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November
2001 Newsletter
Council
Picks Expressway Over Hospitals
Back
in April, Mayor Wade called a press conference to announce
that the expressway would start construction this fall.
He was asked where the $200 million would come from. His
response: "We'll find the money".
Today
local hospitals are seeking $131 million in grants from
the City. Mr. Wade's response is a little different than
what he said for the expressway. On the hospitals, Mr. Wade
says that he has no idea where the city will find the monies.
Mr.
Wade and other councillors say that the provincial government
should be paying for the hospitals, not the City government.
They seem to have forgotten that the provincial government
is promising to pay a substantial portion of the costs of
building the expressway. Perhaps the Council could ask the
Province to re-allocate those monies to the hospitals.
The
City staff report on the hospital funding requests is revealing.
It points out: "Should Council decide to provide hospital
capital funding, it should be noted that 2002 tax levy increases
can not be imposed against multi-residential, commercial
and industrial assessment. Accordingly, any hospital funding
options impact only the residential tax base." Of course,
the same is true for the expressway. Mr. Harris has legislated
that tax increases cannot be imposed on commercial and industrial
properties because they are allegedly already too high (even
after a $20 million reduction provided by Hamilton to these
properties in 2001).
The
staff report also summarizes the financial crisis facing
Council. It notes that "a major funding backlog exists
for previously approved capital projects and related debt
requirements (up to $85 million)" and "hard infrastructure
deficiencies/funding shortfalls for such services as roads,
water, sanitary/storm sewers, and waste management plus
deficiencies for all other existing facilities, buildings
and fleet amount to about $200 million per year."
Both of these financial problems are directly related to
the spending on the Linc and the preparations for the valley
expressway.
The
hospitals have compelling arguments in favour of their funding
requests. The regional Cancer Centre is asking Council for
$600,000 a year for the next five years. They are making
similar appeals to the surrounding municipalities that are
also served by the Cancer Centre. It will obviously be very
difficult to convince Niagara or Brant, or other neighbouring
governments to provide a grant IF Hamilton has already refused.
The $3 million sought by the Cancer Centre from Hamilton
is less than 7% of the $45 million they need. St. Joseph's
Hospital is trying to raise $188 million and is asking Hamilton
Council for 25%. The Civic Hospitals need $191 million and
want Council to provide about 40%.
Staff
(and many councillors) argue that the province should meet
these bills. However, the province is already committed
to giving the Cancer Centre $33 million and the Civic Hospitals
$99 million. In the past, local governments have helped
out with hospital fundraising. At least 20 municipal governments
are continuing this practice. Waterloo is giving $37 million
to its hospitals while York Region is donating $62 million.
Hamilton staff says these municipalities have more money
than we do.
And
that's exactly the problem. Hamilton doesn't have any money
for hospitals because it insists on pouring monies into
the bottomless expressway pit.
Since
July, Friends of Red Hill has been handing out leaflets
at local hospitals that point out this problem. If you can
help out with one of these distributions, even for an hour
or two, please call (905) 381-0240.
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