Hamilton Spectator Articles
Dec. 4, 12:56 EDT
McMeekin registers 8,000 signatures supporting separation of Flamborough
Carmela Fragomeni
The Hamilton Spectator
Ed Brooks is optimistic the provincial government will allow Flamborough to leave Hamilton now that a larger citizens' petition has been filed in the Ontario legislature.
Brooks and other Committee to Free Flamborough (CFF) members attended Queen's Park yesterday to watch Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin read the petition into the records and officially present the government with the CFF's 8,000 signatures calling for deamalgamation. McMeekin, MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot, already submitted 3,000 signatures in June.
Brooks, the CFF chairman, says, "Now, Mr. McGuinty can officially say he's seen substantial support."
Dalton McGuinty, when still leader of the Opposition in June, wrote Brooks that "...the Ontario Liberal position (on reversing amalgamation) is to allow a binding local referendum when there is a substantial demonstration of public support."
He states his party will determine substantial support by considering "all signals of a community's wishes ... petitions, letters, and municipal council resolutions."
In the previous Hamilton council, resolutions supporting the referendum were already tried and lost and there is no indication the council sworn in last night will entertain more of such resolutions.
But Brooks and the CFF have always maintained deamalgamation is a provincial matter, not one for city council, because it was the provincial government that forced the former municipalities of Flamborough, Dundas, Ancaster, Stoney Creek and Glanbrook to merge with Hamilton to form a larger city.
On Tuesday, McGuinty said in front of reporters and television cameras that he didn't run to form the government "so we could tinker with municipal organizations.
"In the broader community of Hamilton, I have never sensed an overwhelming desire to change the structure."
Brooks, however, defends McGuinty. He says the premier was caught off guard by a question on whether he'd free Flamborough.
The CFF is still pinning its hopes on McGuinty's June letter, in which he also says he doesn't believe "in unilateral separation ... all residents of an amalgamated municipality will have a say in what happens to their city. But that does not mean that the residents of one former community in an amalgamated city have a veto over the democratic desires of another former community."
Although the statement appears contradictory, the CFF is counting on the latter part as a sign Flamborough will someday be free of Hamilton.
"The previous government put us into this, now he (McGuinty) is going to have to tinker with it," Brooks said yesterday.
Committees of citizens trying to separate in Dundas and Ancaster are to present McMeekin with their petitions tomorrow.
Corresponding committees in Stoney Creek and Glanbrook are expected to present theirs to Stoney Creek Liberal MPP Jennifer Mossop within the next few weeks.
cfragomeni@thespec.com 905-526-3392
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Dec. 5, 12:49 EDT
Chinta Puxley
The Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton's new mayor says all city services -- from fire department response times to garbage pickup -- are going under the microscope.
Larry Di Ianni said the city will conduct a review of all its services since amalgamation to determine where Hamilton is doing well and where it is falling short. The review is intended to be a reality check for taxpayers who say their services are going down while their tax bills are skyrocketing, he adds.
"This is in response to those who say their service level isn't the same as it was pre-amalgamation," Di Ianni explained. "Some of that is myth but some may be a reality ... We need to hold a mirror up to the services we provide and allow residents to see that image."
The review will look at all city services from fire and police response times to snow removal and garbage pickup. Di Ianni promised the review in his inauguration speech Wednesday.
He was sketchy on the details of the review -- who will conduct it, how long it will take and what will be done with the findings. But he would like the review to be budgeted for this year.
"We need to reassure every resident this is a city that works. If not, we can make the fixes that can be made to improve things."
The post-amalgamation service review is seen as a gesture to suburban residents who have been particularly upset about the quality of city services. While their taxes have increased, many say they are not receiving the same kind of service they did pre-amalgamation, fuelling talk of deamalgamation.
So far, deamalgamationists seem prepared to give Di Ianni the benefit of the doubt.
Ed Brooks, of the Committee to Free Flamborough, is skeptical about Di Ianni's sincerity. But he's encouraged by any promise to review city services.
"I think it may just be window dressing," Brooks said. "But it's a nice olive branch. Anything this city tries to do to improve the lot of average citizens is good."
Brooks isn't sure a service review will take the wind out of deamalgamation sails in the long run. He says a service review won't placate people who have seen their taxes skyrocket because of higher assessments.
Glanbrook Councillor Dave Mitchell is encouraged by the promise of a service review. He said people are "smart enough to realize deamalgamation is not an option" now, so the next best thing is to improve the services they receive.
Mitchell said one way to do that is to give rural communities some power over local services. He said that will avoid duplication of services and improve the quality.
"Give us back some of the services we had before," Mitchell added. "Give some of that back and people will be happy."
905-526-3468
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September 23, 2003
By Ed Brooks
To all Hamiltonians wondering why the former towns are making such a fuss over amalgamation, consider this scenario:
You are told that you will be annexed by Toronto. You protest and organize a referendum showing almost unanimous support to stay independent. But the provincial government comes in, peeks under a few desks, ignores what the people have said, and legislates you into Toronto.
You get to watch your taxes go up and your services go down, while the province and the amalgamation boosters tell you to get over it.
Well, that's what drives me and the people opposed to amalgamation.
It is time for everyone to understand Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook and Stoney Creek.
Amalgamationists need to move out of the denial stage of telling us to get over it, and to acknowledge that Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty has committed to a binding referendum where "substantial support" exists.
We can hope conditions are now right for taking on board the reasons why amalgamation must and will be reversed, so all can look forward to a constructive period after the Oct. 2 provincial election, and avoid the dead end of expecting us to just go away.
Amalgamation was forced on the five towns through deception. Then-premier Mike Harris promised in writing that Bill 25 would provide a mechanism for revisiting the issue.
Paul Rhodes, a Harris adviser, promised Toni Skarica, our MPP at the time, that there would be no forced amalgamation.
And Tony Clement, the minister of municipal affairs at the time, contradicted his appointed accountants, who foolishly called their report flimsy and not the in-depth review used to justify Bill 25.
But where did amalgamation come from? It was not in the Common Sense Revolution.
And in opposition Harris was against it. In fact, Harris spoke glowingly of the need to preserve the character of Ontario in its fabric of small municipalities.
Clement later blamed it on then Hamilton-Wentworth chair Terry Cooke, while Cooke recently said that business is happy with amalgamation's one-stop shopping.
But one man's convenience is another's loss of civic rights. While Cooke would have you believe such a simple scenario, it is more likely that the small but mighty towns stood in the way of developers. Fewer politicians means less lobbying -- and what exactly are election support payments for?
In the early 1990s, sentiment in Flamborough went against the pro-development policies of then mayor Don Granger and then councillor Jack Southall, while new brooms such as Ted McMeekin and David Braden proved that residential development was a net cost to homeowners, benefiting only developers.
The negativity looked like it was spreading to other towns, of what we will call Wentworth, so developers opted to nip the movement in the bud.
Their strategy was to fund Cooke's amalgamationist ticket, promoting a centralized supercity good for business. The result is now a developer's heaven in which Granger at the Ontario Municipal Board gets to pass final judgment on contested planning issues such as the urban boundaries.
The pro-business governments of Harris and Ernie Eves took office determined to hollow out ministries exercising oversight and control. Is it a coincidence that developers have become the biggest source of Tory gold? Any towns trying to control development were simply abolished. So much for the municipal vitality of Ontario.
A smokescreen of mythical rationalizations has deliberately obscured this reality.
It was said an amalgamated Hamilton would be stronger and able to raise its image; cost savings would result from combining six jurisdictions; economic development would be boosted in a larger area without competing jurisdictions; fewer politicians would be unable to meddle with highly professional staff who would finally bring good management to Hamilton. It took three years for reality to expose this nonsense.
There were also other moralizing rationalizations: The suburbs owed Hamilton all the money sent up the hill in the past, when in reality the flow was in the opposite direction.
Suburbanites using Hamilton's facilities are obligated, we are told, to pay for them beyond the price of their regional government taxes and an admission ticket. The wasted core is everyone's funding obligation to avoid another Buffalo.
Such arguments are designed to merely make some feel good when putting their hand in our pocket.
Then there are the cheerleaders, telling us Hamilton is on a roll. They cannot explain a connection with amalgamation, since Pittsburgh and Boston are on even bigger rolls while deamalgamated, in fact split up into hundreds of competing jurisdictions.
Today, Pittsburgh and Boston are shorthand terms for vast counties and populations, the equivalent of an area stretching from Oakville to Niagara Falls.
There is no doubt that Harris and Eves responded to the argument that Hamilton needed an expanded assessment base to pay for the socially disastrous downloading that they swore would be "revenue neutral" but wasn't.
There are, however, better ways of achieving this burden sharing.
Ask yourself why Burlington, through Halton region, pays its share of the entire Greater Toronto Area's downloaded social services.
Hamiltonians should know that Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook and Stoney Creek expect to continue paying a fair share of Hamilton's social burden, as they have done in the past without complaint.
The government knew from history that amalgamation is divisive and potentially fatal at the ballot box, but it gambled that cynical promises of reduced costs and taxes would find short-term favour while Bill 25 was enacted; and after, the five towns would have no civic organization left to speak and act on their behalf.
The government also knew that amalgamation has nowhere produced cost savings, and that in the U.K. they have been reversed. Indeed academics such as Andrew Sancton have produced volumes of evidence that amalgamation has failed universally, and that U.S. cities enjoying renaissance, such as Boston and Pittsburgh, have succeeded because they are fragmented into hundreds of competing jurisdictions. Such municipal competition, which we will get through de-amalgamation, is now seen as the key to revival because it encourages co-operation across very wide geographic areas.
There are six reasons costs skyrocket in supercities. Services are harmonized upwards, and therefore cost more money. The same happens with labour contracts. Larger government needs more bureaucrats.
Bureaucrats command higher pay because public sector wages and benefits are related to the size of budget and staff. The bigger your empire the bigger your salary.
The whole supercity, by its sheer size and complexity, became too large and difficult for councillors to control, so waste continues to skyrocket.
Finally, larger bargaining units wield more power and use it to raise the cost base of all labour. For example, we can't have volunteers and must employ full-time firefighters.
The difference between a well-run town in a regional government and a supercity can be quantified by comparing the total mill rate of rural Burlington (0.010) with rural Hamilton (0.014).
For a difference of 40 per cent or an additional $1,000 per house, the Hamiltonian gets a weekly garbage collection.
But there is another overwhelming driver for deamalgamation, which for some is the only real one. The residents in the five towns know how to exercise and value their democratic right to influence council and its staff.
Having lost all this in amalgamation, they see the resulting mess of duplicate cheques, purchase of redundant road sweepers, uncontrolled spending and recent acknowledgment by the city manager and Councillor Sam Merulla that council has little knowledge of, or control of staff.
Is it any wonder that the towns have decided to insist on regaining local control over their own future?
Our democratic rights are not negotiable. If the five towns are denied their democratic heritage after Oct. 2, there will be hell to pay.
Democracy was the reason Canada fought two world wars, and this generation will not be the first to allow any government to whittle it away.
Please call any of the committees if you want to contribute some of your time to this cause.
This column is a combined effort of the deamalgamation committees of:
* Ancaster (Bryan Kerman (905-648-2028).
* Dundas (Dave Longo, 905-628-5983).
* Flamborough (Ed Brooks, 905-690-8407).
* Glanbrook (Don Barlow, 905-692-5524).
* Stoney Creek (Debbie Hamilton, 905-664-7084).
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