Brantford Expositor Articles
Thursday, July 24, 2003
By Michael-Allan Marion
For the next few months, Brant County residents can enjoy a hyped remake of the 2000 Flamborough anti-amalgamation battle, wondering all the while if the plot will go precisely the same way or if it will provide a different ending.
Residents in the former town of 34,000 across 25 far-flung communities certainly are working to change the script of this democratic epic. In the first version in 2000, former municipal affairs minister Tony Clement rejected an audacious plan by Flamborough's local council to partition the doomed town among Brant, North Dumfries Township in Waterloo Region and Burlington in Halton Region. Clement, a neo-conservative ideological purist, forced Flamborough into the new Hamilton megacity and certain death by a thousand mega-tax hikes. In the 2003 version, Clement has long since departed the municipal field to smite leftist infidels in the halls of health care, while the Flamborough secessionists have seen a swelling in their ranks of angry citizens who can no longer bear the lashes of the Hamilton tax man. The leadership is back for the 2003 election with an apparently even stronger will and better organization. The viewer can expect them to make the hustings quite a loud experience. The rebellion is being channeled in pre-municipal election rallies led by the Committee to Free Flamborough. One is scheduled next Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the arena near Clappison's Corners, on Highway 5, just west of Highway 6. During the next few months, others are being set up in Waterdown, Carlisle, Freelton and Millgrove, with more to follow in Lynden, Rockton and Copetown.
URBAN MYTH
Like any good epic, this one has its popular mythology built on the usual range of stories that are either true, half true or fascinating folklore.
Flamborough is rife with tales of either municipal vehicles, facilities or services in the beaten municipality being quietly shanghaied to the voracious arms of Hamilton. There's the one about the public library in Sheffield, in the northwest part of Flamborough, being closed so the library board can sell the building and use the money somewhere else. That one is true.
The juiciest one concerns a certain fire truck, bought and paid for with Flamborough money before the amalgamation, arriving at the Waterdown station afterward, only to be reoutfitted and driven down the Highway 6 hill to Hamilton. That one has made the rounds of many a public meeting, and has been reported widely in the media, including this newspaper. But Glen Peace, fire chief and general manager of the new Hamilton's emergency services department, is anxious to debunk this story. Among letters to various news organizations, Peace sent one to The Expositor about a rendition concerning the purportedly absconded Waterdown fire truck.
TRUE FACT
"Although interesting news, the fact is none of this happened. It is simply not true," he writes. Peace goes on to say he understands "the emotions around the amalgamation," then attempts to set the record straight. He says 29 vehicles from every former municipality within the amalgamated Hamilton (including Dundas, Ancaster, Stoney Creek, Glanbrook and the former Hamilton itself) have been removed from service as staff rationalized the fleet and recognized savings of $6 million. Further, he said, every community has either donated or received apparatus from one of six municipalities as part of a reorganization of fire services in the new Hamilton. He also notes Waterdown received an equipment truck which was purchased from Hamilton reserves, as well as a 100-foot aerial truck from the old Hamilton. "To date, we have improved services in every community within the new City of Hamilton," he concludes. "This is a 'fact' the citizens should know." As the plot of the secession remake unfolds, Brant Mayor Ron Eddy says he is watching "intently" to find out if Flamborough residents will get their wish.
Should the de-amalgamation occur, the next obvious question is what will become of the territory? Will it it become a fully independent municipality, or will the partition plan gain new currency? Eddy says he and many members of Brant council are staying tuned. "We haven't heard anything directly from them yet," he said Wednesday. "If we do, we'll certainly discuss it at council immediately and decide how to respond." Then, for good measure, he added: "I'm certainly in favour of looking at it."
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Friday, June 27, 2003
By Michael-Allan Marion
FLAMBOROUGH - Flamborough secessionists are rubbing their hands at the prospect of two elections close together that will give them golden opportunities to press their demands to take the former municipality out of Hamilton.
A municipal election is scheduled for Nov. 10. It's looking more certain that Premier Ernie Eves may call an election for either early autumn or next spring. With that in mind, the newly formed Committee to Free Flamborough has begun a widespread grassroots campaign of community meetings, a petition and alliances with other municipal deamalgamation groups across Ontario. Chairperson Peter Cooper said Thursday the group's multi-faceted strategy is designed to hold the feet of various municipal and provincial politicians to the fire about a provincially forced amalgamation in 2000 that sucked the former rural municipality of 34,000 people across about 25 communities into a new Hamilton megacity.
PROPERTY TAXES RISE
Since then, he said, ratepayers have watched their property taxes rise on average more than 30 per cent toward the high taxes of financially troubled Hamilton -- the very phenomenon they feared would happen when they originally tried to escape amalgamation. They have also had to suffer a raft of little insults. Cooper related the incident of a fire truck paid with cash from the former municipality, hijacked on delivery to Waterdown, and returned to have more features added, then spirited to a station in Hamilton. "That was ours," he said, "we paid for it."
After a number of informal meetings in Carlisle, Freelton and Rockton, the committee began a yellow ribbon campaign and circulated a petition calling on the province to allow a referendum on deamalgamation in the next municipal election in Hamilton. Although Hamilton council voted down the idea about two months ago, Flamborough secessionists hope a petition laden with signatures too numerous to ignore might persuade the provincial government to allow the question to be put to the voters. Cooper pointed to a precedent in which the government allowed a deamalgamation question to be put on the ballot for the amalgamated City of Kawartha Lakes around Peterborough -- supported by a petition and strong lobbying on the part of their outgoing MPP Chris Hodgson, a former municipal affairs minister who is retiring from provincial politics.
PETITION
The committee handed a first collection of signatures on Tuesday to MPP Ted McMeekin, representing 15 per cent of Flamborough area's electoral roll of 20,700. Cooper said a second collection will be handed over in the autumn when the legislature resumes sitting. More meetings will also be scheduled shortly. "Kawartha Lakes was able to get a referendum with only the signatures of 6.8 per cent of the electoral roll," said Cooper. "Our 15 per cent so far is more than double that."
But even if the Free Flamborough group manages to get a question on the ballot, it's doubtful that it might win, given that the former Hamilton's population of 320,000 holds three-fifths of the new city's population of about 500,000. So the referendum campaign is part of a larger strategy to broaden support for a reconsideration of amalgamations gone wrong, said Cooper. The group has joined forces with recently formed organizations in Chatham-Kent, the Kawartha Lakes crew and Ottawa-Carleton. They're going to each other's public meetings. That gives anti-amalgamation forces more municipal and provincial politicians to buttonhole, he said. "We want to force them out into the open. We want to test each one -- are you a politician or someone of principle? We'll make them feel our pain."
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