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The Mayor has put a great deal of reliance on a senior management workplan (see it here) that met with the endorsement of council. In that workplan, there was clear direction to "aggressively" ( not mildly ), pursue All Day Go Transit. And it appears as though the Mayor did just that, culminating in a committment to Hamilton that the province will fund all the necessary capital for the new planned Go stations and service upgrade. Looking at this part of the workplan in isolation and the corresponding actions, the Mayor should have received a hero's welcome. Obviously, something he (and staff presumably) have done, worked.
So why is the picture strained? The issue appears to be that the aggressive way in which All Day Go was pursued, was at the expense of another priority of Hamilton City Council; that
being, LRT. Did the Mayor do some reckless horse trading, resulting in LRT being unduly downgraded as a Hamilton priority? Or do you believe he made a good move, securing All Day Go for Hamilton, regardless of the heat he is now getting for allegedly working outside of council direction where LRT is concerned? As a Hamiltonian, can you understand his actions, or do you think he was way out of line?
This is a very tough issue and I appreciate how this magazine has not been sucked into being on one side or the other. Maybe this could be seen as a leadership move. He secured All Day Go. That's no small bananas. But he peeved off council and the LRT lobby. I can't think of a leader who can make everyone happy all of the time. The conversation about LRT will continue. Is that so bad?
ReplyDeleteThis is my first time posting so I hope it gets through.
Tarry
The man in the mayor's office is way out of line.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a dictatorship - he should work with council, not in isolation.
I call on council, individually and collectively, to show some will to ensure that major decisions are made by council as a whole, not by one individual.
Call me pathologically skeptical, but I don't believe the surprise announcement that full funding for all day, 2 way GO Train will be picked up by the province.
I certainly favour GO Train service being expanded as proposed but the devil is in the details, not in surprise funding announcements.
I think the mayor is le.arning that there are no allies in politics . He stepped in red mud and he will soon have the blues
ReplyDeleteIt'd be interesting to flip back through the pages of history and see what he had to say about past examples of official secrecy that occurred during his term as Ward 2 councilllor.
ReplyDeletehttp://raisethehammer.org/blog/318
http://www.thehamiltonian.net/2009/05/eisenberger-in-action.html
http://www.hamiltonnews.com/news/council-secrecy-exposed
I went to the CETA presentation the other night and people should be more aware of these so called trade agreement, which will render local politicians,impotent, period. They will only be serving their corporate masters and have no decision making power at all.
ReplyDeleteThe privatization of all transit, utilities, healthcare and so on is coming very quickly.
Ron said ...
ReplyDeleteCouncils direction clearly stated that LRT is their priority. That is why an Environmental Assessment is underway for the B-Line including nodes and corridor design so that costs and funding can be developed. Although the Mayor may have slipped in pursuing aggressively all day Go Service, it was never intended for him to do that at the expense of councils full support for LRT during the 2009 - 2013 budget. The mayor has acted unilaterally and has shown total disregard to political due process. Mayor Bob has set back LRT for Hamilton by 10 years to satisfy his own self indulged agenda. BTW don't we already have all day GO service? So what's the real benefit ... that we will eventually loose service in/out of Hunter Street. Look back on Bob's record. He has been publicly demeaning LRT since early summer, and you just knew something was up with City Manager Chris Murray's timely bombshell email on Jul 15, 2011. I motion for Mayor Bob to be impeached immediately. How do we start the process to recall the Mayor and have him replaced? It's time the citizens of this Great city stand up and take back control from this unilateral tyrant!
Maybe the people need to storm the Bastille?
ReplyDeleteAccountablity, there is none and the question we should be all asking each other, is how do we make them accountable?
Do our elected officals really represent the peole or do they represent corporate interests, at the expense of the public good of all people.
I tend to thinnk that most politicians no longer represent the people and we need new leaders who will stand up and take back power from the corporate world.
It should be pseople before profits, not the way our world is today!
Councillor Brad Clark's message to "My Stoney Creek" blog on July 6 2011 provides clarity to the LRT discussion.
ReplyDelete"The City is about to start the next phase of our urban official plan process which is the planning for Nodes and Corridors.
There are a number of Nodes and Corridors that need to be completed: including but not limited to Upper James, Rymal, James Street, Lower Centennial Parkway, Fennell, and the B- Line. Staff brought forward the B-Line as the first Corridor to be planned. They argued that their decision had nothing to do with the LRT. Yet, upon further discussion, we learned that the B-Line was not the planning staffs first choice. In fact, the only reason it was pushed forward was that they could use money from the LRT project.
The facts are that the council has not adopted or set any principles for corridor planning. James Street and Centennial have a sense of urgency since Go Transit has indicated their preference for access points at those locations. Upper James has merit for inclusion as a preference because of the development as well as Rymal.
Here were some of my questions.... Why isn't council setting the priorities? Why have we not had a status update on LRT since the beginning of the year? Why have we not had an update on the status the $3 million LRT fund? Why are our planning priorities being sidelined for LRT that may or may not come? What is the status on the funding request to pay for LRT? How much will Hamilton have to contribute?
Ultimately, we need answers to these and other questions before anyone makes a decision.
To be very clear, Council has not approved LRT. Council approved designating LRT as the preferred option for the City and directed staff to develop the business case and requisite assessments. At the time, council supported the concept to get the data required to make a decision. The province gave us $3 million to complete the studies.
Nobody on council has stated that they oppose LRT or that we are reconsidering. We are acting with all due diligence, waiting for a decision from the province on funding at which point we must make a final decision.
Respectfully, proponents of LRT are over-reacting to councillor's rationale, reasonable and appropriate questions."
Respectfully ..... for me the issue is not the nitpicking matters raised in the mayoral post which misses the issues
ReplyDelete... which are, to me...
1. The man in mayor's office not working with council appropriately collaboratively in many key issues, not just the LRT debate.
2. The continuing lack of mayoral credibility as positions emanating from the mayor's office are consistently inconsistent, and usually poorly researched, even more poorly communicated, or not communicated at all.
Anyone got a photo of that individual with his pro-West Harbour Stadium location shirt?
Coming soon to a city near you: the Aerotropolis flip-flop. He was against it before he was for it.
ReplyDelete1. LRT IS A LUXURY TRANSIT SYSTEM!
ReplyDelete2. PEOPLE SHOULD BE THANKFUL TO HAVE
AFFORDABLE BUS TRANSPORTATION! IT'S
BETTER THAN THUMBING, TAXIING, PAYING
FOR AUTOMOBILES, FUELS, OR BOTHERING
PEOPLE FOR RIDES!
3. HAMILTON'S ROADS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
REQUIRE SERIOUS REPAIR! WHEN AND HOW
ARE THOSE PROBLEMS GOING TO BE ADDRESSED?
4. WHAT WOULD IT COST TO RIP UP ROADS AND
RAILS AND REINSTALL THEM WHEN BROKEN WATER
MAINS REQUIRE REPAIR?
5. HOW WOULD A LRT BYPASS ROAD CLOSURES
AND ACCIDENT SCENES?
6.BUSES CAN STOP MUCH QUICKER ON WET ROADS
THAN LRT!
7. IF THE POWER GRID IS DOWN, LRT WOULD BE
"DEAD IN THE WATER!"
8. LRT RAIL TRACKS INSTALLED IN ROADS ALLOW
SALT AND WATER TO DAMAGE THE ROAD SURFACES
DUE TO HEAVING AND EROSION. THE DAMAGING
EFFECTS MEAN CONSTANT MAINTAINENCE COSTS!
LRT = "LAUGHABLE RAIL TROUBLE",
LRT = "LOST REVENUE TOMORROW",
LRT = "LUXURY RAIL TRANSIT"
LRT IS A STUPID IDEA - PERIOD!
.