Raise the Hammer has an article 'In Letter, Mayor Warns About 'advocacy groups'. Here's what was sent out by Mayor Bratina:
During the time I was downtown Councillor property values and new commercial tax assessment steadily increased. In fact there were only two Wards that showed property values increasing above the average of the entire City. One of them is Ward 2. New commercial taxes in the core over the past 5 years have increased by over a million dollars. We will likely do at least the same between now and 2015.
I have visited Vancouver and every other major Canadian City at least once every year over twenty years as a football broadcaster and watched all of those cities develop through that era. I also rode their transit systems as I still do and watched the LRT's being implemented in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
I became acquainted with former Vancouver Mayor, now Senator Larry Campbell... born in Brantford, went to Westmount high school here and worked at Stelco. His warning to me several years ago about advocacy groups has certainly come to pass. [emphasis added]
Mr. Kevlahan apparently is unaware that the rejection of the proposed LRT for Hamilton was led by the Durand neighbourhood association.
Finally, the LRT group headed by Jill Stephen continues to function, carrying out its mandated work. Nothing has changed except for the admonition regarding unnecessary work.
The LRT furor is a straw dog whose sound and fury signifies nothing.
Damn, but he's really beginning to sound more and more like someone's clued-out, fuddy-duddy grandfather.
To all those people who voted him in last autumn, this question: 'Why?'
And to all those people who want to make sure that 'advocacy groups' doesn't become a pejorative term, I'd like to remind you that to ensure that we don't have leaders who are clearly disinterested in having to bother with residents, we need to 'increase the relationship of engagement between themselves and their elected officials'.
And one of the best ways is to have regular town hall meetings.
And hopefully of this, I'll have some good news, soon.
