Earlier this week Mayor Gordon Krantz announced that he’d seek re-election.  Two days ago on hawthorne villager a long-time Milton resident, Marshall Horner, threw in his name as a Ward 7 candidate for the local council.  He plans to announce his platform and more background information after he is nominated on Jan 4th.  For now he said: “If I am elected, I will stay in touch with my constituents and, any other resident of Milton who asks for my help.” 

Stay tuned.

It’s not their views on policies as much as their principles (see here for the difference).  More importantly, a councillor needs to listen to his or her constituents and represent their interests in the Council.  An inaccessible councillor cannot possibly be a good representative. Unfortunately, we have a couple of these in Milton. 

Encouraged by Jan Mowbray, Mike Cluett and Jennifer Brooks at the Rurban Fringe (here and here), I have spent a few weeks shopping almost exclusively in Milton.  I even bought clothes and shoes in Milton.  I also went just a little out of my way to buy Canadian-made products, instead of imports (provided that the quality was same or better and the price was in the same range approximately).

I live in Milton, I work in Milton and now I shop exclusively in Milton as well, buying Canadian as much as I can.  Feels good!  Try it.

http://www.miltoncanadianchampion.com/opinions/article/290502

DEAR EDITOR:

A few months ago I found myself really frustrated at the pace of construction on Derry Road.

As a result, I started petitioning the Region of Halton to expedite the construction of the CN Rail underpass between Bronte Road and Scott Boulevard on Derry Road. I set up a website to reach residents who wanted to e-mail their councillors to express frustration over the Region’s infrastructure plans. When I finally took the petition off-line last week, a total of 374 residents had sent e-mails via my website at http://zhamid.ca .

I’m happy to report that regional council passed the budget December 16, allocating $2.4 million for the design work to be done in 2010. The construction, subject to the future council’s vote, can start in 2012 and will take 18 months to complete. This means we may get an underpass on Derry four years sooner than it was originally planned. I would like to thank all 374 people who signed the petition. I would also like to thank Halton’s public works department staff for including the design work in the 2010 budget, Regional Councillor Colin Best for championing it, Halton Regional Chair Gary Carr for supporting it, regional council for passing it and the Champion for covering it.

The subdivisions west of the rail tracks are completely cut off. I shudder to think what would happen if there were a medical emergency and an ambulance got stuck waiting for the train to pass.

Let’s hope that we never have to find out.

ZEESHAN HAMID, MILTON

Here is a depressing news related to my previous post on retirement saving.  An RBC survey found that only 35% of Canadians will contribute to RRSP in 2009.  Worse, 45% of those above 55 are not doing any retirement planning whatsoever.  Worse yet, 32% of Canadians have not even started saving for retirement yet.

It’s the realm of Federal (or at least Provincial) government but I am a big fan of some forced savings in this case (CPP and Old Age won’t cut it). 

Vieux-Québec has done a great job maintaining its unique character.  Can Milton do something to achieve same level of success? 

Milton still has a lot of growth left.  As many new neighbourhoods get created, town planners have an opportunity to define the character of the entire future city.  What can Milton do to achieve a more European-esque look and feel? 

Essentially look at the main historic downtown and think about ways to achieve the same feel, likely via townhomes and 3-4 storey condos, on all arterial roads like Britannia, Loius St. Laurent, James Snow (it’s too late for Derry, unfortunately). 

It’s coming to Milton tomorrow!  It should be at Main and Bronte at 8:30sh.  It’ll make its way through downtown and arrive at James Snow by 9:10sh.  More info here.

Please ignore the missing filename error.

This eyesore is in Mississauga near my parents’ house in an otherwise low-rise neighbourhood.  How is this aesthetically pleasing. 

When dragons were rejecting the Milton family, I felt rejected. I’ve never met the family, but I suppose it was the Milton-bond. I was yelling at my TV, telling the dragons they were dumb to let that deal go!

http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/pitches/cosy-soles.html

Based on Halton’s experience, it will cost around $30,000 in yearly operating expenses to “web stream” Council meetings (thanks Tim for pointing it out).  That means we’ll be able to watch council meetings, live, from the comfort of our homes. 

To put it in perspective, $30,000 represents 0.04% of Milton’s operating budget (basically a rounding error). 

Worth it?  Totally!  Milton needs to get more involved in Social Networking anyway. This is a great way to start.

Correction: The actual mill rate increase is 1.3%.  That’s because the properties are assessed at a higher rate.  End result for us homeowners is same.  3.24% increase on a $350,000 house or a 1.3% increase on a house that’s assessed much higher. 
Milton had a budget meeting last night. I wasn’t able to make it (I e-mailed my comments to different councillors), but Mike Cluett was there, sending play-by-play. 

If I understand it correctly (will edit it as details become clearer), then the extension of Louis St Laurent to Tremaine is added in the 2010 Capital Budget.  I couldn’t be more excited.  Scott neighbourhood (HVE) is completely grid-locked with construction on Derry and Tremaine.  Another exit off the community will help a great deal.  Since it’s part of the Capital Budget, the money comes from developers.

In addition, the Transit budget got approved as well. That is another good news, because now Scott can get an express bus service.

All-in-all, it came down to a 3.24% increase in Mill Rate, a major part of which will go towards increases in staff salaries (personally, I think it’s insane to give salary increases in this climate, but what do I know).  Someone should tell them that there’s a bad recession out there.  3.24% translates to $8.39 for every $100,000 in assessment.  For a $350,000 house, it means an increase of about $30 / year, or just under $2.50 per month. 

Those two things on corners are USB slots.  I am going to replace most of my home power outlets with this one. 

I know it has nothing to do with Milton or politics but every now-and-then a product comes along that’s so worthy of sharing that it doesn’t matter. 

Click here to go to their website.  No, I am not affiliated with it at all. 

1% of Milton’s operating budget property taxes is spent on operating and maintaining street lights (another way of saying that out of $1 paid in property taxes to the Town, 1¢ goes towards the operating cost of street lights). 

Is it just me does Milton have a lot of them in some places?  Thompson between the Metro plaza and Derry is lit like a Christmas tree.  Are all these lights really needed?  On some spots 3 lights in a row are blown out and there’s no visible reduction in illumination, that’s how many lights they have.  I’ll take a picture and will post it here. 

Does anyone else feel the same?  Does your town bombard streets with way too many lights?