City spending is on unsustainable path

re: State of the city address

Hamilton city council has a spending problem, no doubt about it. More telling is the amount of accumulated debt, which is $355 million for 2011, and will be $745 million for 2012 and will reach $1,042 billion by 2020.

This is unsustainable, given our shrinking property tax base. This year, over 14,000 Hamiltonians are collecting social service payments and another 14,000 are collecting ODSP. This too, is unsustainable.

On top of all this, council is still in the entertainment business, that cost property tax payers millions to bail out this year, due to mistakes made by the brain trust charged with running the three entities that make up HECFI.

Obviously this is not sustainable, no matter how much tax money is poured down a black hole. Even the city council live feed hardly ever works properly, despite the vast improvements in technology we have grown used to over the last 10 years.

Having lived in Hamilton most of my adult life, I can honestly say I’m not impressed with this council, compared to all the other I have observed over the years. Hopefully other fed up taxpayers have long memories and will say so at the ballot box in 2014.

Mark-Alan Whittle
Hamilton Mountain

Put money back: City’s in cash crisis

We’re a no-go for Games velo; Council’s spending cap not enough (Oct. 12)

Now that Hamilton city council has not been awarded the velodrome project for the 2015 Pan Am Games, I can only hope the $5 million set aside for the project will be returned to the Future Fund from whence it came.

Ditto for any cash as a result of selling toxic west harbour lands on the open market, as $10 million was expended buying out homeowners, thereby forcing them to move. In hindsight, this was a big mistake, given the facts of today.

Meanwhile our deficit going into 2012 is $35 million and the accumulated debt will double to $600 million by the end of the year. Hamilton has an elephant in the room nobody on council will admit exists. We have a spending problem.

Mark-Alan Whittle, Hamilton

Mandatory treatment saves lives

re: Crack pipe distribution

Hamilton Police operate on zero tolerance for crack cocaine. In the first six months of 2011, they arrested 101 individuals for possession of crack cocaine and 58 drug dealers for trafficking, and laid a total of 637 drug-related charges.
Judges have to start committing crack addicts to mandatory treatment as part of their sentence.
This will save lives, instead of enabling the suffering and destruction of a human being who is hooked on crack cocaine.

Mark-Alan Whittle
Hamilton Mountain