Responding to responses...

I've taken the responses to Howard Elliott's editorial and (self-indulgently) replied in kind: 


"Redrawing the wards is a scheme to give outlying wards with high property taxes less representation."

No. It's an effort to provide fairness regarding representation at Council. Period. 

"But in the long term, the earners will get sick of it and jump ship. Anyone who doesn't see this is seriously delusional."

There is no 'ship to jump'. There is no 'exiting' The Greater Amalgamated City of Hamilton. 

"Too bad a 500 name petition isn't all that's needed to get Flamborough out of this municipal designation. They'd be gone long ago."

Quite possibly/probably. And with just as much certainty, we could add Stoney Creek, Dundas, Glanbrook and Ancaster. While I believe that all would have been interested in strategic alliances with The Old City of Hamilton, none would have chosen to have been amalgamated. 

"The suburbs have been subsidized for far too long."

Um... First off, I guess it would be important to differentiate between 'the suburbs' and 'enabled sprawl in peripheral, suburban areas'. But regardless, that's really not the issue here. At all. It's an entirely different conversation, one worthy of discussion in and of itself. 

"Now let's seriously take a look at the number of people on unemployment and what wards they are living in."

This is the kind of perception/mindset that should be given a proper voice at a town hall. One that can be heard and responded to appropriately. 

"The "NEW" City of Hamilton is composed of two distinct segments which basically have nothing in common in terms of objectives and priorities. The Urban group is right to want equality of individual votes. The Rural group sees only increased taxes being spent on Urban priorities (even when there is to be balanced votes on council) so see little benefit to them in being part of The City, and in fact see only a negative impact of Amalgamation."

Again, short of actually addressing 'de-amalgamation', this line of thinking, while valid, is not germane to the issue of ward boundary reform. Keeping in mind the OMB guidelines for 'relative population parity', the discussion about reform  –and the current petition for action– is predicated on population. I believe that this issue must be dealt with independently of all the longstanding, troubling emotional burdens of amalgamation. This is what I said in my 'Q&Q' at The Hamiltonian: 

The discussion is academic...and moot. Entities that previously had a mayor and councillors experienced being reduced to a solitary councillor in a much bigger setting. There is no way to 'compensate' for this, nor should there be an attempt to. Had amalgamation not been forced onto the five previously-independent municipalities, they would never have chosen to do so, mostly because they would have entered into an uneven agreement based on proportional representation, no matter how long negotiations had been allowed to go on. So this road, one I'm certainly expected to be ventured down, holds little of value. We now have the aforementioned 'Greater Amalgamated City of Hamilton' of more than a half-million people, and as the OMB has mandated ward parity within +/- 25% of the average, then those former municipalities will never again have what they previously had; those days are gone forever. So there needs to be a set response to this line of enquiry so as not to hijack the discussion. And for the record, though community identity has a decided value placed on it at the OMB in these boundary reform proceedings, these grievances will hold insignificant weight with the OMB. 

I think that the starting point must be addressing the ward population disparities while keeping in mind the factors of consideration that the OMB regard as being vital. Unless we open an open and honest examination of 'de-amalgamation'...and I'm not holding my breath on that one...then we (and I'm referring to the former municipalities, one of which I grew up in and another I recently resided in for the better part of a year) all need to accept that we're 'In for a penny, in for a pound' and genuinely strive to make this the best Hamilton possible. Getting our municipal representation numbers rectified is a solid start towards this end. 

"Lower Hamilton residents have paid for a network of wide, smooth, highway-grade roads in front of our houses so that suburbanites can rip through our neighbourhoods at breakneck speed on their way to their jobs in Oakville. It's about time we got some real representation." 

Except that boundary reform probably impact 'Lower Hamilton'. The disparities necessitating review have to do with 'Upper Hamilton', specifically Wards 6, 7 & 8...with the emphasis being on the latter two. Again, the discussion about 'subsidizing sub-urban sprawl' is one that absolutely should be had...but that's not what ward boundary reform is about. The reform process as set out by the OMB is proscribed; it's specifically laid out according to a timeline and goals, and addressing the issue highlighted in this comment (from what I've seen in my research, anyway) does not enter in to the extent that proponents of such a mindset would expect.