Raise the Hammer

Look - don't be so hard on Hammy Hamster. I really don't care what his/her motivations are for making comments on this site (cry for attention, contrarion, etc.). In my opinion they are a minor distraction to the main goal many of us share - to make this city into a place we can be proud to call home for many years to come.

As much as it gets attention, City Hall doesn't define Hamilton. For every good mayor and council, there are 10 times as many bad ones (every city has this issue). Cities of substance and progress have active citizens that improve the city in many ways every day. The stadium debate started as a chance to accelerate progress and it would have been a great symbolic turning point. But if I've learned anything about being a Hamiltonian is that NOTHING ever comes easy in this town. We have to push very hard to make progress and for every win, there will be setbacks and with every setback there is the predictable chorus of squelchers who make a living out of saying "I told you so". One thing is for sure, you can't count on City Council to deliver what is needed (the last 25 years of leadership can attest to the effectiveness of this strategy).

The challenge we face in Hamilton is psychological more than anything. On balance, this city has low self-esteem as too many people take a strange comfort in failer. Until we have a greater number of citizens who actually believe we are capable of, and deserve, better, we will remain a city lamenting our unrealized potential.

The real promising news is that the anger from the outcome of the stadium debate shows there are a great many citizens who are demanding more and that is the basis for doing great things down the road. I honestly think that if the stadium debate were to happen 10 years from now, it would not have been close - WH all the way. Conversely, if it were to have happened 10 years ago, IW (or East Mountain) would have gone through in a cake walk. In that respect, the trends lines are looking good!