Hamilton, Ontario: A Foundation of ReGrowth

Yesterday, August 10, 2010 was quite possibly the most stressful day of the year in politics for Hamilton, Ontario. Not for just me, but the citizens, and mayor, and community council. We were on the National Spotlight. #hamont trending on Twitter, The Spec broadcasting live with upwards of 4000 people or more watching on UStream. It still might be archived on UStream, but be prepared to watch a 13 hour debate. I watched, listened, and almost had a heart attack while sitting in front of the computer listening to the whole debacle at throughout the day. I really wish I could have went downtown to City Hall. The City of Hamilton has been granted the Pan Am Stadium at the Municipal level with a 12-3 vote, a victory for West Harbour without tenants such as the Hamilton Tiger Cats. I’m hopeful it is enough for Federal and Provincial governments, and the Hostco Pan Am committee to agree for a go-ahead because the City of Hamilton will not have another chance in the next 80 years, or longer for an entertainment district that will get people to extenuate what we can have, and provide new business, and new local business strategy for the core.

The Mayor, and City Council need to patch up what relationship they have left with Bob Young and re-evaluate the West Harbour location in Hamilton, Ontario so the Tiger-Cats are left with great opportunity at West Harbour. There is room for re-mediation, and as much as the CFL is industry which brings both the City of Hamilton, and Bob Young money, we need both Professional Sport, and a West Harbour location to propagate what good we have at the Hamilton Harbour location. Even if Bob Young doesn’t agree with downtown renewal, there’s always Daryl Katz who could fulfill both Copps Coliseum, and the West Harbour location for entertainment. It’s obvious Hamilton has direction if visionary, and philanthropist and businessman Daryl Katz is interested in what venues the City of Hamilton has, and will have in the future.

Will Bob Young, and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats say yes to the viable stadium at the West Harbour? He and the Tiger-Cats only know until there is re-mediation with city council. And if there is no re-mediation, I think it’s time for Hamilton to move on, and get Daryl Katz into the picture so we’re not floating a boat in frozen water. City Council said yesterday that Federal, and Provincial governments and the Pan Am Committee still have over a month to decide on the West Harbour location and stadium.

I would love to say the decision was for the Hamilton Tiger Cats, but I really can’t. It’s for every one Hamiltonian out there. It’s a strategy for our city to propagate into doing something fundamentally better for industry in Hamilton, Ontario. The steel industry is gone, and brown-fields are here, and I don’t want them to stay. I want job re-growth in those brown-fields. Buildings erected, happy Hamiltonians that have prosperity for the jobs they will have and love. Different opportunities for different people, and industry not just for one person. Whether it be The Arts, Sports Entertainment, Concerts, we need a plethora of market at a foundational level to achieve what success we can achieve. We already have great educational institutions. How about keeping the people who are educated here? Let’s reclaim the legacy as an Ambitious City.

We, as Hamiltonians also have to realize that it’s not just about the West Harbour stadium. The velodrome, and multi-use purpose for both infrastructure initiatives. We could become a very large sports hub in Ontario if not North America since there is only one high performance velodrome in the United States. We can bring world class athletics to Southern Ontario, train athletes for what future we have and put ourselves on the road map for greater success. Healthly living standards, healthy institutions and organizations. We already have Hamilton Health Sciences and McMaster University, a vital educational foundation for doctors, nurses, and everything in-between. We will set Olympic standardization in what athletes look for.

I really think a professor at the McMaster DeGroote School of Business should really look hard into what Hamilton is doing, and come up with an analysis of what we will look like in the next 20 years. At 2015, when the Pan Am Games are here, five years, a quarterly mark for 20 year analysis. And a better analysis for a bigger analysis a century away.

A kickstart for revitalization has started, and it can only get better. Downtown renewal is brown-field clean-up, and sustainability, and a chance for Hamilton to once again create more industry in the core for foundation revitalization for healthy living. We don’t need Toronto business owners dumping, leaving toxic waste in our city only for us to clean it up. Hamilton is our city, it’s time to love what we have, what we will have and show what a community can be for the future.

The 80 good years were contingent of what Ivor Wynne Stadium (originally Civic Stadium) brought to the City of Hamilton since the Empire Games (Currently the Commonwealth Games) in the 1930s. Highlighting the success of Empire Games and current tenants, The Hamilton Tiger Cats a Canadian Football League team — Pink Floyd, and Rush also played there in the 1970s.

Here’s the UStream Archive of the meeting from The Spec.

With Love.
A Hamiltonian

Hamilton, Ontario: Revitalizing Core Foundations

WEST HARBOUR

Our City, Our Future

Here’s An Unofficial Biography Of Bob Young:
Ancaster Businessman, A CFL Team Owner, Ex-Red Hat CEO, Lulu CEO, Co-Founder of Linux Journal

Bob Young being from Ancaster Ontario, I’m not sure if he’s still around Hamilton, Ancaster, or South Ontario. I could only assume because he owns the Hamilton Tiger Cats much like a lot of people know, and there’s been a huge debacle on the whole stadium debate. A city full of diehard CFL fans, a mediocre team, and a pleasant city. What I don’t get is why Bob Young is trying to strategically place the Tiger-Cats on the East Mountain when this city, and the core is uprooted with job-loss, and a brownfield. I could, and will say that this city is a brownfield, but we’re finding ways to propate. Ever since the late 1970s many industries have changed, and still are currently changing. But, I think we are at our incline, and only going up.

From what I see in a city, I realize that everything, everyone, market, and most consumer industry is located within the core of a city. It represents what people define as the motivation to be downtown. The downtown area is where it all happens for most people, it’s the culture what people can represent, and see themselves living in. The city core in many facets should have a foundation before anything is build. Before anything is build there should be a plan in place to advertise what the community wants so marketing, and core foundations are the number one thing for a city to strive. A plan for what is worth is what a city needs.

Why does Bob Young need to pave over a cornfield, and get his way as a CFL team owner? The simple answer, he doesn’t hold that power to do so. He can wager his CFL team in any direction whether it be at the beach in Hamilton, East Mountain, or West Harbour. It’s up to the city council who SHOULD represent what the community wants. It’s not about the CFL team. It’s about the community, how the city can profit, THEN the CFL team. Wagering, holding your team hostage, holding the Pan AM Games hostage must be stressful for the CFL players, its members of organization that represent the Tiger-Cats and Pan Am Game representatives, and the community. It’s bad representation of business, and that’s not how it should be dealt with. We all see the greed in Bob Young. Perhaps this is why Jim Baisille didn’t get a NHL team in Hamilton, or was it Gary Bettman’s greed and administration?

From my perspective, I think we need to market our city, its fundamentals, the community and community leaders to be sucessful or as successful as Toronto. I’m not saying that we will be successful as our three hub cities in Canada, but what I can say is campaigning what we represent is what brings back the nostalgia, and what brings people to the city with or without a CFL team. I don’t want any part in greedy business. We need a green future, and equate what we really have into something better.

We all know with a new multi-purpose stadium at the west harbour it can represent a hub of enthusiasm for the core of the city, it could be Hamilton’s time to hit it big with plans to build for the future. We know it’ll raise taxes, have multi-purpose use for concerts, cultural events, soccer, equilibrium for the people of the City of Hamilton. Create employment, and get people to spend their money at the foundation of it all. I could see the core become more active with more small business, outsiders moving into the city with good intention and it would bring more people to the core to spend their money and build a community like others such as Toronto but cheaper. A lot cheaper. If you’re not a Hamiltonian, a business owner, or figuratively looking for a good business plan — it is a good time to invest into Hamilton and the core. It’s cheap to rent or buy, housing varies in areas of cost, it’s cheap to live, and love. Contribute to the core, build from the ground up, and propagate. Just don’t leave. Live it, and love it.

For a generalization: We don’t need multiple venues to create funding, we need one venue to do multiple things. By that, I mean a multi-purpose stadium at the West Harbour. We need one place for community to walk to, one place so people can spend their money, one place to have a good time in a fashion where community can get together to play soccer, football or have festivals or concerts. A place for sports to organize whether they’re amateur, or professional. Then, go to other select places within the core and end the day, or night well. All of these things bring fundamental good health, education, and will represent a better community for the people, and businesses in the core. If you’re going to build multiple venues in this city it’s going to increase taxation and put more of a stressor on our community, and it won’t work out. It’ll be detrimental to what our city COULD represent. A satirical cost, or fashion statement in which would do no good for what we COULD represent.

Community is what both you and I strive for, not a satirical business plan that won’t do the city any good at the core. Bob Young, I hope you read this and realize what you’re doing to this city. Greed isn’t the way to go.

The image is licensed under Creative Commons.

For the Love of Community

For a while I’ve been thinking, and trying to grab at an opportunity to participate in a community where I could discuss, and elaborate, collaborate, and make friends both on the internet, and in my community. Tribe.net is something of importance in getting in that right path to that subject which is called community. A community populace.

In a community, it’s all for the community members, thinking, doing, and helping each other. It only has a better outcome in what we represent as ourselves. Obviously there are subsets of categories, and what I want to do is find out what and where I really belong and be happy I’ve found what I’ve been looking for, for years. Friends.

Oil them rusty gates. meet people, clean your glasses, shakes hands: Take Part In Your Community

Governing the representation of a community means taking part in what needs it has. Whether it be public funding, upkeep, finding what the populace really represents, and strives for and living underneath it all so it becomes a daily part in the life of your own.

Since the wrath of politics in my city directly hit me square in the face, I feel the need to take part in the change and what the people really want. If a group of people want to do, or represent what is there, the group will show love for it. It’s the city, I love and I do not want it to sink deeper than it already has. Caring, loving, bringing together, living and loving it. Take part in events, community council meetings, and live for what we really have because just like you and I know, we’re only here for a short time.

Just like technology you hardly use, you see others using it, and you begin to ponder, then you start to tinker, then you start to use, and participate. I think it’s really my calling to be part of such a thing which propagates. Maybe I’ve always been a part of my community for a long time, but never realized it. It’s time for the correct motivation, and direction that really counts, and when it comes to what we really need, we find it. It’s the foundation that really counts. The grassroots campaigns and everything in-between.

I would like to indirectly thank Matt Jelly for his aspiration, and inspiration for the City of Hamilton and what community of people it has, speaking for the community. We need more alignment in what our community really represents. It’s the people with many different facets. It is the eccentric, smart, the poor, rich folk who love what our city is, and what it can bring.Hamilton needs more community participation, and because of this political nuisance of a stadium, the community will only get stronger and propagate into something better. I’m sure a lot more people are more aware in what we need for the city. Community.