The Post on Hazel McCallion

[ganjavih]

I don't know about "Civic Genius" as the front page says, but here's the article anyway...

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Hazel McCallion: She'll be the mayor of Mississauga until she's dead. Or possibly longer.

 

[FutureMayor]

I've known Hazel personally for 10 years of my life and there is no doubt she is a "civic genius".

She is a good friend and mentor. I wish her good health and many more years as Mayor of the great city of Mississauga.

Louroz

 

[SD2]

The length of her term as mayor and her service are impressive...I'd stop short of calling her a genius though. The article states one reason why:

As Mississauga exploded from a city of just under 300,000 when she was elected to Canada's sixth largest city with more than 700,000 residents today, it became enveloped in expensive-to-service urban sprawl.

McCallion is now scrambling to correct the problem with a focus on smart growth and public transit. She chaired the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel, which produced a final report in April, 2003.

While she certainly isn't beyond criticism, she definitely deserves a lot of praise.

 

[ahrvojic]

That and the decades-old boast of a debt-free city. I think Hume said it best recently: you get what you pay for.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Whoever comes after Hazel will be the ones to clean up her mess. The best is yet to come.

AoD

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"As Mississauga exploded from a city of just under 300,000 when she was elected to Canada's sixth largest city with more than 700,000 residents today, it became enveloped in expensive-to-service urban sprawl."

As if the city would have turned out any different, physically, had someone else been mayor during this period.

 

[ahrvojic]

Asked about a possible subway extension into Mississauga, she offered a five-minute briefing on the city's other rapid transit plans, but didn't mince words about a subway: It was too expensive to ever happen.

Never is a long time

Be it a subway, S-bahn, or whatever, Mississauga can't get rapid transit soon enough and her resistance to properly linking up with the TTC over the last 30 years is frustrating to say the least. Then again, I'm not even that old so maybe I'm missing something?

 

[Observer Walt]

People around Miss. love her, and with good reason. The city has been well managed. As for the physical form of the city, it developed during the 70s and 80s as most other places did. Hazel is one of the few who reversed direction more recently and acknowledged that the old thinking couldn't continue. The results of that are already showing in Mississauga. There is no other municipality outside Toronto that is doing this (with all respect to Markham who are trying, and I wish them the best).

 

[SD2]

People around Miss. love her, and with good reason. The city has been well managed.

Has it? It's easy to remain debt free when you can keep selling off land to developers and allow them to do pretty much whatever they want with it...

 

[FutureMayor]

Has it? It's easy to remain debt free when you can keep selling off land to developers and allow them to do pretty much whatever they want with it...

Actually, no, this is where Hazel and Mississauga became smart.

The philosophy of the city of Mississauga is that development must pay for itself and not on the backs of existing taxpayers.

Land wasn't given away to developers for free, it came with a huge price tag. Mississauga not only demanded money up front for new city services, it also wanted the money for the reserve fund to pay for future costs associated with those new services.

Louroz

 

[Ontarian1976]

"expensive-to-service urban sprawl"

That's a gross exaggeration. Were it true, Mississauga would have a huge debt, and Toronto would have a huge surplus, not the other way around.

 

[interchange42]

Ontarian, you should have been at John Sewell's lectures at the Gladstone in February. One of the things we learned, amongst others, was how Ontario taxpayers essentially footed the bill for servicing Mississauga and much of the rest of the 905, especially in terms of the water systems and freeways. Toronto, on the other hand, had to pay for its sewers and half its freeways on its own. It's all coming out in Sewell's next book, so you'll be able to read all about it sometime.

42

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Ontarian:

Uh, right now, you are dealing with relatively new infrastructure in the city and a socioeconomic profile that has fewer citizens in need. Wait 30 years and tell me how that'd change.

Incidentally, all the former 416 suburban municipalities were also rather fiscally healthy during their boom years.

AoD

 

[FutureMayor]

Incidentally, all the former 416 suburban municipalities were also rather fiscally healthy during their boom years.

Sure, but it comes down to what you do with youself during those boom years.

Mississauga took the path of debt repayment and building reserves during the boom years. It had a long term financial strategic vision, which many 416 municipalities did not and currently 905 municipalities do not have.

That's the Mississauga and Hazel McCallion difference.

Louroz

 

[SD2]

Land wasn't given away to developers for free, it came with a huge price tag. Mississauga not only demanded money up front for new city services, it also wanted the money for the reserve fund to pay for future costs associated with those new services.

I know, and that's my point. I wasn't implying that land was given to free for developers, but rather that it is a lot easier to remain debt-free when you have developers footing the bill.

The problem is, the sprawling development you see in much of the city is something that now has to be dealt with...and it won't be cheap.

Debt free? Yes. Well designed city? No. McCallion has even admitted her mistakes as far as planning goes.