The city is continuing to approve conversions of apartments to privately-owned condominiums despite diminished tax revenues from these properties and plunging rental vacancy rates. 

After more than a decade, the secret meetings between the city and the Hamilton Halton Home Builders Association are being replaced by gatherings that will be open to the public. 

Enbridge is assuring city staff that shutoff valves are not necessary to protect Hamilton’s largest stream, but has made no response to concerns about nationally significant wetlands crossed by the 40-year-old pipeline in which the company wants to expand capacity and transport diluted bitumen.

The majority of car trips in Hamilton could be replaced easily by bicycles or even walking but that isn’t likely to occur until the city provides more complete streets argue alternative transportation advocates.

The new city council inherits the slowest growing transit system in the province which has recorded drops in ridership in four of the last seven years. 

Along with three First Nations, the city has formally weighed in with the National Energy Board seeking protection of waterways and wetlands in the path of Enbridge’s Line 9 bitumen pipeline. 

With no one on the new council able to claim that even one third of their constituents actually voted for them (see table below), there is increased pressure for substantially more public consultation.

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

City staff are promising to intervene in the dispute between Enbridge and the National Energy Board over how to protect Hamilton waterways vulnerable to the controversial 39-year-old Line 9 pipeline that the company wants to expand and use to transport unrefined bitumen.

The battle lines are being drawn for phase three of the aerotropolis hearings before the Ontario Municipal Board and the outcome could result in a much larger loss of agricultural land than the 555 net hectares (695 gross hectares) approved for industrial development last year. 

The admission that “limited pipeline access” is adding to the financial challenges of tar sands extraction, plus a visit from the leader of the global effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, are giving new hope to Hamiltonians concerned about climate change who have stepped up their campaign for fossil fuel divestment.

The exclusion from shutoff valve protection of all of Hamilton’s streams crossed by Line 9 as well as many others along the cross-province route is being condemned by the National Energy Board (NEB). 

As new promises emerge from the three leading candidates for mayor, we continue to examine the actual voting records of Brad Clark, Fred Eisenberger and Brian McHattie. 

The three front runners to be Hamilton’s next mayor – Fred Eisenberger, Brad Clark and Brian McHattie – were all elected decision-makers during the 2006-2010 term of city council. 

Improvements to HSR service, including support for a provincially-funded light rail transit (LRT) system, have emerged as key promises in the mayoralty race. 

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of August 2014. 

Residents on both sides of the bay are participating in next weekend’s global push for serious government action on climate change, while city staff warn councillors that Hamilton is unprepared for extreme rainfalls like the one that clobbered Burlington last month.

For the first time in a decade, all of Hamilton’s perceived leading mayoralty candidates are accepting corporate and union donations to finance their campaigns.

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of July 2014.

Observers are not allowed at monthly meetings that have been going on for more than a decade between the city and a developers’ lobby group.