
There was a question about the possible expansion of the City Hall the Mayor feels that is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Mike Molloy thanked the Mayor for his talk and while presenting him with a certificate of thanks informed us that there are only 10 remaining diagnosed cases of polio in the world! We are so close to final eradication, in fact just "this close"
The meeting was adjourned on time.
