Burlington Local News: City Council Updates & Community News

Same mayor, four new councillors for city

by Brad Harness

4 November 2026

BURLINGTON – The turnout for Burlington’s Oct. 26 elections was 36%, about 9% higher than

in 2022. Back then, 27% of voters bothered to cast their ballots. This year 56,863 out of 160,089 voters executed their civic duty and voted for the mayor, councillors and school board trustees.

It was a battle for the top spot, with two-term mayor Marianne Meed-Ward fending off challenges

from four opponents, including a pair of seasoned councillors, Lisa Kearns (Ward 2) and Rory

Nisan (Ward 3). Meed Ward got 44% of the vote, with Lisa Kearns at 30%, Rory Nisan at  22%, Keith Demoe at 2%, and Yugalkeesor Ramdhonee at 0.5%.

Ward elections for city/regional councillors were also interesting, with incumbents in Wards 1,

5 and 6 facing off against plenty of newcomers. Incumbent Kelvin Galbraith earned 48% of the

vote in Ward 1, with James Kerr at 21%, Robert Radway 20% and Cheryl Hurst at 12%.

In Ward 5, incumbent Paul Sharman - council’s senior member - lost in his re-election bid with

31% of the vote. Alex Don won with 33%, Kristy Dickinson had 28%, and Brian Machan 7%.

In Ward 6, incumbent Angelo Bentivegna garnered 35% of the vote, with Frank Domenic at 30%,

Chris Bouchard at 16%, Osob Adus and Bianca Bielski both around 8%, Rowen Fraser 3% and

Edward Jodhi at 1%. 

In the three wards without an incumbent - Wards 2 and 3 who ran for the mayor’s job, and Ward

4 where Coun. Shawna Stolte stepped down - the prospect of a level playing field saw a good array of challengers.

Ward 2 was of particular interest because Gary Carr - until now the Halton Regional Chair elected

the past two terms - was in the running to be the ward councillor. Why, you ask? Because Premier

Doug Ford eradictated all nine elected regional chairs around the province. Carr - former PC MPP

and Ontario Legislature Speaker, as well as former Liberal MP - lost by 105 votes to newcomer

Sean Campbell. Campbell won with 33%, topping Carr at 32%, with first-timer Masha Brar doing better than expected at 26% support, and newcomer Jeremy Gaetan with 9%.

SEE THIS MONTH'S PRINT OR E-EDITION FOR THE REST OF THE COUNCIL REPORT

Rules coming: e-scooters

by Russell Harness

4 November 2026

BURLINGTON – Burlington City Council held their most recent regular meeting of council on

the morning of September 29th, a solid range of interesting topics were discussed, with this being

the final regular meeting of council before the municipal election (with the next regular meeting of

council scheduled for November). In last month’s edition we covered the Committee of the Whole

meeting from mid-September now we will skim over some of the big-ticket items that were re-discussed in this most recent regular meeting of council as a bit of a recap, before getting into some never- before-seen (to some degree) talking points from the 29th of September.

The most important previously discussed happenings include the Plains Road East proposal decisions(with two buildings being approved, and the tallest one being refused), the Millcroft Greens rejection, the Nelson Aggregates judicial review, and the Waterfront Festival food-truck dispute.

These all went on to the full regular meeting of council on September 29th for the official sign-off,

and the Plains Road and Millcroft decisions were confirmed without a single vote against.

The new headlining event was electric kick scooters. After delegate Jim Thomson spoke, Mayor

Meed Ward’s motion endorsing a multi-agency, multi government approach focused on injury prevention passed 7-0. Council then asked the province to collect, put together, and publish standardized e-bike and e-scooter collision data, asked Transport Canada to regulate battery testing and safety, and adopted the motion put forth by the Halton Regional Police

Board that called for harmonized enforcement across all of Halton. Councillor Nisan’s amendment

(which ended up requiring a waiver of the procedure by-law in order to be allowed) directed the

Director of Transportation to get back to council in the first quarter of 2027 in regard to a potential licensing regime, the idea to implement mandatory helmet laws for...

SEE THIS MONTH'S PRINT OR E-EDITION FOR THE REST OF THE COUNCIL REPORT