By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Ward 3 Councillor and mayoral candidate Rory Nisan unveiled what he calls a “Burlington Affordability Guarantee” during a Sept. 26 open house at his campaign office, pledging to address what he says is a projected 22% tax increase over the next four years.
The open house, held at 2201 Brant St., also gave residents an opportunity to meet with Nisan, ask questions and raise concerns ahead of the municipal election.
Nisan argued that recent increases in the city’s budget make controlling future increases particularly important.
“That’s on top of a 42% budget increase over the last four years,” Nisan said. “We can’t afford to have an increase like that anymore.”
Nisan said if elected, he would begin a spending audit within his first 90 days in office to identify potential savings.
“We’re going to make sure that every program is proving its value,” Nisan said. “If senior staff want to have new programs, they will have to find the savings themselves inside an inflationary budget.”
Nisan also said he would seek to increase revenues by attracting more jobs and businesses. He said this would reduce the burden on property taxpayers by increasing other city revenue streams.
“Burlington has gone from a low tax municipality to a medium tax municipality,” Nisan said. “I think we can get back to being a low tax municipality again. We’ll do that through a department-by-department review because the number of city staff has increased by a high amount in the last four years. That’s where a lot of that increase has gone, without the due diligence and without the evidence that these positions were needed.”
Nisan cited the 2024 budget as an example, pointing to a new managerial position in Burlington Digital Services that was supported by Mayor Marianne Meed Ward and Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns, who is also running for mayor. During budget deliberations, Nisan questioned the need for the position; city staff said three employees would report to the manager.
“It was approved on a four-to-three vote, and it’s one of the big reasons that I did not support the 2024 budget,” Nisan said.
Under the strong mayor budget process, Nisan voted against the amendments to each of the last three city budgets.
Nisan said the city needs to focus on investing in its local economy. He mentioned a Halton Region pilot project for advanced traffic management as an example of this principle.
“They [Halton Region] have this great system,” Nisan said. “It’s going to have cameras that will be able to turn the lights when they see more traffic coming, but it ends when it hits the city boundaries. That is the kind of strategic investment that I want to make.”
Nisan said the pilot, currently being tested on Trafalgar Road, has improved traffic by 15%. Nisan also mentioned a similar project in Toronto that uses AI to achieve the same objective.
“We’re going to track that pilot, and if it goes well, I want us to pilot it here in Burlington also,” he said.
Nisan said he would also advocate to the province to “improve traffic beyond our borders.”
“I will be the number one advocate for more GO trains from St. Catharines and Grimsby, and Stoney Creek to Toronto,” he said.
Nisan also explained that part of the reason he opposed a moratorium on data centres in the city was that the Chamber of Commerce indicated that it would be “really bad for business in Burlington.”
“I think that’s advice that we do have to take seriously,” he said. “And it shows that we have to do due diligence.”
Nisan clarified that he believes the city should treat data centres like heavy industrial developments and have “very strict controls over them.”
“We can’t just start protesting and then think that everything’s going to be okay,” he said.
