Raise the Hammer

Actually, if you talk to anyone who's intimately familiar with how the Board of Control worked, you'll get the advice 'No! Don't bring it back!' At the very least, it was a magnification of the Old Boys' Network. I don't believe you'll find any municipality in Canada that features one.

There are different configuration options for our Councillors, were we truly interested in trying something new. (Norfolk, VA has a blend of individual ward Councillors as well as some who look after multiple wards.) But seeing as we can't even successfully deal with ward boundary review, I doubt whether changing the 15-Councillor setup is probable.

Regardless, this is all (yet another) red herring.

The real problem is that there's a disconnect here in Hamilton between Council and residents. New Councillors don't by-and-large change this. The ship is too big to be turned in another direction by a simple influx of fresh faces. It's time to change the governance paradigm.

We're the employers, they work for us.

They serve at the pleasure of Hamiltonians.

So, going back to the wisdom provided by this site's editor some years back:

“I'm inclined to think elections are overrated. If you vote for a candidate once every four years but don't get involved in the meantime, it doesn’t really matter much who you vote for. Once politicians get inside the bubble, it's impossible to keep any kind of perspective without ongoing, substantive interaction with 'regular voters' for grounding. Which is why it's so important for citizens to: a) elect Councillors who will allow themselves to be engaged, and b) keep up their end of that engagement between elections.”

The daunting prospect of wholesale change brings to mind the story of the twin brothers at Christmas. They're each given one present. These are placed in separate rooms.

The skeptic opens his door and finds a horse. "Oh, great," he moans. "I'm going to be spending my days shovelling shit!"

The optimist opens his and finds it crammed with the above. He jumps into it enthusiastically, singing 'I know there's a pony in here somewhere!"