In case you haven’t heard, Minister of Health Deb Mathews today approved a 320,000 sq. ft. expansion of the Milton District Hospital.  Great news!  The surgical department will expand by 70%.  Full 80% of beds will be in private rooms.  Basically the hospital will triple in size and will include a lot of new equipment, including new MRI machine. 

I posted a message on my facebook page about Layton’s untimely death, calling it a great loss for the country.  Someone asked “why?”  

In this modern era of politics based on personal attacks, many people judge politicians without knowing anything about them.  Most people don’t know that Jack Layton was a doctor of political science (aka, PhD) and a former professor at the Ryerson University.  Or that Layton was the former president of FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities) and relentlessly fought for property taxpayers.  Or that Layton asked his party workers to not call Conservatives evil. 

I must admit, I always found it silly how he talked about taking his fourth-place party into government.  Joke was on me as his optimism actually won when he led his party to 100+ seats in the Parliament.  It was no accident, in a time of endless cynicism and negative attacks, Canadians rewarded Layton for his warmth and positiveness. 

Democracy works best when people with opposing ideas bring their views to the table.  I fear that with his death we may lose that energy and revert back to the “everyone who doesn’t agree with me is evil” days. That would be a huge loss for Canada and its democracy.  Take it from someone who’s never voted for Layton, he was a good man who loved his country. 

Hope you’re enjoying your summer and are wishing for a much-needed rain :).  As promised, here’s a short summary of what’s happened in Q2 of this year (details on local update, applications from developers, road projects, Sports Centre).  If you’d like to receive these by email once a quarter then please send me your e-mail address. Thanks.

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Alright, so I am going to do something ridiculous. I need to, since I’ve gained ridiculous amount of weight (and worse, waist size).  My cholesterol was scary before all this weight gain, I have no idea what it is now.  Most males on my dad’s side got diabetes in their 30s, so I need to get this under control.

Here’s the deal: I’ll post my morning weight and waist size every week on my Facebook page.  My goal is to lose 27 lbs. in 3 months.  If you’re on Facebook then head over here to keep track of these weight postings.  Motivate.  Ridicule.  Encourage.  Do what you can to help.   

In addition, I’ll get my cholesterol tested in mid-September and then again after I’ve hit my goal of 169 lbs. (it’ll put me at a reasonable 22.9 BMI)

Here’s the summary:

Starting weight: 196 lbs
Starting waist: 38”
Goal: 169* lbs. by end of October

(I was going to post a picture so I could have a “before” and “after”, but I’ll let you imagine what a 38” waist looks like.  I am told I do a good job hiding it though). 

NOTE: This is a cross-post from my Management and Leadership Blog.  I am cross-posting it here because I think some readers here may find it useful as well.

I recently read the following quote from Seth Godin’s book Tribes, and it stuck me :-

The easiest thing is to react.  The second easiest thing is to respond.  But the  hardest thing is to initiate.

And this from his blog post from November 2008 :-

The largest enemy of change and leadership isn’t a "no." It’s a "not yet." "Not yet" is the safest, easiest way to forestall change.

I couldn’t agree more.  “Not yet” is the coward’s way of maintaining status quo.  It’s like saying “I can’t think of sound arguments in favour of status quo, so I’ll put off the inevitable discussion by arguing “not yet”.   

More than ten million people in Arica are facing severe drought. Worse, many people live in countries plagued with conflict. Somalia is already the most dangerous country to be in (worse than Iraq and Afghanistan).  The famine is only making the situation worse. 

I know you and I cannot do much about conflict, food prices or weather, but we can lend a helping hand.  Red Cross and Red Crescent are both active in the region.  You can donate via the Red Cross website. 

I am organizing an informal 2012 budget input session with my colleagues Councillors Barkley, Cluett and Di Lorenzo*.  We hope this will be first of several informal sessions where we (councillors) will do less talking and more listening.  

The meeting will be in Room 4 of the Milton Sports Centre on Monday July 1th, 2011 starting at 7:00pm.  Hope to see you there. 

* – Just so it’s clear, we are doing it together because our wards include most of new parts of urban Milton.  Other councillors either plan to attend or will do their own.

The Council recently approved traffic calming policy.  Residents can request traffic calming for their street, but there are involved steps for that.  Here’s what one needs to do (these are very brief summary.  Full details are online in the Traffic Calming Policy document)  :-

Step 1:  Submit a written request (e-mails are not accepted)
Step 2: Town screens whether that section of the street meets criteria (> 500 Annual Average Daily Traffic, 50km/hr or less limit etc.)
Step 3: Resident is expect to petition households with direct frontage onto the section of the roadway that has been identified as the location for potential implementation of traffic calming measures.  51% of signatures from households is required (each household is represented by one signature, regardless of how many people live in it).
Step 4: Staff will undertake traffic calming investigation. 

These steps are very involved.  Please read the the Traffic Calming Policy document before submitting a request so you know exactly what’s involved.  It’s important to make sure one’s committed before submitting a request. 

I know of a few residents who’ve successfully gone through similar petition to request 15-hour parking on their streets.  Once we get to the petition stage you can ask your local councillor if they are willing to help. They are all fairly comfortable going door-to-door.  For ward 8, count me in. 

Transit continues to see a rapid rise in ridership.  These numbers are for revenue-paying passenger trips, not including transfers:

May 2010 – 9,177
May 2011 – 18,733 (104% increase)

Looking at first 5 months of this year, Milton’s tiny transit system provided 48,354 trips in 2010 but 86,931 trips in 2011.  That’s an  80% increase!  And Milton Transit did it without increasing the net budget.  

Right now we’re taking 800 cars off roads every weekday in Milton.  Most of these cars would end up on same tired roads (Derry Rd and Main Street). 

In last month’s budget survey, 69.4% of respondents wanted us to maintain or increase transit in Milton.  Only 18.8% requested a cut in the transit budget (11.8% were undecided).  It’s rare in a community to have nearly 70% support transit and it’s unheard of to see 80% increase in passenger trips. 

A vast majority of comments were constructive and helpful.  Some are sort of questions and some are funny.  I’ll try to answer just those :-

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Remember that budget survey I shared a couple of weeks ago that Town of Milton was running?  Well, results are out.  I just went through 180+ written comments.  Here’s the summary :-

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Mattamy Homes is proposing to construct 106 3-storey townhouses and village homes at the south-east corner of Tremaine / Derry, just west of the Fire Station.

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The Town of Milton is asking members of the community to provide input on the Town’s 2012 annual budget.  The survey barely took 5 minutes.  It’s online and you can do it right now.  Your input will be used to craft the next budget.

Click here to go directly to the survey.

All day transit service on Scott Blvd (through Harrison and Scott neighbourhoods) is very close to being a done-deal.  Expected service start date: September 2011.  That’s a two-year fight coming to conclusion. 

I would’ve loved to see it started in summer, but there are some issues to be worked out to make sure the service change gives us an all-day service while saving taxpayer money (it’s what I call a win-win).

More details will follow when it goes to the council for approval with other transit items, likely in August. 

First opportunity to give staff input on the 2012 budget process is this Monday at 7pm. 

Milton residents are invited to provide public comments on the 2012 Town Budget in regards to programs, service levels and priorities. Town staff will be conducting a presentation at the start of the meeting to introduce the budget process.

If you’d like to provide input please register as a delegation. You can do so online at the town’s website (www.milton.ca) or by picking up the forms at the Clerks Office (Town Hall West, 150 Mary Street). If you’d like to provide input please submit your forms before 10 am on May 30th.

The meeting starts at 7pm on Monday (May 30th) in the Council Chambers, Town Hall West, 150 Mary street.

I’d encourage you to attend the council meeting and give some direction.  Would you like to see certain services cut and taxes reduced?  Would you like to see an improved transit system?  A library / dog park / whatever in the west end?  Weekend transit?  Less transit?  Larger parks?  More smaller parks?  Are we spending too much money on some things and not enough in others?  Please tell us!