Question 1: What would we do with $81,500,000.00 if we had it?

"Based on the draft financial strategy, the estimated total capital cost of the plan (including contingency, engineering and PST), as presented in May of 2007, is $81.5 million."

Scott Stewart, C.E.T.
 (Former) General Manager
Public Works Department
Report to Council, December 15th, 2008

Scott Stewart and friends at Public Works and a host of consulting companies have proposed to completely rebuild Harbour West, Hamilton's unique and highly successful recreational boating resource.  Some ideas just never seem to die.  This is the fourth or fifth time, since Urban Renewal died, that someone at Hamilton City Hall has proposed to spend tens of millions of dollars on turning the west harbour into a local version of Chicago's waterfront. 

Before we even start to look at whether or not this is something Hamilton needs, we might ask if we actually have $81.5million to spend?  If we do, should we look at different ways to spend it?   

The Stewart report does not offer any consideration of alternatives ways to spend $81.5million. 

If we actually had $81.5m, here are a few suggestions on how to spend it in a way that would really make a difference to Hamilton's future:

Click Here for Instructions on  How to spend a few million to create lots of jobs

1. Hamilton introduced the industrial electrification revolution to Canada, the consolidation of the steel industry to Canada, a unique medical school, and then went to sleep for fifty years.  It totally missed the automobile manufacturing, computer, pharmaceutical, telecom, digital, and the internet revolutions.   But there is hope.   Hamilton is the perfect place to build alternative energy tools.  Repeat: Hamilton is the perfect place to build alternative energy tools.  We can lead the next revolution and make up for having missed so many opportunities in the last two generations.  This will take intelligence, consistency, hard work, and lots and lots of money.  What a great place to spend say, $10 million?



2. Every major successful city in the world has great educational facilities and a successful sporting and cultural life.  Success in sports and culture breeds success in business because entrepreneurs enjoy the flair.  Hamilton's cultural life is on life-support.  For an endowment of something like $10m, we could have one of the top two or three opera companies in Canada.  What if we took some of that $81.5m and spent it on a new home for professional soccer, tennis and maybe even football?  It boggles the mind on what we could accomplish with less than a quarter of the $81.5 million wisely spent on sports and culture.



3. Changing the character of Hamilton from a place where people work quietly and effeciently in big factories that make steel to one where people work quietly and efficiently in new technologies and future trends requires a great educational system.  If we took as little as $10m of the $81.5m and used it to create brilliance in our public schools instead of having teachers bring in pencils because the budget is broken, what kind of city would we have?



4. Fill in the blanks with things we desperately need:  Burlington Street rebuilt from Sherman to Woodward; protecting our children from the danger of lead water lines, sewers and water lines in the old city fixed right for once and for all; money to maintain what we already have.  The list is huge.  Fixing something that ain't broke is pure waste.

Herman Turkstra
Hamilton, Ontario.

Comments

[Christopher Carroll]

There is no doubt that Hamilton, given its financial constraints and pressing list of other priority needs, can ill afford to dump that kind of money into a waterfront that already functions well. The latest economic downturn underscores the need to rethink priorities and dictates that one doesn't spend what one doesn't have. What does it say about our thinking when we choose to spend on flair projects while ignoring basic infrastructure and citizen needs? Aren't we in this mess precisely because our forebearers did this? "Put it off for another day" thinking is killing us. Let Hamilton build from the bottom up. Once we're flush with cash, and all other important needs have been met, we can splurge on the frills.

[Gay J Miller]

I agree wholeheartedly. Apparently we need to staff up the city with people who are looking forward and not behind. The only thing I would add is that some of that money could be spend to help small businesses succeed and to upgrade the downtown core. Just look around at all of the government owned buildings downtown that are boarded up - in plan view as someone who MIGHT invest in Hamilton or move their business in drives past them!
It would be shameful to spend 81.5 on a lovely waterfront when we need all of these things taken care of now.

[Sydney Hamber]

I think development of the West Harbour is an excellent idea.Right now it is a mixture of everything without any real direction. Residential, commercial, industrial.WELL planned residential & commercial development would bring it all together

However for the City to undertake this task is a really bad idea.
Land development is for developers and what the City must do is set it up so that developers can come in with a minimum of grief and aggravation to undertake the process. Let them raise the money and make the profits. The development will get done, Development Charges will pay for the infrastructure and everybody will be happy.

The City spending development money on the creation of permanent jobs makes far more sense for the future of this City than building high rise condos on the water.Bringing the airport lands in to the urban boundry will attract the types of jobs we need and the ones that will be generated in the future.

Heavy/medium/light industry is and always has been the foundation of private sector jobs in this City. Other than the odd pocket it can remain alive and well where it is along the Burlington Street corridor from Wellington Street to the east and on in to Stoney Creek.

[Ryan Cuthbert]

My wife and I are relatively new residents in Hamilton. We were struck with attractive real estate values and with some patience, the potential for revitalization of a fantastic downtown core (unique to communities located near Toronto).

This $81.5m harbourfront idea seems absurd. If the money is available (judging by our ridiculous property taxes I must assume the funds are available), I respectfully submit they get serious about scrubbing, polishing and revitalizing the core. How can it be that the Connaught still sits idle? Why not start with determining the costs of refurbishing such a historic facility and look to lease it out to a major Hotel operator or something along those lines. I'd much rather see government largesse applied to an area where business owners and operators may consider locating their businesses. It is a blight on our community to allow such a famous, beautiful and important building to sit and rot.

[Trevor Pettit]

Take about $5 million and get the best sales and marketing people out on the road, starting tomorrow, with the mission of bringing clean, green technology companies to Hamilton. A massive entourage of the best in the business to bring solar, wind and thermal to Hamilton. The opportunities are boundless.Plans like this are the bureaucracy rum amok, especially in these troubled economic times.
We need jobs and investment, not expenditures on dubious projects that the majority of the population will have no interest in.

[Margaret McCarthy, Councilllor, Ward 15, Hamilton]

In my view, the Waterfront Master plan should not have been approved by Council and I voted to reject it. After going through all the budget books before and after amalgamation I have a concern that this large financial expenditure had not been provided for and should not be approved.