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June
2003 Newsletter
Now
It Is Up To Us
For all opponents of the expressway, this year's credo must
be Now I Must Be Involved. While the City still faces
more than a dozen regulatory hurdles, this November will
likely be our last opportunity to Vote for Red Hill Valley.
Over the last 50 years, literally thousands of residents
have successfully preserved this park and natural area in
the face of schemes to pave it. We can't let them down now!
Between now and the November 10 city council elections,
we must do whatever we can to finally win this fight. With
excellent anti-expressway candidates already stepping forward,
we have a great opportunity to turn Hamilton around.That
effort must involve ALL the friends of the valley.
WE
NEED YOUR HELP NOW!
We know that most of you are very busy people, engaged in
lots of volunteer activities, and working in many different
ways to improve our community and our planet. For that reason,
we have tried to minimize our requests for your involvement.
However, if we don't ask for your help now, we may not get
another opportunity. In addition, what we seek to accomplish
over the next five months will hopefully also assist many
other positive developments in Hamilton.
We
have a myriad of tasks that need volunteers. We're asking
each of you to find at least 20 neighbours to sign the petition
enclosed with this newsletter. We're particularly interested
in their addresses and emails so we can inform them about
anti-expressway candidates that they can help elect. We
hope you'll collect the signatures by knocking on doors
in your neighbourhood. We know many people are reluctant
to do this, but we encourage you to try. You'll learn lots
about your community, and make some new friends in the process.
Some may even want to help you with the petition. If you
want to work with others, contact us and we'll put you in
touch with activists in your part of the city.
There
are many other things that need doing and that will help
us stop the expressway. There are numerous festivals and
special events where we need volunteers to help with our
displays, and we have already formed several Ward-based
committees to find and assist pro-valley candidates. If
you can help in any way, please call our phone line at (905)
381-0240 or email us at redhill@hwcn.org.
NOVEMBER
10 IS DECISION DAY
We are seeking nothing less than a fundamental change in
direction at City Hall. There are currently four councillors
— Dave Braden, Andrea Horwath, Margaret McCarthy and
Russ Powers — who are trying to stop the Red Hill Creek
Expressway. These same councillors are also voting consistently
against the subsidization of more sprawl development such
as urban boundary expansions, sweet deals for developers,
and the expressway itself. They deserve to be re-elected,
AND they need some allies on council. Some of those have
already stepped forward and we know there are more to come.
If we can elect as few as FOUR new council members (including
the Mayor), we will stop the expressway. That would make
8 out of 16 and a vote to proceed fails if there is a tie.
Of course, electing other good councillors will be even
more helpful.
The
strategy of the City is to try and start construction of
the road before November. However, we believe that the missing
regulatory approvals, and continuing opposition, will prevent
them from getting very far. Especially with your help...
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