In the wake of the hottest March in global records, there are growing provincial and municipal efforts to address the impacts of climate change, including a major McMaster symposium next week on how to respond to weather extremes in Ontario.

Hamilton’s decision to use fare hikes rather than taxes to pay for overcoming HSR deficiencies could further reduce ridership and runs counter to policies being followed by rapidly growing transit systems in other Ontario cities.

Downtown building fee exemptions cost the city over $11 million last year – more than ten times the usual cost of these growth subsidies and greater than the normal annual total across the entire city.

Toronto city councillors are challenging the safety of bitumen transport by both rail and pipeline, echoing similar concerns of Hamilton staff but advocating much stronger action.

Once again corporations and unions – especially those involved in construction and land development – were significant election donors for those elected to city council last fall.

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of February 2015.

There are numerous questions generated by the dozens of campaign financial statements filed last week by councillors and other candidates in last fall’s municipal election.

A battle is looming over whether to shrink or expand the sprawl-restricting provincial Greenbelt that is now into a mandatory ten-year public review.

“Everybody knows about it, people are experiencing it, but nobody wants to talk about it.” That’s how Robert Sandford described “the silence around the silence” on climate change when he spoke last week in Hamilton.

Reversing two earlier decisions, council has turned down a senior staff recommendation on how to deal with the impacts of extreme weather and other effects of climate change.

As the city slips further behind in the maintenance of existing roads and bridges, a growing portion of its budget is being dedicated to building new ones.

Last week’s settlement between the city and airport-area land owners could more than double the amount of foodland converted to urban uses since Hamilton politicians adopted a target of “no loss of agricultural land” more than two decades ago.

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of January 2015.

HSR riders will be forced to pay nearly all the cost for proposed transit improvements, continuing a quarter-century council tradition of refusing to use tax monies to fix transit.

Despite pressure from city officials and residents, there will be no shut-off valves installed to protect Hamilton streams and wetlands from possible oil or bitumen spills from Line 9.

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of December 2014, the first meetings since the October 27 municipal elections.

It would require an average $90 tax increase every year for the next decade just to stop the city’s infrastructure maintenance crisis from getting any worse.

Last week’s bus-only-lane debate included a threat by Sam Merulla to resurrect the sticky issue of area-rated transit taxes that council put off four years ago.

In closed session this week councillors endorsed a secret settlement offer from the two biggest aerotropolis landholding groups that could sacrifice more agricultural lands and substantially increase infrastructure spending.

Hiring two new staff to help Hamilton cope with extreme weather from climate change is included in the 2015 budget proposals of the city’s senior managers.