Meanwhile, over at The Hamiltonian...

Teresa DiFalco, Publisher over at The Hamiltonian has been gracious enough to publish an 'article' by me. It can be found here. Give it a read, it's all about my favourite subject.

And once again, thanks, Teresa.

Seeing as I don't like being told who gets 'the last word'...

OK.

Here's the progression:

1) This is the original Spectator article by Danielle Wong in which Festival of Friends Overlord Loren Lieberman was asked how much he personally earns from the festival. Lieberman refused to disclose a figure. “That’s a disgusting question and the answer to it is: extremely little,” he said, adding staff salaries account for less than 5 per cent of the operating budget.

2) This is the subsequent editorial by Paul Berton entitled 'Sometimes, a salary is our -and your- business'.

3) This is followup The Hamiltonian article asking its readers if Mr. Lieberman's comment was reasonable, entitled 'Disgusting?', along with all the responses. (Including no small number of mine.)


4) This is the 'Final Word' from Mr. Lieberman, entitled 'Lieberman and the Last Word'.


Phhttt. 


Bleurgh. 


And then some. 


Read his long-form response. Go on; it won't take you long. I'll wait. 


*taps foot patiently*


Done? Good. 


Clearly the man feels defensive about so much of the stuff that's been bandied about regarding the Festival. 


Now, I wasn't there. So I can't comment on how it went off. 


However, I have a pretty good idea of how much effort it used to take to pull it all together years ago because a) my best friend was involved back in the 80s, and b) in 1986, I did pre-production on a documentary about the Festival, so I don't need convincing that an enormous amount of blood, sweat and tears were surrendered in bringing off the 2011 edition in Ancaster. 


But very little of what Mr. Lieberman chose to use his soapbox time for is germane to the brouhaha. 


For my two cents, he shouldn't have to defend what he's being paid. It's ludicrous to suggest that an event such as the Festival of Friends shouldn't have personnel such as Mr. Lieberman drawing a salary. This isn't 1976 and we're not in Gage Park anymore, Toto. Professionalism costs, and I'm sure Mr. Lieberman is worth every penny he was paid. 


But my opinion about the issue remains the same: a simple 'That's not a relevant question' would have sufficed. 

The Hamilton Farmers' Market Revisited: Ugh.

 These are shots taken today at the Market.

I was walking around dumbfounded. I didn't pick up most of the items I'd intended to.

I couldn't believe what they'd done to the place. To the shopping experience.

This is what it used to look like. It was open, it was bright,it was the indoor version of the old outdoor Market.

I forget the number of stalls they've taken out, but it's really, really noticeable.

Maybe I caught it on a slow day, maybe I'll have to go back on a Saturday...but as the Brits are wont to say, "I'm gutted."

For the record, this was said to me...

...in regards to my 'A Proposal: Out of Necessity, Bolstering Our Future' email gambit as noted here:

"This is visionary. If it's possible, this has the potential to transform Hamilton like no other idea I've heard."

Serendipity Reaches Out?

Jay Robb is a writer. His blog 'Jay Robb reviews business books' has posts that are regularly used by The Spec, such as this one, which is the reason I'm mentioning him after chancing upon him while perusing online. 

As I was reading his latest offering, I couldn't help but realize the correlations between what I've been writing about recently and what he says about 'good work environments'. 

In that a lot of the principles of good management...are principles of good governance as they relate to the relationship of engagement between residents and their elected officials...and of leadership.  

Funny, that. 

Here are some very-liberally-paraphrased-and-rejigged sections, wherein I've made the transposition from the business world to 'politics'. (N.B. Permission was very much not given for this little exercise in self-indulgence; apologies to Mr. Robb as required.)

“Where you invest your time and attention as a leader serves as a powerful model for what residents see as important and meaningful,” say authors Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin.

“When a leader focuses time and attention on their constituents' needs, residents respond with even greater energy and commitment.”

Recognition demonstrates respect. And respect, together with credibility, fairness, pride and camaraderie, are the key dimensions that make up the institute’s tried, true and tested Great Places to Live model.   

People who reside in Great Places to Live believe five things to be true. They believe in their leaders. They believe they are valued members of the community. They believe that everyone plays by the same rules. They believe that they contribute something meaningful. And they believe their fellow citizens are great.

Trust underpins the Great Places to Live model. Open and honest two-way communications is the place to start for leaders looking to build buy-in.  

“If you were to work on one single aspect of a great community, you’d likely make far-reaching improvements by strengthening two-way communications,” recommend Burchell and Robin. “Two-way communication is arguably the most important dimension of the Great Place to Live model. It is foundational to citizen perceptions of credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie. How can you believe your leaders are competent in the first place if you have no idea what they’re up to?”

Communication is about more than setting expectations and giving residents the information they need. It’s also about giving straight answers to tough questions, being accessible and approachable and actually listening to what residents have to say.

A great city is built by great leaders. “In the best cities, leaders at all levels have a strong commitment to creating strong ties between the resident and City Hall. Indeed, enhancing trust, pride and camaraderie in the community is the central task of effective leadership in today’s Great Places to Live.”

Great leaders also understand the need to balance the tensions between responsibility and humility, passion and patience, relationships and results.

“As a leader, you must accept responsibility for your role in the culture,” say Burchell and Robin.  “You are the chief role model and trust builder, and people look to your behaviour and decisions for guidance on their own behaviour and decision making. But you also need some degree of humility that allows you to reach out and enlist people. Your responsibility needs to become everyone’s responsibility if you want to create a great city.”

If your city is less than great, there’s still time and hope for a turnaround. Burchell and Robin offer a proven game plan for shoring up your constituents' relationships with you, their community and their neighbours.

Could It Be?

Could it be that the very notion of actual 'engagement' frightens the Hell out of elected officials?

Could it be that the existing paradigm...especially for the Mayor...of having both a figurative and real bulwark between them and those whom they serve, whom they work for, whose greater good they are paid to strive towards, isn't something they want to change?

Could it be that election campaigns with all their 'public forum' appearances, all the glad-handing and question-answering provide sufficient trials and tribulations for Councillors and our Mayor, that the notion of having more of these challenges and travails, worse, of having them at regular intervals throughout their term is enough to make them blanch?

Could it be that as much as the public sees their role in local governance as being 'vote every four years and hope for the best between elections', Councillors and the Mayor want the same thing, only their phrasing is 'vote me in and then leave me to do my job, thankyouverymuch'?

I think that most people, when considering who the most effective manager, supervisor or teacher has been in their lives, will offer up someone who was involved. Who interacted. Who enquired, who listened, who responded. Yes, great decisions were undoubtedly part of the package. But I doubt that 'great decision maker' would be the predominant factor in place them in the Hall of Fame. It would more likely be fairness, someone who was inspiring, someone who empowered them. And these qualities are delivered by contact. 

People endemically want to be led. They want to feel the security of placing confidence in someone, and having that confidence justified on the journey that the leader is...well, leading. 

The funny thing is that despite modern life having injected so much cynicism and negativity and distrust that the word is now bordering on a pejorative,  we do refer to politicians as our 'leaders'. Regularly. 

Now, I'm not suggesting that 'back in the day', politicians were trusted emphatically; I don't believe that state of affairs has ever existed, in toto. But in a strange way, there was more transparency 'back then'. Or, maybe what I'm referring to was actual physical contact. You could look someone in the eye, shake their hand and you knew. You just...knew. And maybe because the only real means of electronic dissemination was radio and newspaper, it wasn't such a leap to have 'appearances' whereby the residents and the elected official had chances to have contact. (Let's not suggest in counter-argument modern fund-raisers. People with money don't need more opportunities to 'get to know their public servants'. They've already gotten their lobbying energies focused.) 

In this segmented, detached world of ours, we've lost that genuine, in-person contact. (No, I don't see Facebook posts and Tweets as being 'engagement'. Mostly, they're pretentious, soul-eating b.s. The really sad part is the value -seemingly- placed on them.)  So in the middle of all this cynicism and negativity and mistrust, we also have this lack of connection. (Despite being so 'connected' by the Internet.)

And the complicating factors are painful to consider: Councillors and the Mayor don't want to make time for the contact, they don't want to risk having a 'bad experience', and the residents for whom they work don't want to spend their valuable time engaging. (Unless they've got a bone to pick...and then you end up with a perverted situation akin to a marriage that needed counselling long before it's finally implemented.) 

But here's my foundational belief: there is no other path to better local governance than increased contact, increased interaction, involvement...'an increased relationship of engagement between residents and their Councillors and Mayor.' 

How else can anyone hope to bring about a situation where people feel more invested in their futures? By hoping for 'better' candidates to arrive, and that these candidates are going to do what, exactly? By hoping that Councillors have more mailouts and emailed newsletters? Really?!?

How else can anyone hope to utilize the energies of the very people whom the governance is intended to benefit? By hoping that putting up a blog or a site will empower their constituents, or that editorials and articles posted by civic activism sites that depend on comments for their vitality will bring about such a development? Really?!?

Situations between people only genuinely improve when there's actual contact. Engagement. 

Leadership is only possible when there's actual contact. Engagement. 

If we all sincerely want to move past the 'legacy malaise' Hamilton has had as its ongoing burden, if we sincerely want to forge a better future, then some basic truths need to be acknowledged, some core elements of our local governance construct need to be changed. 

We have an opportunity to re-create, to re-invent our city, our local governance, the lives we live in Hamilton. And that opportunity is simple: town hall meetings. 

From Hamilton's Past: Our Champion Mayors

Recently, Adrian Duyzer over at Raise the Hammer asked 'Where is Our Champion?'

I believe it was written (mainly) in reaction to Mayor Bratina's less-than-enthusiastic response to the current brouhaha over the possibility of LRT coming to Hamilton. 


Even by today's standards, that's a generation and a half. And for those urbanists out there, even this association is problematic...which I'll get to in a second. 

I got to thinking about just how detached many of us have gotten from even the whisper of the suggestion of the idea of leadership, of  true 'visionary leadership' coming from our mayor. And so I wanted to provide some context by relating two giants from a previous time, to frame these monumental figures in the city's history so that we can better appreciate that once upon a time, inspired leadership wasn't just a pipedream. 

However, I didn't want for it to be a retelling of their accomplishments. Each was a firebrand unto themselves, and deserve to be properly delved into, their stories properly told. (I may just end up doing this myself.) But for now...

Lloyd D. Jackson and Victor K. Copps. Our two greatest 'Mayoral Champions' of the 20th century. The two mayors who changed Hamilton more than any other, and in doing so, are often vilified by those who address the past with a perfunctory examination, fixating on what they perceive was lost in the first attempt to 'revitalize' Downtown Hamilton in modern times as well as on the namesake constructions that resulted, two of the core's perilously easy targets for such ilk: Jackson Square and Copps Coliseum. 

These two men oversaw Hamilton and its future for more than a quarter-century, Jackson from '50-'62, and Copps from '63-'76. (Interestingly, neither were the most-enduring: Bob Morrow, Mayor from 1982-2000 served the longest. But considering it was on his watch during which our current state of affairs unfolded, let's leave him out of the discussion, shall we?)

More than twenty-five years of combined stewardship. 

It's hard to imagine someone attaining such longevity today; our last five mayors were voted in during hardly more than just one solitary decade.

But I suspect that it's much, much harder for the average reader to appreciate just what it was these two true 'Champions' of Hamilton presided over. Especially the newby critics weaned on Jane Jacobs, who seem more interested in trawling through SkyscraperPage photo albums bemoaning 'what we lost' than really taking the time to do any research or develop any context. I guess demonizing's just too tempting. (As I posited here.)

(I do want to note that I'm making my declarations in full knowledge of what's relayed in Margaret T. Rockwell's 'The Facelift and the Wrecking Ball'. I'm very aware that some of the decisions made when 'Civic Square' was being planned were, in hindsight, 'questionable'. And that given the vantage point of fifty years' worth of passage, it might be possible to retroactively re-jig what was put in motion to create a better timeline. But these luxury-exercises are moot...as well as performing a huge disservice to the intentions of the time and the subsequent efforts expended.)

Mayor Jackson took office shortly after WWII had ended. The Cold War had already begun. The Korean War was about to begin. He had personally seen two world wars and the Great Depression, and Mayor Copps, while born much later, had lived through the Depression and WWII. Jackson took the helm of a city whose engines were revving from the war effort, a city requiring both stability and direction in an uncertain world. Copps took office as the 60s were taking flight, when putting a man on the moon was the impossible goal that everyone was breathless about, when each day brought something new and improved, yet more incredible changes, yet more fantastic possibilities being realized, a brand-spanking-new, sparkling tomorrow arriving each and every minute. The quarter-century+ they were mayors was a time of adjustment and change...and they each executed their responsibilities with their own style. Regardless of how contrasting these styles were, they had one thing in common: they managed with conviction and vision, and the people of Hamilton had faith in them...proven by the fact that they kept re-electing them. 

The consistent theme during their tenures?

'Leaving the Past Behind'. 

Or: 'Forging an Amazing Future'. 

It most certainly wasn't 'Let's stick with the past: it's safer and more familiar.' Hence the explanation of why so many jewels disappeared on their watch. 

So during this era, Hamilton's downtown changed enormously. No doubt, we lost some treasures. True gems were knocked down. (As were blocks and blocks of 'seedy' buildings; I shudder to think of the land bounded by King, Bay, York and James containing these same residences and businesses today. But of course the advent of 'shopping malls' and the resulting sea change in shopping habits would eventually have mandated some degree of adaptation, so again, this discussion is utter indulgence.) Yet this wasn't something peculiar to Hamilton; it was happening all the world over, and I'm sure there are worse stories than the ones some of us could regale each other with.

But it's important to remember the tenor of the times. As easy as it is to lambaste those who were responsible for such actions, those who oversaw such shifts, to forget what the tone of society was, what the general view was regarding 'progress', is pure folly. Because today, when each week brings new product releases, when we've become blasé about innovation and invention mostly because we expect them, we expect them constantly and we expect them now, we don't really think in terms of 'the future'. Unless it's with dread. But back then, leaving the past behind (as opposed to today, when 'going retro' is de rigeur) was the goal. Searching out and redefining the future was far more pressing a pursuit than preserving the past or protecting our heritage. 

In a world where 'the cult of personality' reigns supreme, it may seem bizarre that we're in need a champion in Hamilton. It's perhaps even more ironic that the champion we need should be seen in our mayor, given that our current one seems to want nothing to do with the notion. (And yet he won by relying on name-recognition and longstanding public perception while presenting a platformless-platform. Funny, that. Not.) 

But we do need a champion of our own. 

And that champion should be found in our Mayor.


We also need champions in our Councillors. 

Moreover, we need champions in our communities. 

By raising the level of our behaviour, we raise our aspirations at the same time that we raise our expectations. 

This is, obviously, how cities become great.