Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says he’s not concerned about the workload after council was told it had referred more than twice as many matters to staff as its predecessors during its first year in office.

In November, some councillors raised concerns about the workload and whether council and staff could reasonably get to everything, after city clerk Peter Fay revealed the referred matters list had exceeded 120 items compared to the average of 40 to 60 referred by previous councils over the same period.

Referred matters are matters sent to city staff for further review, research and/or recommendations before council makes a final decision.

“Brampton voters elected a workhorse. I work seven days a week and I think we have a council that keeps coming with a lot of ideas. We have a referred matters list … that is larger than it’s ever been before, and I don’t mind that one bit,” said Brown.

“I don’t mind it because I like the fact that we’re generating ideas. I like the fact that we’re generating better ways that we can serve residents from the smallest initiatives to the larger initiatives. I welcome it and think that’s going to continue to be the case,” added the mayor.

Wards 3 and 4 Coun. Martin Medeiros was among the councillors who initially raised concerns about the referred matters list. He also said he felt council was spending too much time on more ceremonial initiatives like proclamations and flag raisings at the expense of more pressing priorities for residents.

“We’re spending too much time on too many things,” added Medeiros. “As far as I know, a lot of these things don’t meet our core objectives.”

His Wards 7 and 8 counterpart, Pat Fortini, voiced similar concerns while also questioning additional costs that might be incurred through overtime or additional staff required to meet the demands.

“There are a lot of residents here. We’re doing all kinds of stuff, but at the end of the day, we’re not actually focusing on their needs,” he told council at its Oct. 30 meeting.

Staff conducted a council workshop late last year in hopes of addressing some of the concerns and according to Brown, they managed to reduce the number of items on the list during the meeting.