By Pepper Parr
April 28, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Part 2 of a series
In the news game, reporters have what they call sources.
These are often people working in a city hall department or someone from the private sector who can explain a complex document, process or procedure.
A mutual trust is usually in place.
Every year during the budget period, calls were made to people working on different parts of a budget – a list of reserves was always an issue.
The amount of money that was budgeted in a year but not spent was often placed in a reserve budget which was often returned to the piggy bank and used by board members for their pet projects.
More often than not, there were follow-up questions to the experts; with both people in line, a clearer understanding of what are often complex issues is gained.
One of the toughest was development charges – a contentious category for everyone.
Until very recently, Burlington recovered less than 70% of what it spent on app development work. It took some expensive consultant reports and, in the last round of discussions, lengthy meetings with the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and the West End Home Builders Association before arriving at a final figure.
Development charges are very difficult to explain and at the same time represent a very large part of the cost of buying a house under construction. These development fees are all added to the cost of the residence.
Not something the average person fully understands.
Journalists have to sift through thick documents, try to understand the content and follow up with staff members.
This kind of thing is happening in every newspaper, online or in print, across the country.
But that’s not how it works in Burlington.
Former city manager James Ridge – quite described as unfavorable to the media
The change began during the final years of former City Manager James Ridge’s administration. What started around 2016 is maintained by current City Manager Tim Commisso.
Donna Kell was the communications coordinator at the time. Kwab Ako-Adjei was hired by Ridge and the game slowly changed.
Ako-AdjeiKwab gave Kell the chance to develop his career elsewhere
In a mature professional organization, Ako-Adjei would have contacted the media and would have been keen to meet the players and discuss the best way for both (media and administration) to do their jobs. Access is the most important thing for the media.
I first met Ako-Adjei at an event at the Waterfront Hotel – chatted for less than a minute; I was able to have a longer conversation several months later.
What we started to experience with Ako-Adjei and his team was that when we phoned a member of staff, he would either tell us that we should call the communications department or that if we contacted by e-mail , we got a response from one of the communications people asking what our questions were – they go away and come back with an answer.
None of the communications staff have formal journalism training or work experience in journalism.
Most of them have a public relations specialist title.
PR is in place to do everything possible to get out the story a company wants to get out and where there is a kaflooey, damage control and say as little as possible.
I want to share our most recent experience with access. It goes like this.
Sue Connor is the Director of Transit. She came to Burlington with an incredible reputation. The city was lucky to have him. She is considered and respected as a strong voice on converting mass transit from diesel to batteries or H20.
She participates in the work of CUTRIC (Canadian Consortium for Research and Innovation in Urban Transportation), a consulting firm focused on solutions; leaders in the field.
We contacted Sue to ask if we could speak about her views at the CUTRIC (Canadian Consortium for Urban Transportation Research and Innovation) conference which was taking place about a week later.
Sue Connor – Executive Director and Director of Transit for Burlington.
We looked at Sue Connor as a respected leader in the shift from diesel to a less climate-damaging source of energy. She’s a solid manager who runs one of the happiest and nicest places in town to work.
We got a call from the city’s communications people who asked us what we wanted to ask Conner.
We explained that the event was not a city event and that Connor was attending the conference as an individual and not as a Burlington Transit representative.
Conner had informed the city manager earlier in the month that she would be retiring at the end of the year. Shortly after this announcement, Connor was promoted to General Manager, filling the void created by the retirement of Heather MacDonald.
The end result was that there was no interview with Sue Connor – which is unfortunate – she is one of the best on-the-ground thinkers in the transit industry in the country and has also led one of the best exploited departments of the city.
Media policy and practice comes directly from the City Manager. While Ako-Adjei has his fingerprints all over every piece of information that comes out of the town hall; he reports directly to Commisso.
Kwab Ako-Adjei
Kwab Ako-Adjei leads an initiative known as One Burlington – he’s there to polish the brand and ensure that “GET THIS QUOTE)
This is not a healthy situation and has drastically reduced the amount of information reaching the public
We are not the only ones struggling with the communications department – several members of the very divided city council have similar problems.
There is a connection, not too hard to find, between the messy report of the integrity commissioners which was really about citizens’ access to information and the communications department which controls everything.
The root of it all is the city manager’s office.
The city manager gets his marching orders from the city council and that council isn’t going to lift a finger to make a change in the way city hall works with the media
There are options that I will talk about later.
Part 1 of the series
The above are the opinions of the editor of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper established in 2010 and a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
