There are very few things that come close to the entertainment value provided by the "City of Hamilton Knights of the Round Table"....as they try to come to a consensus on anything...let alone something of the size of the Pan Am stadium.  After all, we have known about the need for a Stadium location for a long time. They also knew that the TiCats were not interested in the West Harbour...and wouldn't be part of the equation there.

Now...a couple days after the last deadline, it would appear that the Stadium is going to be built in the Longwood/Aberdeen McMaster Innovation Park area. THIS IS A GREAT LOCATION! It's out of the way...walking distance for all of the students from McMaster University...fantastic highway access and doesn't require expropriation of homes.

Councilor McHattie...who happened to support the West Harbour stadium...a proposal that could have had a very negative impact on the property owners in the Bay area because of narrow streets, small lot frontages and limited parking, is now opposing the Longwood/Aberdeen area, a place right off of a 400 series highway...where no one lives.

This is the problem with our current City Councilors. The Not In My Backyard attitude. Ward 1 is huge. It encompasses McMaster University up to the escarpment, over to Queen Street and down to the Bay. It is home to thriving commercial areas. Westdale proper, Locke Street and Dundurn Street to name a few. How can we have any forward movement in this City when we have Councilors not willing to view things in a balanced, logical and caring fashion? Councilor McHattie would rather see a hundred or so homes be devalued in another Ward, putting them under seige everytime there's a stadium event, rather than support a Stadium built on Industrial land with 4 lane roads all around it and great highway access in his Ward? I don't believe that his reaction and resulting vote would truly represent his constituents.

McHattie doesn't have to worry about his job too much...as of right now there's no one running against him in Ward 1, but perhaps he may have thought that his vote was a way to gain support in the upcoming election just in case he found himself in a race. I think that many of his constituents wouldn't agree with his vote and will view it as being very weak. There's a good chance he will be acclaimed in Ward 1...the stadium will go in...and by the next election...he'll look like a saint! That's Hamilton politics!!!!