Raise the Hammer

Thank you! That was an excellent assessment of the current problems facing the GHA.

I wonder though, if much of this is caused by simply egos running amok?

"Fiefdoms" is exactly right, & who wants to give up being Lord of the Manor? Not many.

How do we attract business to the GHA? Well, we could get effective city government for a start. We could stop throwing up multiple levels of hurdles. We could get rules, rather than 'guidelines' that change willy nilly from one fiefdom to another. We could also stop pretending that all places in the GHA are exactly the same. That might seem like a contradiction, but it isn't.
The only situations that City council seems to want to effect 'uniformity' are ones that: A) are wrong in that conclusion to start with, & B) Only seem to effect individual taxpayers & not the whole system. Silly rules that serve no real purpose except putting forth the opinions of a legislator & do nothing except make people cynical.

For example, there is no effective recycling system for business' downtown, where you have to assume most of the garbage is created. Who is responsible for recycling in Hamilton? Homeowners. Exclusively.
I agree that everyone should do their part & recycle, but you also have to ask who is generating the most garbage. Why are containers of toxic waste sitting around for years? Why are clean up orders ignored for years? Why can companies dump everything from base metals, solvents, celery stalks, & luncheon meat in a single dumpster? But it o.k., because "They pay for the dumpster service."?

(While the rest of us spend an hour or more every week scrubbing out those cans, rinsing those bottles, sorting the paper from the cardboard boxes, & cutting them up, cutting & bundling tree branches to uniform length & applying Polysporin & band-aids as needed.)

But if we changed things, wouldn't it impinge on the power of individuals in Council? Yup, & they wouldn't like it one bit.