Raise the Hammer

I was at the meeting of the Civic League and have attended a Board meeting as well as a couple of unofficial subcommittee meetings regarding the undertaking of what sounds like it will be a massive survey that will be done in at least two stages.

I was heartened to see that almost all the wards were represented by citizens, except for one, which I think was Ward 15 (correct me if I'm wrong - I didn't take any notes.)

It was essentially a type of Meet and Greet, we got to meet Larry and the Board members and find out a bit about them, and then we were encouraged to introduce ourselves, say what ward we were from, what our concerns were, and what skills we brought to the table. It started out well, but then seemed to devolve a bit into side issues such as transit. In the end, I felt a bit frustrated because I had an incomplete picture of what we, as a group, might be capable of. A couple of attendees were questioning Pomerantz near the end of the meeting what came next. Pomerantz didn't say anything specific, and basically left it up to us, as a group, as to when we'd meet again.

I wish the discussion had been guided a bit, instead of allowing some people to go off on unrelated tangents about their own personal beefs. Yes, I get that there are a multitude of issues, but how about describing to us what you can do, and what you think the solutions are? I think there is a fine line that has to be adhered to, or people will go off, and start demonizing certain councillors or city workers. This City has enough formal and informal beef sessions. Let's have a bouquet session. I hate to sound all Obamaish, but I'm tired of the eternal defeatist, nothing-will-ever-change attitude here.

My hope for the Hamilton Civic League is that they are able to engage and guide citizens into productive, positive, solution-oriented discussions that foment real change. Pomerantz hasn't convinced me that he's capable of leading us in that direction, so until he does, I'm hanging onto my thirty bucks.