Hero Trustees Save the Day!

The NIMBY vs. Human rights argument has been front and centre in recent months concerning both the specific location of Charlton Hall, and the overall validity of the Hamilton bylaw designed to keep multiple residential care facilities from ‘ghettoizing’ neighbourhoods.    While a balance is still yet to be struck in that debate, the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) has settled a similar issue of their own.

Last week, in a Committee of the Whole meeting, they voted to strike down a menace that has been right in the middle of the Ainslie Wood neighbourhood for decades.  In spite of all the protesting from the PIMBY (Please In My Back Yard) crowd, the Board narrowly eaked out a victory.  Prince Philip School will close, ensuring that West Hamilton may finally be able to shed its ugly label as an “education ghetto”.

School buses will be employed to bring the hundreds of former Prince Philip students to George R. Allan school.   In support of this victory, Board Chairman and Ward 3 Trustee Tim Simmons said: “busing to school longer distances hardens the kids up and makes them grow up a bit quicker”.    Parents say this will be good for their soft, helpless 4-year olds who should really be sucking it up and taking the bus like the rest of us.  One parent complained “The whining is already starting!  ‘But Mommy my legs are too short to climb the stairs on the bus!’.   I finally just had to throw his PB&J and Visa card into his brief case and send him out to pick up my dry cleaning.  I couldn’t take the aggravation”

We interviewed another parent:  “This is fantastic news!  For years I’ve been begging the Board to let me ship my boys to a school on the other side of Main and King Streets.  There’s nothing like dodging 8 lanes of speeding traffic twice a day to put some hair on your chest”.    Another parent, equally excited about the news added:  “I’m so glad I voted for Judith Bishop, a woman who has the good sense to completely ignore logic, hard data and the opinions of the vast majority of her constituents so she can do what executives who live in Burlington and Oakville think is right”.

Citizens have also long argued that access to public services across Hamilton has not always been equal.   More rural areas have had the benefit of school buses for years.  It looks like Ainslie Wood, a more densely populated, well-established neighbourhood, will finally be able to catch up to the more progressive and avant-garde areas like Greensville and Rockton.

This is also being hailed as a great victory for anti-poverty activists who insist that Hamilton needs more affordable housing.  By removing the school from this well-established neighbourhood, hundreds of homes will almost instantly become more available to those who previously couldn’t afford to move into such a nice area of the City.   The exodus of young families will also allow locals to realize their long-time goal of increasing conversions of single family homes into student housing.

It seems that unlike the contentious situation at Charlton House, through the hard work of Trustees and Board Staff, this story seems to be good news for everyone involved.

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An Open Letter to the Trustees of the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board

On the morning of Monday, February 13th, after discovering that the 18 PDF documents detailing the site analyses had been removed from the HWDSB web site where they had previously been, I attempted to use Google to find them, assuming they had simply been moved.   Upon conducting a search, I discovered that while the posted documents were no longer available, Google had taken and cached a copy of a previous version.

What we now know:

  1. There are two versions of this analysis, the version that is published now, and a previous version cached on Google.
  2. An example of the previous version was (and can still be) found by conducting a Google Search for: “HWDSB site 11 West Harbour pdf” and clicking on “Quick View” under the first result.  This document was generated by Google from a PDF posted on the HWDSB web site.  A similar version for some of the other 18 sites have also been available at various times since their original publication, sometimes in ‘Quick View’ format, sometimes as a cached HTML version.
  3. The previous version used a Weighting Differenciation (sic) Factor of 2.0 instead of the current 3.0 and used a ranking of “B” for “Meetings(sic) topographical and geotechnical requirements” instead of the current “A”.   In seeing the “Quick View” version on Google, we know the analysis made it to this final, polished stage, complete with maps and photos, before the 2.0 was changed to a 3.0.
  4. Using the parameters of the current and previous versions, the scores and rankings are below.
  5. Notable differences:  In the previous version, Jackson Square outscored Crestwood, and City Hall ranked 5th instead of 8th.  Jerome finished 6th instead of 5th.

Results of Site Scoring Based on Previous Version of Analysis:

Comparison between versions of the HWDSB Analyses

Note: My calculations were made based directly on the documents found on Google and on the 18 evaluations made available by the HWDSB.  No assumptions were made, all calculations can easily be explained and verified.

My questions:

  • What rationale would there be for an change of weighting AFTER all the sites had been scored and the ranking determined?
  • Who was responsible for these changes, and was the Board of Trustees made aware of the various versions and the rationale for them?
  • Why were the 18 analyses removed from the website only hours after they had originally been published, only to reappear the following Monday?
  • What other changes were made that we haven’t seen?
  • Why should we trust any part of this process now that we have seen this accidental glimpse of how it has been conducted?
  • Where is the analysis of the costs of restoring 100 Main West?  Surely that must have been determined before money was spent analysing its replacement.

I think these are all valid questions given the lack of transparency demonstrated by the school board to date, and I think the public deserves some answers.

Daniel Jelly
Ward 1 Resident

In the name of transparency, I am sharing my supporting documents, including all calculations:
HWDSB Site Evaluation – Excel Version
HWDSB Site Evaluation – PDF Version – View Only

Google Cached Link:
Link to Site 11 – West Harbour – ‘Quick View’ of PDF found on Google

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Unanswered Questions on Downtown McMaster, School Board Plan

Please visit Raise the Hammer to read my latest column regarding the fiasco at 150 Main West:

Unanswered Questions on Downtown McMaster, School Board Plan

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Nobody’s Home

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Enjoying the setting for my conference. Hello from Clearwater Beach, Florida. Back home on Wednesday.

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Writer’s Block

It seems 3 of my last 4 posts never made it past the draft stage.  They’re currently sitting in blog oblivion and will likely never see the light of day.  Sometimes I get an idea for a post and can’t seem to polish it to the point where I’m happy with it.  More often I’ll write an angry response to a current event (lately, often something the Mayor has done) and not see the post written to completion before my anger or the topic’s relevancy passes.  Sometimes I’ll just drop the ball and give up half way through, distracted by work, other creative outlets, or something shiny.  Quite frankly, Twitter has become the easiest way to get things off my chest and has all but supplanted this blog as my outlet of choice.  Nevertheless it’s still here, and I should still be feeding and watering it on a more regular basis.

It’s not for lack of inspiration that I haven’t been posting.  This wonderful city and its denizens have been the source of much interest.  Tonight was no different.   I attended an event called Steel City Stories, held on James St. North at Christ’s Church Cathedral.  It was hosted by my brother, Matt Jelly, and organized by Shirley Molinaro and Grace Evans.

Six speakers gathered to regale an audience of over 100 people with their stories, each inspiring in their own way.  It reminded me of what a rich and interesting City we have, and that everyone of us probably has some interesting stories to tell.   What struck me most was the recurring theme that our community is made richer by all those who come from other places in the country, or other places in the world, and bring their stories with them. 

I’m looking forward to the next event and I would encourage everyone to attend.  For my part, I’m going to spend a little time thinking about my own Steel City Story.

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More Failure

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This building was supposed to have been protected by a signed covenant that its owner, Vrancor, made with the Federal Government.  Somewhere under that pile is the official Government of Canada crest that hung on the side of the building for decades.

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A Monument to Failure?

In response to Art By the Water, an Editorial by Spectator Editor-In-Chief Paul Berton.

On more than one occasion lately I have finished reading about some proposed Hamilton initiative or project and thought to myself:  “Is this really the best we can do?”.  In Paul Berton’s latest effort, he endorses a plan brought forward by Bill Powell and Paul Tetley to create “Hamilton’s Waterfront Architectural Museum: A Walk To The Past”.  Presumably, this would be a showcase of art and heritage elements we’ve rescued.  What this really proposes is the creation of a place to put token remnants of buildings we failed to preserve.  A monument to what we’ve lost.  A graveyard.

While the sentiment behind the idea is certainly appreciated and understood, the implications raise some questions.  Which pieces of art would go here?  Do we have a collection of eligible pieces stored somewhere already?  Are we really just giving developers a way to soften the blow when they tell us they won’t be preserving the buildings they own?  I find it very ominous that the backdrop for the photo accompanying Berton’s piece is of Hamilton’s Board of Education building — a building that is very much still in use.  Have we already given up?

If there were somehow a way to turn back the clock and snatch a few architectural gems from our past before they were lost to the wrecking ball that would be fantastic.  We are not going to see park paths lined with the clock tower from the old City Hall on James Street North, the cupola from the Crystal Palace, or a section of Hamilton’s Incline Railway.  Instead, much of what will be on display is currently attached to a building; a building that could be preserved and adapted to suit a modern purpose.

While this ‘heritage graveyard’ may be seen as a compromise for some, to me it smacks of failure.  I reacted to this idea in much the same way I do when I see a heritage building torn down, only to be replaced by a cheap, poor copy of its former self.  The result will be depressing, disappointing, and frankly even insulting.  We can do better.

If we accept this solution, we may save some relics, some art, an exterior wall,  a cornerstone.  But where do the spaces go?  A building’s full story is more than the sum of its architectural features, materials and embellishments.  The internal and external spaces created by a building are as important as its structure or its purpose.  Even when a building is renovated or re-purposed and adapted to a new use, you retain many of these spaces as a tangible link to the past.  You simply can’t put that on a truck and plop it down in a park somewhere by the Bay.

I have to applaud Powell and Tetley for at least starting the conversation, and trying to come up with some kind of silver lining for when heritage ends up in a landfill.  However, I can’t tell you how vehemently opposed I am to creating more excuses to tear good buildings down.  Do we need a Hamilton Museum?  Absolutely.  I would love to see a centralized place filled with relics, photos and art that celebrates the buildings from our past.  I only ask that we first consider trying to keep some of these buildings in our present while we still can.

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Mayor cancels All-Day GO efforts (not really)

In a startling announcement on Thursday during a local radio call-in show (that won’t be named for petty, spiteful reasons) the Mayor provided details on his latest change in transit strategy.

While it had been previously indicated that All-Day GO service would become the Mayor’s ‘top priority’ it has been decided that this project will be downscaled much the same way LRT efforts were handled. Instead, the City will officially request that $375 million of funding be directed from Metrolinx to investigate what they call “experimental transportation initiatives”, citing Hamilton’s growing capacity as a centre for innovation.

“Really when you look at the numbers it just makes sense. Why should I have to take my car through all that traffic when I could just be flying around the City from meeting to meeting with a jet pack? My time is very important”, the Mayor said during his one hour interview. When asked about the needs of commuters, his only reply was “Transit-Schmansit”. When pressed further by the host for an explanation, he just said “Answers-schmanswers, I got more votes than the other guys, that’s all the answers you need”.

The Mayor did concede that he had directed staff to begin investigating a number of transit ideas that he himself had proposed.  He went on to share some of his vision for Hamilton now that the LRT, All-Day GO and Jet Pack portfolios had been settled. “I want to bring back the ski lifts”, he explained, “It seems like a great way to move people in a city with an escarpment.  We could run people up the mountain, and even downward in the summer months when skis simply wouldn’t work”.

“And we’ll also have Boats.   We’re a city on the water and yet we’re not using it properly. I want the HSR to switch half its fleet to those amphibious buses. I like those. They could enter the water at Bayfront Park, go under the skyway, and travel up the Red Hill Creek, coming up somewhere half way up the East Mountain, depending on flooding”.

“And Horses! When I was a boy, you used to get milk and ice delivered by horses every day, Why don’t we have those anymore?”. We’re a City with a rich agricultural heritage, we should have horses on our streets. How’s that for environmentally friendly?”

The Mayor went on to outline his plan for what he calls “The Brown Line”.  Something he says he’s never seen anywhere else in the world.  It would be a “Made in Hamilton solution”.  “With all this McMaster Innovation stuff going on you’d think these brainiacs would have come up with this by now”

“By opening up our vast sewer network to pedestrians we can tackle some of our infrastructure deficit and get pedestrians under ground where they belong. We can claim these new pathways as both wastewater systems and new, green transit initiatives. We can get twice the grant money from upper levels of government for one piece of infrastructure.  If they don’t think that’s proper, or it’s against some kind of rule, they could just cut us 2 separate cheques.  Nobody would notice.”

“Just think of it like Toronto’s PATH system, only more dark and moist, and potentially made of 85 year old rotting wood.”

The interview ended with a diatribe from the host, something about people trying to take his car away from him and people making it impossible to drive from Ancaster into downtown with all these pedestrians, buses and cyclists in his way.   After a bunch of unrelated, soft-ball questions from the host about former CFL players nobody remembers, he closed with: “Well Mr. Mayor, on behalf of Hamilton taxpayers, Thank you.  What you’re proposing just makes a lot of sense, but I guess forcing citizens to wade through tunnels of sewage just isn’t good enough for some people”.

After the interview, we attempted to contact the City Manager for comment, we were redirected to the Mayor’s Chief of Staff. When pressed for further explanation on this sudden, abrupt change of plans, she simply explained “I.. um.. that is to say we, are getting… well I don’t mean ‘getting’ exactly… well… we’re going to have jet packs!” before redirecting our call into an endlessly looping automated call system. We could not reach her for further comment.


I hope you have enjoyed this bit of obvious satire.  As a more serious commentary, I feel that this week’s statements from senior City officials sends an awful message to the Province about how we feel about their transit grants.  While LRT is obviously not a project that will see shovels hit dirt tomorrow, it should still be faithfully and diligently investigated so Council can have enough information to make an informed decision that reflects the will of the people of Hamilton.  All-Day GO is also important, but is a relatively easy project to implement and will likely happen regardless of our commitments to studying LRT
.

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Greenings

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This sign, located on Peter Street, near Queen, is one of the last remaining remnants of the Greenings factory where my grandfather worked about 60 years ago.

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Uneducated Decision

100 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario
Board of Education Building – Under Threat

Why does any progress Downtown always seem to cost us so much?

So many agree that we have a problem downtown with vacant buildings and gaps where buildings once stood, and so many agree that something needs to be done to prevent further needless demolition.   Why then, is our beautiful Board of Education building, a building currently in use, under threat of demolition at the hands of McMaster University?

I would love to see Mac increase their presence in the Downtown core.  I would even support seeing City funds given or lent to the project.  Why, however, do we need to build it at 100 Main West?  With the Board of Education long out of the picture in terms of direct participation, why are we still considering using this particular parcel of land?

Surely we aren’t lacking viable space Downtown.  Surely, between the City and the University there has to be a more creative, mutually beneficial option.  Can we not adapt the existing structure?  Can we not consider using the adjoining parking lot? Can we not negotiate something with Vrancor, owners of the vast sea of parking lots to the West of this property?  There are so many options that we aren’t even considering.  That is inexcusable.

The crux of the problem is that once the Board of Ed. declared the property surplus, McMaster only had a 90 day window to arrange the partnership and funding and in turn, they have only given Council two weeks.  This quickly became another Pan Am-style shotgun to our proverbial heads, as we’re now left scrambling to evaluate a complex partnership and funding model in a matter of days.

I submit to anyone reading, that once we start to consider that this project does not need to happen at 100 Main West, that we will suddenly find ourselves with a much more reasonable amount of time in which to work.  While this leaves the Board of Education in an awkward situation, it may end up saving us all a lot of headaches, money, and a perfectly viable, beautiful building.  Perhaps the Board will just have to stay downtown after all.

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