economic development

Friday August 28, 2015

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator - Friday August 28, 2015 Exile on Ottawa Street: BIA battleground bubbles over Business owners on Ottawa Street are calling for the resignation of their BIA board members after a heated meeting Wednesday morning dissolved into a yelling match. The conflict is leading Coun. Matt Green Ñ who owned a business on Ottawa Street before being elected as a city councillor Ñ to call for a sweeping review of the governance structures, hiring practices, and codes of conduct for all business improvement areas across the city. Business owners and the BIA board met Wednesday to discuss the so-called "exile list," a document that emerged Monday and listed 11 businesses. A BIA employee reported that they were instructed to avoid contact with businesses on that list, take their calls, promote or include them. BIA chair Nancy Leo said the list was simply a reminder to staff that incident reports needed be written up about those 11 establishments. She said she initially understood the list to be an "Excel list" Ñ referring to the computer program Ñ that outlined which businesses the board planned to file incident reports on. "It wasn't an exile list. I found out about that word 'exile' in an email on Sunday afternoon," Leo said. Leo refused to discuss what the incidents entailed for legal reasons, despite being given permission from several business owners to discuss exactly what "incidents" led to their names ending up on the list. She did explain that several food trucks were on the list because they didn't meet their agreement to serve food on Ottawa Street during the Pan Am Games. The meeting, which saw business owners and BIA board members yelling at each other and hurling accusations back and forth, didn't satisfy business owners. While Leo was speaking, several meeting attendees shouted at the board to "tell the truth" and "stop spinning stories." (Source: Hamilton Spectator) http://www.thespec.com/news-stor

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 28, 2015

Exile on Ottawa Street: BIA battleground bubbles over

Business owners on Ottawa Street are calling for the resignation of their BIA board members after a heated meeting Wednesday morning dissolved into a yelling match.

The conflict is leading Coun. Matt Green — who owned a business on Ottawa Street before being elected as a city councillor — to call for a sweeping review of the governance structures, hiring practices, and codes of conduct for all business improvement areas across the city.

Business owners and the BIA board met Wednesday to discuss the so-called “exile list,” a document that emerged Monday and listed 11 businesses. A BIA employee reported that they were instructed to avoid contact with businesses on that list, take their calls, promote or include them.

BIA chair Nancy Leo said the list was simply a reminder to staff that incident reports needed be written up about those 11 establishments. She said she initially understood the list to be an “Excel list” — referring to the computer program — that outlined which businesses the board planned to file incident reports on.

“It wasn’t an exile list. I found out about that word ‘exile’ in an email on Sunday afternoon,” Leo said.

Leo refused to discuss what the incidents entailed for legal reasons, despite being given permission from several business owners to discuss exactly what “incidents” led to their names ending up on the list. She did explain that several food trucks were on the list because they didn’t meet their agreement to serve food on Ottawa Street during the Pan Am Games.

The meeting, which saw business owners and BIA board members yelling at each other and hurling accusations back and forth, didn’t satisfy business owners. While Leo was speaking, several meeting attendees shouted at the board to “tell the truth” and “stop spinning stories.” (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

 

May 6, 2009

There’s been a big deal made by my paper about the lack of politicians who’ve accepted invitations to attend the second annual summit of what’s been dubbed the Hamilton Economic Summit. Editors here have decried the fact that only one area Parliamentarian (Sophia Aggelonitis, MPP) will be there, and that half of the city’s Councillors will be doing other stuff, like flipping burgers for charity (ie: Maria Pearson).

Other commentators, namely, Raise the Hammer, have sided with Councillor Sam Merulla’s reason for not attending because of costs and the fact that it’s hosted by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, which he calls a “lobby group” which along with the invited participants only represents the old-boy ivory tower corporate types.

I think there’s some validity to the arguments made by both sides, but in my view, as the cartoon suggests, another day of earnest chit chat about economic development in Hamilton in the midst of a recession is simply naval gazing. There’ll be hand shakes, platitudes, and back pats amongst the heavy wafts of after shave cologne as the usual suspects of the city’s movers and shakers class bather over finger foods and zone out during predictable presentations. There’ll be little acknowledgment that when it comes to economic development hardly any of it would be possible were it not for us being a chronic municipal welfare recipient of higher levels of government.

Meanwhile, something much more sensational than charting economic frameworks, and other eye glazing wishful promises set to be declared by this group, will emerge with the latest news that Jim Balsillie is once again trying to salvage a bankrupt southern U.S. NHL franchise and move it closer to this city.

If there’s any legs to this story, the economic development that could potentially come to this city from an NHL team will be way more than whatever the usual suspects of Hamilton’s brain trust come up with at the end of today.