Burlington mayor Marianne Meed Ward joined us to discuss what is happening in the city including what is going on in the rural areas of Burlington.

Burlington has the State of the City Address Thursday morning free for anyone who wants to tune in. Ward says the council, businesses and the city as a whole has done great work.

“The proof in the pudding is our recent community survey,” said Ward. “95 per cent of people said that they are satisfied with the service delivery in the city…that’s the highest in 13 years.”

Yesterday, a project was in the works for internet service providers to reach rural communities. It is called the Ward 6 Rural Broadband project. 

Ward says herself and council signed to get federal funding for the service providers working with residents in Ward 6. 

“We were hoping that it would be done by November, but it’s a complicated area,” said Ward. “It’s a huge swathe of many roads up there and it is governed by not only the city and region, Niagara Escarpment Commission and Conservation Halton.”

She says the city is currently looking for ways to cut red tape and streamline processes faster. For now, the Ward 6 Rural Broadband Project is expected to finish July 2022. 

Also this week, the Royal Ontario Municipal Association had a conference Monday and Tuesday about a rural action plan. Ward says Burlington is interested in this conference because half the city is rural. 

“We met with several ministries and one of [the meetings] was to talk about how we can cut red tape and we used a case study that was built by our Rural Advisory Committee,” said Ward. “It took them two and a half years to get permits and we have to do better and that’s coordinating all the agencies.”

She says the city offered the ministries that the Burlington can be a pilot project for figuring out a streamline process for bringing together all the different agencies together that have oversight in a rural area and receive permits faster. 

“We want to support rural businesses…we have 66 active farms here in Halton,” said Ward. 

Burlington has a 2022 Property Tax Payment Plan in place that allows people that meet certain criteria to delay payment of taxes if they have lost their job, or if their business is struggling, for example. 

“We will not charge you penalty or interest to defer your plan, just get in touch with staff at the city, they will walk you through whether you qualify, you have to show that you have had an income or revenue loss,” said Ward.