Comment 1096

By Jelly (anonymous) | Posted September 26, 2006 at 13:31:07

This is exciting news. It's been interesting to see how citizens groups in Hamilton are starting to get the idea of how to affect change in Hamilton, and how to stop developers from railroading through giant projects without enough (or sometimes any) real public consultation: get the province involved.

I think for anyone who has been active in municipal politics in Hamilton knows by now that there is a massive collusion of interests at city hall, and our city government operates in it's own special way, ignoring many of the mandates of Vision 2020, or in this case, a provincial policy statement.

After working on the Lister project, I can say for sure that some members of city staff are tied to this collusion as well- or are at least afraid of losing their jobs if they don't play along with council's direction... it makes for a bad environment, one that is impenetrable to anyone with different ideas about the city's development.

The more and more the city operates this way, and the more and more citizens groups are given no other choice but to involve the province, perhaps someone at Queens Park will eventually ask "so, what the fuck is up with Hamilton?"

With the province's help, maybe we can break down the old boys network that has had a stranglehold on this city since the 1950's. A provincially-appointed municipal ombudsman would help, then at least we wouldn't have to call in Alan Wells every month.

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