Michael Pattison

Wednesday October 19, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 19, 2022

Hamilton’s mayoral candidates

2014 Mayoral Race

There are a lot of differences among the nine people running for mayor of Hamilton. But many of them have things in common — an interest in changing housing, infrastructure, and the culture at city hall. And while some of these ideas may sound familiar to voters, others aren’t even within the mayor’s power to enact, falling under provincial or federal jurisdiction. (CBC)

 

Saturday October 1, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 1, 2022

Hamilton mayoral candidates Horwath, Loomis trade barbs on debate stage

With less than a month before Hamilton chooses its next mayor, two main contenders have slugged it out on the debate stage while coronavirus sidelined a third.

September 17, 2022

Candidates Andrea Horwath and Keanin Loomis traded blows during a 90-minute televised debate, presented by Cable 14 and The Spectator, at the Westdale theatre Tuesday night ahead of the Oct. 24 election.

With rival Bob Bratina at home with COVID-19, the two hopefuls trumpeted their leadership qualities and challenged each other’s ability to lead the city.

Horwath aimed to burnish her image as a lifelong hometown fighter and a seasoned political veteran with knowledge of the inner workings of government.

“I really do have a handle on what this city’s all about and I really do believe that we have our best days ahead of us as a city,” the former Ontario NDP leader said in her opening pitch.

Loomis, meanwhile, drew on his business acumen, noting after 13 years in Hamilton, he’d stepped down from his post as local chamber of commerce leader in January to spark change.

Hamilton has progressed in recent years, but most of those strides have been “in spite of our leadership at city hall” and electing more “career politicians” isn’t the answer, he said.

June 22, 2022

“More of the same will only lead to more of the same and we cannot afford that. Their partisan baggage will only hold us back.”

Bratina, Horwath and Loomis are all running with platforms that promise change with Fred Eisenberger, a three-time mayor, exiting local politics at the end of this term.

Horwath, 59, and Loomis, 47, are relatively like-minded on a number of big-ticket items, including their enthusiasm for Hamilton’s future LRT line.

Both also agree with council’s decision to hold Hamilton’s urban boundary firm — in spite of pushback from Queen’s Park — to avoid sprawl into outlying farmland.

March 30, 2022

They thread the needle on police budgets, dismissing advocacy to cut budgets, but vouching for more resources of social and health services to aid on crisis calls.

On the same topic, Bratina, a 78-year-old former Liberal MP and mayor, hammered home his support for beefing up the police in a recorded Zoom call submitted to Cable 14.

“Our streets are unsafe due to violent crime and reckless driving and women are nervous about going out at night,” he said.

April 27, 2022

Horwath, who entered political life as a city councillor before becoming MPP and then Opposition leader, assured viewers her adversarial relationship with Premier Doug Ford wouldn’t hinder Hamilton’s chances of landing provincial funding.

“Absolutely not,” she said, adding Ford doesn’t bear a grudge over her party role in the Ontario legislature and, in fact, “sent a very positive, affirming note” after she announced her candidacy.

Loomis said the premier would take his calls, but not Horwath’s, arguing “there’s no expectation that they will be able to work together in the future.”

But Horwath, calling her rival’s take “really naive,” likened dust-ups in the legislature to pickup hockey games between “buddies” who later go for beers.

Loomis, focusing on his opponent’s erstwhile job as Hamilton Centre MPP, contended constituents who helped re-elect her in the June provincial vote were “upset” over her resignation to run municipally and had a “valid perspective.”

“My question is have you considered how this would cause people to lose trust with you?”

That’s a “gotcha type of politics” that resembles “U.S.-style” electioneering, responded Horwath, who asked whether Loomis, a lawyer who moved to Hamilton from the United States, planned to keep his American citizenship.

“OK, you seem pretty adept at U.S. politics yourself,” he fired back, before asking her to address “a lot of talk” of her “running for mayor as you were running for premier.” (The Hamilton Spectator)

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

 

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Saturday, October 25, 2014Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, October 25, 2014

Rising to the challenge: Gondolas belong in Hamilton

(Written by Joseph Sneep) Gondolas, a form of cable-propelled transit perhaps more usually associated with ski resorts, are not a practical addition to every city’s public transportation arsenal. In Hamilton, however, they are an ideal solution to that particular obstacle to urban mobility with which our city has always had to contend: the escarpment.

Last August, at a forum hosted at the Art Gallery of Hamilton called People First City Building: Focus on Sustainable Mobility, this idea received plenty of attention, and with good reason. Since then, interest seems to have waned.

However, with the beginning of the mayoral race in January, public transit will once again become a hot topic in municipal election debates, so I now want to present the case for gondolas as a valuable component worth integrating into any proposed future developments in Hamilton’s transit infrastructure. Whether our considerations be economic, environmental or even cultural, gondolas belong in Hamilton.

Michael McDaniel from Frog (an international innovation and design firm), the man behind a proposal for installing a system of gondolas in Austin, Texas, has calculated construction costs of gondola lines to be around $3 million to $12 million US per mile; this versus $36 million for light rail lines, and $400 million for subways

Considering Hamilton’s escarpment is about 100 metres tall at the three proposed light rail lines going up the escarpment (i.e., the A, S, and T lines of Hamilton’s LRT plan), the math reveals an estimated savings of at least $4.9 million. That alone should get everyone in the city thinking more seriously about cable propelled transit.

A gondola line travels at about 16 km/h, and can move between 6,000 and 8,000 people per hour per direction. According to projected 2031 ridership numbers from Hamilton’s LRT plan, this is more than enough capacity for lots of growth, which means gondola lines will not require any major expensive overhauls to accommodate future increase in usage: they would be a one-time cost.

And, unlike buses and trains, gondolas do not require an operator for every vehicle in service: the city would basically only have to pay one operator per gondola line running. Considering how many people a gondola line can move in a day, that’s great bang for our buck.

Hamilton Mayoral RaceGondolas would also significantly reduce day-to-day maintenance costs of Hamilton’s public transit system. Trains and buses were originally designed for use in flat environments where most of their work would be horizontal transportation, and that’s where they remain most effective. So it’s easy to see how the presence of the escarpment implies costly increases in the upkeep of these conventional forms of transportation: hauling all those passengers up and down so many times every day means that engine and braking systems of any light rail train or conventional city bus will fatigue much faster than those of vehicles travelling in flatter cities.

(Continued: Hamilton Spectator)

Freelance writer Joseph Sneep is working on a collection of short stories inspired by his upbringing in Hamilton. He prides himself more on this urban apprenticeship than his recently acquired MA in philosophy.