A Web to Weave

The City of Burlington website is something that is so dysfunctional that requests for further funding for enhancements should be greeted with very careful scrutiny. Indeed, the many observations on the website lack of utility are completely accurate but let’s not lose sight of our longer-term objectives.

The only ways in which the proposed Burlington tax burden can be reduced, apart from finding new non-tax revenue sources, is to eliminate the costs of proposed new projects/services or reduce/eliminate the costs of existing services. This is a simplistic view but it is serviceable. There are a number of ways in which the reductions/eliminations can be made but all involve reducing staff, existing or proposed, and associated operating/capital costs. And the only way to either maintain an existing level of necessary service or enhance it, while simultaneously constraining costs, is to reengineer and shift the mode or burden of service delivery. The website, the City’s window to its citizens, is the vehicle that makes this possible.

Ironically perhaps, the City’s website can become the means by which the burden of delivery is shifted to the actual recipients of the services, the citizens of Burlington. It can become the means by which they exercise greater voice around both the municipal products and amenities that are important to them and the decisions that materially affect their interests. It can become the portal through which a progressive Council might start to shift governance from the ‘elect few’ to the community at large. The transition will take time, planning, funding and a very careful balancing of collective wishes with stewardship responsibilities. But it can be done.

The current ‘cohort of seven’ is singularly incapable of envisaging a future state that does not centre around them. So, the key to a brighter, more empowered future for Burlington citizens starts first with electing representatives who can help structure the service and governance shift. 2026 really cannot come too soon.