Where have you been?

WOW…

When I look at the date of the last post that question pops into my mind as well.  Where in the heck have you been?

First off, Im flattered people even noticed Ive been gone but theres been a lot going on.  My job has been crazy seeing how I have worked in consumer finance during these rough economic times (to say the least) and combine that with putting our house up for sale, conditional offer on another in Milton (in fact its only a few km’s away from where we live), Miranda’s “interesting” sleeping patterns and to top it all off I’ll be making a change in my career, its been litterally impossible to post anything.

Not to say there hasnt been anything of substance to post about in Milton because there has been.  Between the tax hike, million dollar glass walls for Miltons Town Hall, to transit issues, snow plows, municipal ward redistribution, expansion of the Milton Sports Centre and funding for an arts centre…theres plenty to gab about.

Looking through the Champion over the past several weeks its good to see that the million dollar wall and not gone unnoticed by the residents in Milton.  There have been letter after letter sent and published to let the councillors around the table know that this kind of expenditure was wrong.  Of course it will last forever and be a crown jewel in our new town hall.  It could have been done for less and should have given our current economic environment.  The people around the table are all well aware of the fact that “politics is perception”.  Its kind of like the Toronto City Council voting themselves a pay increase, say that its wrong that they do, then end up taking it anyways.  The perception is that they didnt want it, but didnt decline it either.

There have been many people in ward one who have sent me emails on how to complain about the snow plows that make their way through the streets after every major snow fall.  And there have been a few of those.  It has been pretty crazy with some streets getting plowed almost continoulsy while others going unchecked for days.  All I know is that once I finished shovelling my driveway nice and clean and gaze upon Yates Drive and the fact its been plowed nicely, I wake in the morning to see a 3 foot pile of snow now frozen at the base of my driveway.  That has lead to some issues with my car clunking over that ice pile for several weeks after.

Another issue with snow plows that has been raised is the sidewalk plows.  I really dont know how much they cost in the total budget but really…do we need  them?  In Hawthorne Village (ill get ready to duck the flying snow balls with this one) but we really dont need to have the sidewalk plow do every sidewalk.  Along Yates Drive and many other streets in Hawthorne Village people shovel their sidewalks.  The plow comes by (again late at night as we see the flashing lights gleem through our windows) and “plow” the sidewalk.  And by plow I mean push a whole bunch of new snow on top of the cleaned off sidewalk and little piles on snow deposited, then frozen, on each side of the side walk.

Im not the only one thinking this, Im just raising the issue.  I would prefer the plow misses my part of the sidewalk as its in worse condition after they come by than before.  Plus it makes some people a bit lazy and not shovel the walk as the plow will come do it, while our kids have to persevere through the growing mounds of snow and ice as they head to school on the coldest of cold mornings.

Thankfully most of the snow days are behind us, but I wouldnt hold my breath.  It does look nice outside without all the snow but this is Canada…more is on the way.

Food for thought at least so that our planning department can look at improving it from this year to next and hopefully no one will be stranded on their street or require several friends to push them to a major road before they can get anywhere.

And speaking of ward one, it probably wont be ward one once the next municipal election comes in 2010 as council is now reviewing the new report  to see what changes are going to be made and where the boundaries are going to be and if its going to be one or two councillors per ward.  Changing the number of councillors around the table isnt up for change thankfully.  Right now we dont need anymore but we do need to change some.

The report is due for review on March 23, 2009 at a committee meeting in town hall for public input.  Right now any change would be good, but if any changes are made it has to take into consideration the potential population growth and the Region of Halton’s potential changes as well.  Some have said to leave it alone until after the Region makes its  changes in 2014 but it looks like they will be going to be making the changes anyway.  There are 3 different options at the municipal level where the ward boundaries change and we stay with the 2 councillors per ward and the other is a one councillor per ward  and 8 different smaller and more manageable wards. 

Here is the link to the maps and each of the different options and how you will be affected.

There are so many other issues to talk about but I think I need to ease back into this blog slowly but surely.  Thanks to everyone for their emails and Facebook pokes and add’s reminding me to get started again.

Until then…