Raise the Hammer

Ward Boundary Review http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/627... https://www.hamilton.ca/city-initiatives...

If you follow the links you will find information about the ongoing Ward review in Hamilton. This week Councillor Whitehead hosted a combined neighbourhood meeting that included our neighbourhood. (Southam) Councillor Whitehead started with his version of the LRT, for about 20 minutes. He also had his LRT petition front & centre, when I signed it it was about 50-50, so you probably won't see him referring to that meeting. The first question was about the rental sub-committee of which he is a member. For the next 1.5 hrs all but one of the questions and comments were on the condition of the rental housing around Mohawk College and peoples experience over the last years with the rentals. It is worth noting that his Executive Assistant estimates about 70% of what were originally single family homes are now rentals with usually between 6-8 bedrooms in what were once 2-3 bedroom houses. Councillor Whitehead appeared ill prepared for what transpired and seemed like a deer in the headlights at times. This was particularly satisfying for my wife & I as we have been told we are the only ones out of 50,000 who bring some items forward. Funny thing is when I emailed a question about the rental sub-committee to the 3 Councillors on the sub committee I got personal responses from the lower city Councillors but no reply from my elected rep. Only one person approached him after the meeting to ask about LRT. One of the possible outcomes of the Ward review is a new ward created on the South Mountain, if this were to happen I suspect Whitehead would run there & open up the North end of Ward 8 for someone new. He is on 4 committees and 20 sub- committees including the LRT sub- committee. I don't use twitter but if you follow the blog on his website the only thing he is tweeting about is LRT. What I find curious is that we keep hearing how busy he is looking after over 50,000 constituents but he seems to have fixated on LRT. If he is fixated on one thing how is he dealing with other issues and committees he is on? I also find the timing really odd, he is on the LRT sub- committee and had to know this information for over a year. If he had concerns why didn't he question it last year when it was announced?