By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
On September 13, the City of Burlington hosted its fifth annual Food for Feedback event at Central Park.
Various City of Burlington departments set up booths along the perimeter of the park, encouraging attendees to offer their feedback on what the city is doing right and wrong, in exchange for a ticket, which could be redeemed at one of four food trucks located in the adjacent parking lot.
Several ward councillors were present at the event, including Kelvin Galbraith, Lisa Kearns, Rory Nisan, Angelo Bentivegna (Wards 1, 2, 3, and 6, respectively), and Mayor Marianne Meed Ward.
Meed Ward spoke about the variety of concerns that citizens raised with her.
“I’ve heard about homelessness encampments, people concerned and compassionate, [asking] ‘What are we doing about that,’” Meed Ward said. “Traffic congestion is huge for people, but people are also really interested in parks and green space preservation, and a couple of people were talking to me about the budget.”
Meed Ward’s booth also had cards containing information about the upcoming town halls that she is hosting across the city, of which there are six.
She said that the event offers a friendly, personal way to interact with politicians.
“It’s a really non-threatening way to come and meet your elected representative and tell them what’s on your mind, plus you get free food,” Meed Ward said. “I mean, it can be intimidating for folks to call, email or ask for a meeting. And so with this, I’m just standing here, you [can] just walk right up.”
The mayor’s office collaborated with a teenage resident named Ayden Zbikowski to set up a food donation box at her booth, with the non-perishable items going to the Burlington Food Bank. A QR code was also available for residents to scan if they preferred to make a monetary donation.
Meed Ward said that events like Food for Feedback are important because they make speaking your mind more accessible.
“Instead of people having to come to us, we’re coming to you,” Meed Ward said. “We’re coming to your park right near a library in a community centre. We know that there are people who will come to the library and may not have known that this was happening, and wander over.”
Galbraith said that the main areas of concern he heard from residents were surrounding traffic safety and garbage, along with the lack of a grocery store in the west end, and frustration with recent condo developments.
Both Galbraith and Nisan said that there were specific issues that they would not have been aware of had it not been for this event.
Galbraith referenced a crosswalk in his ward that a resident was concerned about, due to the lack of signage indicating it is a crosswalk.
“I said, ‘You know what, send that to my office,’” Galbraith said. “I can tag the transportation staff and get their opinion on why or why not.”
Nisan spoke to a woman who was having trouble applying for Halton Region’s Subsidized Passes for Low-Income Transit (SPLIT).
“I think she would’ve qualified for it, but she found that the hurdles that she had to go through were really high, and I thought it was quite easy to get the SPLIT pass,” Nisan said. “So I’m going to be looking into that for sure, to make sure that it’s not that hard to get, because the whole point is to make it easy so people can get on the bus.”
Both councillors said that turnout at the event was very high.
“It’s a broader cross-section of people than you would get at a community meeting,” Galbraith said.
Jamie Tellier, director of community planning for the city, was stationed at the New Zoning Bylaw Project booth. Tellier said that most of the feedback he received was regarding housing options.
“We’re hearing a lot of questions specifically about additional residential units [ARUs],” Tellier said. “I was surprised by how many people have come in to ask questions about what the rules are.”
“The city has an incentive program right now to enable those things, and that seems to be getting a lot of traction,” Tellier continued. “There’s certainly a need for more housing options, and people are appreciating that it’s a very effective way to accommodate aging parents or adult children.”
Tellier said that the city is currently monitoring whether or not the incentive program is leading to an uptick in ARUs and will be releasing updated statistics on it later this year.
