Mayors New Years Day Levee to be held on January 14th, 2012

Mayor Bob Bratina’s traditional New Year’s levee is being held on January 14^th, 2012 because he is taking a family vacation and isn’t able to hold the event on the usual January 1^st date.

The mayor said the new date is more “reflective of Hamilton’s diverse cultures and religions,” pointing to Orthodox New Year’s celebrations that fall in mid-January as well as the Chinese New Year Jan. 23.

Bratina hosted a 2011 levee on New Year’s Day and invited the public to view his private offices. He also played the saxophone in the City Hall lobby outside his office which you can view by clicking HERE

The mayor’s levee is scheduled for Jan. 14 between noon and 2 p.m. at city hall.

Air Miles Collectors: Use em or lose em

One of Canada's most popular loyalty programs has a message for Air Miles collectors: use 'em or lose 'em.


As of Saturday, participants in the Air Miles reward program will be required to use their existing miles before they expire on Dec. 31, 2016.

In addition, reward miles earned after New Year's Eve will only be valid for five years after they're first posted.

Air Miles collectors gather miles by making qualified purchases from the program's participating sponsors.

Until now, the miles — redeemable for eligible merchandise, including electronic goods, plane tickets and vacation packages — never carried an expiration date.

The changes come on the heels of a new instant-redemption feature called Air Miles Cash.

The program, which begins in March, will allow collectors to instantly cash in their miles at participating retailers, using them towards purchases for items like gas and groceries.

Under the new program, 95 reward miles will earn collectors $10 off while cashing out their purchases. Collectors will be able to redeem in $10 increments up to a maximum of $200 per day, including taxes.

Mapleview Mall parking disaster official venting page. Worst Parking Lot in Canada?

If you were at Maple View Mall, you might have wanted to rip your hair out after the poor organization by the Burlington mall to efficiently help lead traffic out of the parking lot.

There was a cop directing the traffic into the parking lot, but on your way out, you were on your own.

I personally got to my car at 230pm today December 27^th, 2011 and didn’t end up exiting the parking lot until 530pm!!

I’ve gone to sporting events with 80,000 plus people and it hasn’t been this bad.

If any of you have stories to share or just want to vent, feel free to discuss in the comment section.

Maple View mall has to be near the top of the list in regards to worst parking lay out.

Say what you will, but I’ve never waited 3 hours to get out of any Hamilton mall.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!!

Hamilton, Ontario ranks top 10 in the world among research hospitals

Two organizations have ranked Hamilton Health Sciences as one of Canada’s leading research hospitals.


The hospital scored a first place national ranking from SCImago - a European company that issues the Worldwide Ranking of Research Institutions.

It placed HHS seventh in the world.

In addition, a Calgary-based research and develop company called RE$SEARCH Infosource Inc. ranked HHS second in Canada behind Toronto’s University Health Network.

“We’re very pleased, but not at all surprised, by the high ranking of our largest academic hospital partner, Hamilton Health Sciences,” says Dr. Steve Collins McMaster University’s associate dean research in the faculty of health sciences in a statement. SCImago uses large databases to analyze indicators such as output of scientific papers, international collaboration and how often research is cited by other scientists. It ranked 3,042 institutions worldwide.

“Hamilton Health Sciences is committed to advancing research and we are very proud of what our scientists and investigators have accomplished,” said CEO Murray Martin in a statement. “It’s a vital contribution that hospitals should make to enhancing patient care for this generation and generations to come.”

Police seek missing Stoney Creek man

Hamilton police are asking for help to find a missing Stoney Creek man.


Warren McLeod, 43, has been missing since Nov. 30. Family members have told police they believe he is depressed.

McLeod is white, about 200 pounds and six feet tall with a medium build. He has dark brown hair and was last seen wearing a brown work jacket, white T-shirt, blue jeans and beige running shoes. He was carrying a black duffle bag.

Police said the man is most familiar with the part of Stoney Creek along Highway 8 near Winona. Anyone with information about McLeod is asked to call police at 905-546-2929.

Hamilton Police operating budget approved

For the first time in its history, the Hamilton Police Services Board debated and approved its operating budget in public Monday night.


It took just over an hour for the seven-member board to approve — though not unanimously — the $135.7-million net operating budget, up 3.43 per cent over 2011, at a special meeting held at City Hall.

Despite being “satisfied” by answers to his many questions, Councillor Terry Whitehead was the only member to vote against the budget. It’s a “good budget,” he said outside council chambers. But he needs to remain “credible” in the budget process with the rest of council — they’re seeking an overall 0 per cent increase.

“I don’t want to be locked in,” he said, adding the problem with the police budget “boils down to salaries, which (the board) has no control over.”

Nearly 88 per cent of the budget is eaten up by salaries, pensions and benefits, negotiated through collective agreements in place until the end of 2012.

During the public meeting, Mayor Bob Bratina, also vice chair of the police board, said he wants a 0 per cent overall increase, but a “sustainable 0 per cent.”

The city needs to find $18 million in savings, but it isn’t in the police budget, he said.

City council still needs to approve the police budget. It does not have the power to debate it line by line.

According to the budget document, there is no “growth” in police expenses, rather just a $5.8-million increase in expenses needed to “maintain services.”

Outside of salaries, pensions and benefits, many of the budget increases are under the training category, including a 243.35 per cent increase to $8,000 for the mounted unit and a 155.64 per cent increase to $32,850 for the homicide unit.

The funds will cover an RCMP training course, sensory device training and national meeting for the mounted unit. The homicide unit will use its funds to train an officer to administer polygraph tests.

When asked after the meeting how much of the training budget is for provincially mandated training, Chief Glenn De Caire said he didn’t have those figures available.

One of the biggest increases in the budget is $234,930 for building repairs to the east-end station, including an upgrade to the automation system, roof repairs and gym lighting. That’s a 222.13 per cent increase over 2011.

Many of the savings in the 2012 budget are under the heading “equipment,” including an 84.85 per cent reduction to $500 in the break enter, auto theft and robbery (BEAR) unit’s budget and a 71.43 per cent reduction to $8,000 in the vice and drug unit’s budget.

Equipment is a “double-edged sword” in the budget, De Caire said, adding the service is trying to make equipment last longer.

Before taking questions from the board, De Caire made a presentation in which he explained why funds are needed. Crime rates may be on a downward trend, but that’s because of policing practices, he said.

Hamilton faces the second highest rate of violent crime of the big 12 police services across Ontario and the city would have to hire 220 officers to meet the average provincial officer-to-population ratio, he said.

Reducing the budget to a 2 per cent increase would mean 30 layoffs, to 1 per cent would mean 47 layoffs, and to 0 per cent would mean 71 layoffs, he said.

It’s not clear how these figures were calculated.

Integrity complaint launched against Mayor Bob Bratina

An Ancaster resident who launched a complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner says Mayor Bob Bratina needs to be held accountable for his chief of staff’s controversial pay raise.


“I believe that the mayor is acting like the Teflon Don,” said Brian Hatch, a lifelong Hamiltonian and former Stelco manager. “He seems to have the opinion that he can pretty much do what he wants and nothing will stick to him.”

“The mayor’s integrity is at question and should be at question,” he added.

“He needs a wake-up call.”

Hatch filed an affidavit for the integrity commissioner through the city clerk’s office Monday morning. He notified city councillors of his complaint in an email circulated later that day.

Hatch alleges Bratina contravened several parts of council’s code of conduct, including Section 13, which prohibits councillors from maliciously or recklessly injuring the professional or ethical reputations of city employees.

That accusation was levelled over Bratina’s claim that chief of staff Peggy Chapman’s raise — to $120,000 from $90,000 a year — was initiated by the city’s human resources staff.

4000 homes in Dundas left in the dark

Horizon Utilities is reporting that nearly 4,000 households and businesses lost power after an incident occurred shortly before 11pm Sunday.

“The cause of the outage is an overhead distribution problem” the utility said on their website. “Horizon Utilities crews have been dispatched to make repairs.”

The utility declined to say how long it would take for those repairs.

Meanwhile police and fire services were responding to a spot near where Baldwin, and Court streets and Cootes Drive intersect following reports of a sound like an explosion.

Spectator reporter Scott Radley said he was told by people on the scene that they heard “two big booms and saw sparks flying off a hydro pole” there.

Others reported seeing twin flashes in the sky from as far away as Ancaster.

Updates can be obtained at the Horizon Utilities power outage page on their website

Chief of Staff Peggy Chapman with Hamilton/Stoney Creek Community Blog Staff

This picture was taken on January 1^st of this year at the New Years Day Levee hosted by Mayor Bratina and Chief Of Staff Peggy Chapman.

Mayor Bratina and Chief Of Staff Chapman 1 Hamilton City Council 0 No rescinding $30,000 raise

City council will not rescind the $30,000 raise that Mayor Bob Bratina granted his chief of staff Peggy Chapman.


Council held a stormy three-hour closed-door session that left several councilors angry and frustrated. They emerged into open session and were then told by lawyer Peter Barkwell that taking the money back would expose the city to far more expensive legal liability.

The subject of the lengthy meeting was to determine if councillors have the authority to rescind the 33 per cent pay.

While the debate is being held in private, councillors said the discussions were heated.

Councillor Chad Collins tweeted that the discussions reached a stalemate.

“Unfortunately Council has received several versions of what has transpired; it is clear that we cannot come to an agreed statement of facts,” the tweet read.

Councillor Terry Whitehead tweeted his frustration.

“The Mayor, his Chief of Staff have the power to respond to the outcry from the community to resolve this, unfortunately our hands are tied.”

Councillor Sam Merulla provided a draft motion that he proposed to council this morning. However, Merulla stressed that the motion only reflected his views, not council’s.

Merulla’s proposed motion reads as follows: “That council is disappointed in, and disapproves of, the mayor’s failure to adhere to the city’s salary administration policy in setting salary rates for staff in his office.

“That council requests that the Mayor use his best efforts to negotiate a voluntary amendment to all employment contracts in his office to bring them into compliance with the city’s salary administration policy and report back to council on the results of his efforts.

“That if the mayor is unable to negotiate voluntary amendments to employment contracts to bring then into compliance with the city’s salary administration policy that the mayor is requested, in consultation with human resources and legal services, to seek to “red circle” any and all offending salaries for the balance of this term of council and that the mayor report back to council on the results of his efforts.”

Hamilton calls for exemptions in Canada-Europe trade deal

Last night Hamilton city council became the 35th municipality or municipal body to pass a resolution challenging the inclusion of local governments in the Canada-EU free trade agreement. The resolution, brought forward by Councillor Brian McHattie, was cheered by a dozen Hamilton Council of Canadians members who were there for the vote. Only three councillors voted against the motion, which also asks the provincial government to make its services, procurement and investment offers public, and to give municipalities the freedom to choose whether they want to be bound by the CETA or not.



“CETA could have significant impacts on the City’s ability to encourage sustainable development, local jobs or local food production through purchases by the City, school boards and hospitals,” says Hamilton chapter spokesperson Kathie Clark in a media release this morning. Dave Carson, also of the chapter, says, “There is little transparency around these talks. It is in our communities’ interests to ensure that future local policy options aren’t open to challenge by large, multi-national corporations.”

The Hamilton chapter explains that, “The Council of Canadians believes that not every spending decision at the local level should come down to bottom line costs. There are economic, social and environmental benefits to buying and hiring locally. CETA would take the ability to make these decisions away from democratically elected municipal governments. The EU’s challenge to the Ontario Green Energy Act at the World Trade Organizations shows how it will use trade and procurement agreements to undermine job creation strategies.”

The Council of Canadians has produced a new interactive map showing all the cities in eight provinces that have passed CETA resolutions. Most of them call for an exemption for local governments. The Hamilton resolution goes much further in calling for transparency and a real voice for municipal governments to choose whether or not they want to be bound by the trade deal’s restrictions on policy space. You can search the map, which includes cities like Toronto that are considering CETA resolutions, by clicking here.

On January 24, Toronto’s executive committee will consider a motion similar to the one passed by Hamilton last night, asking the province to exclude the City of Toronto from the CETA and “otherwise protect the powers of municipalities, hospitals, school boards, utilities, universities and other sub-federal agencies to use public procurement, services and investment as tools to create local jobs and otherwise support local economic development.” We’ll have more updates on that soon.

A BUY LOCAL POLICY FOR HAMILTON?

Also in the audience last night were members of the Hamilton and District Labour Council who came to see how city council would vote on a motion to defer a new procurement policy back to committee for further discussion. The labour council explains on its website:

The Audit, Finance and Administration Committee of Hamilton City Council has approved a staff recommended procurement policy for the city that specifically states that the city will not give any preference to purchases based on the geographic location of the vendor or supplier or the Canadian, Ontario, or Hamilton/local content of the goods and services.

Over two and one half years ago, a similar policy was referred back to staff for consultation with the community, including the Labour Council, our affiliates, and other unions, after Labour Council, the CAW, and the Steelworkers raised the issue of Canadian and local sourcing of goods and services required by the city. The Labour Council has not been consulted at all.

On December 14th, City Council will consider the recommendations from the committee. We urgently request that everyone who is interested in preserving jobs in Hamilton use every means of communication - email, telephone calls, social media - to tell your city councillor to refer the policy back to the committee to allow for public input on creating a buy local provision.

The motion passed, meaning the labour council and other community members will have a chance to address what a specific buy local policy within the procurement policy could look like.

For those in the Hamilton area, the local chapter meets again Wednesday, December 21 from 7 to 9 p.m. in Homegown Hamilton at the Sky Dragon Community Centre, 27 King William Street.

Basketball sized meteor may have landed in East Stoney Creek (VIDEO)

Astronomers from the University of Western Ontario have released rare video of a meteor that travelled through the evening sky east of Toronto earlier this week.
Although the bright fireball appeared near the peak of the annual Geminid meteor shower, astronomers say it's unrelated to that shower.
Six cameras belonging to Western's Southern Ontario Meteor Network captured the slow-moving fireball shortly after 6 p.m. on Monday. The embedded video clip above is from the university’s Hamilton camera.
The meteor — estimated to be no bigger than a basketball — was first spotted over Lake Erie then moved toward the north-northeast ending just south of the town of Selwyn, Ont.
Astronomers say it likely dropped small meteorites east of Selwyn near the eastern end of Upper Stoney Creek.

Hamilton Spectator drawing of Mayor Bob Bratina. Funny or an attack?

The Hamilton Spectator’s Graeme MacKay releases a drawing this week of a comedic depiction about the $30,000 raise for Mayor Bratina’s chief of staff Peggy Chapman.

Is this a funny picture of has The Spectator started an all out war for the Mayor’s head?

What do you all think?

The sale of the Toronto Maple Leafs may finally open the door to the NHL in Hamilton

The recent sale of the Toronto Maple Leafs to arch-media rivals—Rogers and Bell, who own Canada's two major sports-television networks, TSN and Sportsnet—may finally open the door for Southern Ontario relocation/expansion.

It has long been this column's view that Southern Ontario has the most lucrative NHL market and is certainly capable of sustaining one if not two more franchises.

There are five possible candidates for an NHL team in the region: a second Toronto team, Hamilton, London, Kitchener and Oshawa.

So far, there are at least three possible bidders: a Markham group, a Vaughan group and Jim Balsillie in Hamilton.

Of these, only Hamilton has a small NHL-size arena already in place and is willing to spend the money to bring it up to the NHL median of 18,000-plus seats.

The biggest obstacle to placing another team in Southern Ontario is said to be the territorial issue.

Another team will be placed within the territorial boundaries of Toronto and possibly Buffalo, thus damaging the marketing capabilities of both teams.

Hitherto, the Leafs' opposition to a second Southern Ontario team was taken for granted because they had nothing to gain if another team entered the region, but that may not be true anymore.

Rogers and Bell bought the Leafs because they each want more games on their television networks.  

But even with the new ownership, the Leafs' 82-game schedule would still have to be divided between them and with the CBC, which broadcasts all the Leafs' Saturday night games and playoff games.

How to get more games? Get the rights to the second most popular team in the region—Hamilton.

It's been estimated that a Hamilton franchise (or any new Southern Ontario team) could be the third most valuable in the NHL, behind only Toronto and the New York Rangers.

Now that the Leafs are owned by two media conglomerates, they could be persuaded to relent in their opposition to a Hamilton team if they were given the broadcasting rights to their games in exchange for agreeing to their admission to the NHL.

Naturally, any deal would have to guarantee Hamilton sufficient television revenue, but there is no reason why a backroom deal can't be worked out to satisfy all parties.

A Hamilton franchise would almost double the local NHL games that TSN and Sportsnet could broadcast in Southern Ontario. Instead of being viewed as a marketing a rival, Hamilton would be considered an indirect partner of a media team.

In spite of the recent legal battles with Jim Balsillie, the NHL saw fit to take his Blackberry money for television ads during the playoffs last year.

Commissioner Bettman then told him and Hamilton (like he told Winnipeg, Quebec and Hartford) to be patient.

But with the sale of the Leafs, perhaps one of the main opponents will have a change of heart, and Hamilton's NHL dreams will finally come true.