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January
22, 2004
DEMOCRACY IN HAMILTON
Were
you were among the hundreds of people who sent letters,
emails, faxes or made phone calls last fall to Premier McGuinty,
Minister Dombrowsky, Minister Ramsay and other members of
the Ontario government about the Red Hill expressway? We’re
you puzzled by the stone wall we encountered? Today’s
Hamilton Spectator has an explanation.
The
newspaper reports that the City of Hamilton has employed
a professional lobbying firm since 1999 to lobby the provincial
government in favour of the expressway. This company charges
the City $375 an hour, paid for with your taxes. So while
you have a “right” to ask your government to act
on your behalf, another government at City Hall has decided
it can use your money to make sure your influence at Queen’s
Park is minimized. The Spectator story is reproduced at
the end of this email.
This
is a blatant corruption of one of the few democratic rights
open to citizens. The person in charge of the expressway
“implementation” for the past several years is
now the mayor of Hamilton, Larry DiIanni. This week we had
another glimpse of Mr. DiIanni’s curious views on democracy.
On
Monday, citizens were invited to speak to the Public Works
Committee on whether the operation of Hamilton’s water
and sewer system should be public or private. Citizens were
only permitted to speak to the committee in the middle of
the day when most people have to work, but nevertheless
17 presentations were made. Only one supported the privatization
proposal recommended by City staff and advocated by Mayor
DiIanni, and that presentation was made by a representative
of the private company that currently runs the water/sewer
system.
Last
night Mr. DiIanni told CH television news "that those
who made presentations were of special interest groups and
did not represent the community". Members of CATCH
(Citizens at the City Hall) observed Monday’s meeting.
Mayor DiIanni arrived at the meeting at 9:54 am. He left
at 10:48 am, immediately before the public presentations
began. The presentations continued until 12:50. As soon
as they ended, Mayor DiIanni returned to the meeting. Thus
the mayor heard NONE of the citizens who he dismissed as
not representing the community.
Several
of the citizen presentors asked for more public consultation,
including evening sessions to allow other people to speak
to the committee. In response, councillors Merulla and Jackson
moved to table the issue to allow this to occur. Mayor DiIanni
argued against and subsequently helped defeat this motion.
Before
that occurred, we got one more illustration of Mayor DiIanni’s
approach to democracy. Councillor Brian McHattie asked staff
to provide information about a particularly troubling part
of the current contract with the private operator of the
water system. The City’s 1994 agreement with this private
company (then Philip Utilities Management Corporation) provides
that the City pays for all required repair work that costs
more than $10,000, and the private company pays for work
under $10,000. There is some evidence that the private company
has taken a lot of advantage of this clause by waiting until
there’s more than $10,000 worth of work to be done
so the City has to foot the bill. Councillor McHattie asked
for records so he and other councillors could determine
the truth.
Normally,
requests by councillors for information from staff are automatically
agreed to. But on Monday, Councillor Dave Mitchell and Mayor
DiIanni objected to the request and forced a vote, defeating
the request by 5 votes to 4. As a result, Councillor Sam
Merulla has now taken the extraordinary step of filing a
Freedom of Information request demanding that his own City
government release the information.
The
Public Works committee has 8 members, but DiIanni is an
ex-officio member of all committees. He doesn’t usually
show up, but on Monday, he cast the deciding vote to block
the release of information to other city councillors.
You
may have heard that Mr. DiIanni wants “public consultation”
about the City budget (see below). Don’t hold your
breath.
CITY
BUDGET 'CONSULTATIONS'
The
first opportunity for citizens to comment on the City budget
mess is next Tuesday evening in Dundas where the
City will hold the first of its budget consultation meetings
in the former Dundas Town Hall, 60 Main Street in Dundas,
from 6:30 to 9:00 pm.
Other
meetings are as follows:
- Thursday,
January 29th 6:30 - 9 pm, Hillcrest Restaurant, 510 Concession
St., Hamilton
- Monday,
February 2nd 6:30 - 9 pm, Stoney Creek Municipal Service
Centre, 777 Highway 8
- Wednesday,
February 4th 6:30 - 9 pm, Glanbrook Municipal Service
Centre, 4280 Binbrook Road, Binbrook
- Monday,
February 9th 6:30 - 9 pm, Cathedral High School, 30 Wentworth
Street North, Hamilton
- Tuesday,
February 10th 6:30 - 9 pm, Millgrove Community Centre,
855 Millgrove Side Road, Millgrove
Red
Hill lobbyist gets $375 an hour
Area
Liberals puzzled why city uses PR firm
By
Joan Walters
The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday, January 22, 2004
A
Toronto consulting firm is getting $375 an hour to deal
with Ontario politicians on the city's behalf, despite the
strong relationship the mayor says Hamilton now has with
Queen's Park.
StrategyCorp.,
a government relations company, has been re-registered as
Hamilton's lobbyist on the Red Hill Creek Expressway issue,
The Spectator has learned.
Its
job is described as representing the city with the premier,
his ministers and MPPs, including arranging meetings, making
telephone calls and making presentations on the city's behalf.
It
was a puzzle to local Liberals why the city would need lobbyists
when the mayor, the premier, and all Hamilton MPPs, including
a cabinet minister, are Liberals who have pledged to stay
in close contact on city-related issues.
"It's
up to the city, obviously," Hamilton East MPP Dominic
Agostino said. "But they can already call the premier's
office, and they have access any time to the ministers and
MPPs. They don't have to come through somebody else."
As
well, Premier Dalton McGuinty has committed to the Red Hill
Creek Expressway, the funding is in place and "it's
full steam ahead," Agostino said. "I'm not quite
sure what government-relations work there would be."
Mayor
Larry Di Ianni says the city is still dealing with the last
strands of a 20-year battle to build the expressway, including
threatened lawsuits.
He
said StrategyCorp. is not retained directly by the city,
but by lawyer David Estrin of the law firm Gowlings. Estrin
is an environmental expert retained to handle the city's
Red Hill legal file.
Di
Ianni said the law firm should have the option "to
engage whomever they feel they need."
However,
Di Ianni said that "the city administration here just
doesn't know what StrategyCorp. might be getting as a retainer
or as a payment from Gowlings to act on our behalf."
The
Spectator was able to determine from its own sources that
StrategyCorp. charges an hourly fee of $375 for Hamilton's
Red Hill Creek Expressway work. The amount of time being
spent on the file is unknown but has been cut since the
height of the protests in the summer, and has dropped since
the Liberal government took over in October.
Di
Ianni said he will do more checking into the situation.
"Yes,
we need to understand exactly what it is our lawyer is doing
for us and that's a fair question for me to ask now that
I've been in the job a couple of months," he said.
"But
we also need to keep our eye on the ball on Red Hill, which
is still a live file."
He
said he regrets the city ever had to pay lawyers and consultants,
but it was necessary "because every step of the way,
people threw curves at us, that's why we've had to use them."
StrategyCorp.
has worked on Red Hill since 1999, when the municipality's
battle to build the expressway heated up politically.
At
that time, the Harris government was in power, Hamilton
had poor connections at Queen's Park, and the city needed
hired guns to push for its interests on many fronts.
Now,
the expressway fight is winding down, especially with the
deal reached this month with the Iroquois Confederacy.
That
agreement, expected to go before council within a few weeks,
covers issues such as aboriginal burial and archeological
sites, highway tolls and hunting and fishing rights.
Indications
are that the confederacy deal may put off a threatened $100-million
lawsuit launched against the city by Mohawk native Larry
Green.
The
use of Red Hill consultants has caused heated debate in
the city over the last few years. Last summer, then police
chief Ken Robertson complained that he had not been consulted
about hiring policing veteran Christine Silverberg to help
head off potential conflicts with Red Hill activists.
The
former Calgary police chief also worked for the city in
2002, raising eyebrows when she billed Hamilton close to
$60,000 for three months' work.
Total
billings to the law firm to date by StrategyCorp. have not
been made public. The firm was founded by Leslie Noble,
a longtime Tory adviser and campaign manager to Harris.
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