Two votes for mom

We’re 18 days out from 2024. While that marks the midway point between Hamilton’s 2022 and 2026 municipal elections, it also marks a major centennial in the city’s history.

One hundred years ago - in 1924 - Hamilton had two municipal elections. The city’s first municipal election of 1924 was held around the same time elections had been held since the city’s first in 1847. For 77 years, Hamiltonians had gone to the polls to elect a new council within the first week of the new year. Nominations would start some time around Christmas Eve and the whole campaign would be around a week long.

Nomination day itself was an event. Each ward would have a designated meeting spot (usually a local school or church) where all those interested in civic government would gather. That meeting, presided over by a ward’s returning officer, would be where candidates and their supporters would announce their intent to stand for office. Anyone running required someone to nominate them and someone to second that nomination. Each of these nominators would have an opportunity to say a few words about the person they were nominating, and then the candidates would give speeches about their policies and plans if elected. Since campaigns were short and few candidates would even dream of debasing themselves by doing something as common and crass as canvassing (how uncouth!), this was often the only real opportunity many people had to hear from candidates themselves.

Hear a candidate talk about the mill rate and sanitation policy, head home and have a cup of liquorless egg nog, and trust whichever party paper you subscribed to (the Spec if you were a Conservative, the Herald if you were a Liberal, the Labor News if you were a worker) would tell you which candidate deserved your vote.

Nominations were highly structured affairs, with party bosses orchestrating nominations behind the scenes to ensure a smooth transition of power. Well…in the hopes that such transition would be smooth. As the incumbent Ward 3 aldermen found out on December 23, 1923 - nomination day for the January 1924 election - things don’t always go according to plan.

At that time, Ward 3 covered Kirkendall, most of Durand, and the southern portions of Strathcona. This was also when each ward elected two aldermen. George T. Sones, a Liberal-backed candidate, and his fellow Ward 3 alderman, the Conservative candidate John Telford, showed up at the Ward 3 returning office and waited patiently with their supporters as the clock ticked down to the close of nominations at 1:00 PM. Deciding that they were likely the only two candidates and would thus be elected by acclamation, they packed up and left shortly before 1:00. As soon as they left, a local lawyer named Leslie Gay burst into the office with his two supporters and registered to run, denying the bipartisan duo their easy return to office. This was reported in The Spectator as little more than an “amusing situation”.1 Sones and Telford still beat Gay by a healthy margin on election day, but the nomination day upset was likely a blow to both their respective party machines.

One of the most interesting things about the January 1, 1924 municipal election, though, was a referendum question asking voters if they’d like to move the date of the annual municipal election up to early December to avoid overlap with the Christmas season, which was becoming a longer and more intense event than it had been previously.

When the results of the referendum came in, it appeared Hamiltonians were fairly divided on the topic. The result was almost even: 7,476 for a change and 7,414 against a change. The city’s wealthier wards (1 to 3, all nestled between the Escarpment and King Street) voted for it, while the city’s working class Wards 7 and 8 voted against. The city’s acclaimed mayor - the Conservative-affiliated Thomas Jutten - told the Spectator that, while the actual vote on the move showed a slim majority in favour, the real results came from those who stayed home: “A large number of people showed their dislike of New Years as a voting day by staying home. The majority, however small, should rule.”2

The change was made and Hamilton’s municipal elections were bumped up to early December. That meant that the council for 1925 would have to be elected in December, 1924. And, for what it’s worth, Mayor Jutten was right; only 16,500 voters bothered to go to the polls in the January election, but close to 22,500 voters showed up for the pre-Christmas vote.

Hamilton’s municipal elections would happen in early December for the next 54 years (except for the early October special municipal election held in 1973 after the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth was created). In 1978, elections were moved to early November and then, in 2010, elections were moved forward again, this time to late October.

Municipal elections were moved to accommodate a lengthening Christmas season and, later, to suit the whims of the provincial government. But doing so meant that readers of papers like The Spec wouldn’t be reading about election results along side pleas made by those hoping to start their new year off with a new love, a connection with a forgotten friend, or a reunion with a family member they had not seen in some time.

Like the appeal by John Ross of New York that appeared under the election results for that New Year’s Day election in 1924. Ross’s smiling mug, right below the names of the returned Ward 8 aldermen - A.P. Whitney and the young upstart stonecutter named Sam Lawrence - was accompanied by the note:

“JOHN ROSS of New York, who is trying to locate his mother, whom he has never seen. She is believed to be living in Hamilton.”

I don’t know if John Ross ever found his mother. She could have been any one of the 33 Ms. and Mrs. Ross’s listed in that year’s Vernon’s Directory. Maybe she was the Ms. Ross who worked at the Laura Secord Candy store and lived on Main West. Maybe she was the Ms. Ross who was a clerk at the National Drug and Chemists and lived on Sanford. Maybe she was the Ms. Ross who worked as a “floor lady” at the Royal Connaught and made the long trek into downtown from the Village of West Hamilton (today’s Emerson Street).

But I like to think she was sitting down for a morning coffee on January 2, 1924, and opened her copy of The Spectator to see that simple photo those two lines of text, forgetting to even check who was on Hamilton’s new council. In that moment, it probably didn’t matter.

Team players

Just before Christmas in 2011 (actually, exactly 12-years-minus-one-day ago), I was called into the office of a vice president of the McMaster Student Union. As a member of the Student Representative Assembly, I would meet regularly with higher ups in the organization. But this meeting was a one-on-one that I assumed would involve plenty of praise for something I did in an effort to make the student union look good.

On December 9, 2011, The Spec ran an editorial after the paper’s editorial board met with then-Mayor Bob Bratina earlier that week. That was the meeting where Bratina told the paper “If somebody wants to stand up and be the champion [for Light Rail Transit], please go ahead. I’m going to be the champion of careful use of taxpayers’ money.”3 In essence, the mayor was blowing off LRT, saying he was going to be hands off when it came to advocating for the project. As history well knows, he eventually became very hands on when it came to advocating against the project, but whatever.

That Friday editorial included the paragraph:

When I read that, I saw an incredible opportunity. I had been a vocal proponent of the LRT project, even getting the MSU to start a #WeNeedLRT campaign (and manually assembling, from 8.5 by 11 sheets of paper, a giant LRT poster encouraging students to tweet their support using the #WeNeedLRT and #HamOnt hashtags). So I slapped together a quick letter to the editor in between pretending to study for my winter exams. It was published that following Monday, recounting the MSU’s support for LRT:

I thought I was soooooo clever.

The next day, I received a request to meet with a member of the executive. I assumed it was going to be a congratulatory meeting, wherein I was lauded for my commitment to placing the MSU - an organization in which I was an elected member - on the side of urban progress. Maybe there would be an LRT-shaped cake. I really hoped for an LRT cake.

Nope. No cake, no congratulations, no commendation. Instead, I was chastised for going rogue and sending a letter directly to The Spec instead of running it by the MSU’s executives first. I was told that’s not what team players do.

That experience was troubling, as I had assumed I was allowed, as an elected member of an organization, to share a political opinion. Sure, I said “we” a lot in my letter, but I had spearheaded the MSU’s LRT campaign.

The culture in the student union was one of cohesion and consensus, despite the fact that, as an organization with a democratically-elected council, we were expected to debate issues and provide distinct perspectives. Expecting us all to “be team players” when we may not have agreed with the direction the team was taking was, in retrospect, both personally insulting and antithetical to the very idea of a democracy.

This is the same reason why the proposed changes to the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) trustee policy manual are so concerning. On December 6, the HWDSB’s Governance Committee held a meeting (recording is here) during which former chair Dawn Danko said:

See, that’s not accurate. That’s school board jargon to justify gagging trustees. The Education Act includes O. Reg. 412/00: Elections to and representation on district school boards, the part of the act that sets out how many trustees there are on a board and how they’re elected. Some trustees are elected at-large because the boards they represent span multiple municipalities. There are 31 English-language Public boards in Ontario (not including the far north boards that run a single school each). Only three cover just a single municipality: Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton. Each of those municipalities runs their elections using wards. That means that each school board for these cities uses wards too. For the boards that span multiple municipalities, they can choose to elect trustees by wards or ward combinations (like the York Region District School Board does), or by designating a number of trustees to be elected at-large across each of the municipalities they represent (like the Durham District School Board does).

At-large elections doesn’t mean the trustees don’t have a constituency. It means the constituency shape is different than it is in Hamilton. HWDSB trustees absolutely do have a constituency: the part of the city that elected them. The voters in Hamilton’s wards who support the public school board elect trustees to advocate for the students, parents, and ratepayers in their area. They don’t select someone for that trustee to scoot on up the mountain, hang out across from Lime Ridge Mall, and be part of some nebulous Team HWDSB.

The Education Act outlines the duties of a trustee:

Nowhere in that list of responsibilities does it say a trustee is elected to be part of a team. The act says that a trustee shall “assist” the board, but that, in doing so, they are not limited by what’s stipulated in section 169.1 (promoting wellbeing, promoting a positive and inclusive school environment, prevent bullying, effectively manage board resources, etc.).

And (hold your breath), that’s why I agree with Scott Radley (okay, now gasp and then return to breathing normally). In a recent Spec column, Radley writes: “Elected officials work with each other but they don’t work for each other. They work for the public.”8 He’s right on this point. Being a “team player” means working collaboratively to pursue common aims. But it doesn’t mean being a singularly-focused cheerleader for an organization or aims with which you do not agree.

The proposed changes to the HWDSB trustee code of conduct are, without question, anti-democratic. If we are to have an elected school board, it should be a fully democratic body where representatives are free to practice democracy, not some sham council made up of the politically ambitious and institutionally entrenched who use their time on an “elected” body to prove how sycophantic they can be. If the HWDSB moves forward with these policy changes, it’ll be a major blow to democracy in the city that will only further disengage people from trustee actions and elections.

Though, there may be a deeper reason why the HWDSB is moving forward with this. I’ll let Cameron Kroetsch’s recent X/Twitter thread on the issue speak to that, with specific attention to this tweet:

Epic nothings

I never liked the Hamilton City Centre. The City Centre - originally the Hamilton Eaton Centre - fully opened four months after I was born. The pastels and plastic feel always felt so impermanent and rushed. Everything about it screamed “poor planning” and corporate frigidity.

Frankly, my family avoided the downtown Eaton Centre. One half of the family had lived on the mountain since the late 1960’s, while the other half were east Hamilton stalwarts. Fully committed to autocentricity, Eastgate and Lime Ridge were better options for them. That, and the demolition of the original Eaton’s store was heartbreaking. Stories about the grand displays in the Eaton’s windows at Christmas time count among some of the most common refrains you’ll hear from anyone who had a chance to experience the majesty of either the 1927 building or the 1957 updated store. Upon the closing of Eaton’s in 1999, The Spec published recollections from people who grew up with the store (republished on the Spec website in 2019), where people tell stories of walking or taking the bus to Eaton’s, a store bustling with people, right in the heart of the city.

The Eaton-turned-City Centre was a project by Cadillac Fairview (CF) to replicate the success of the Toronto Eaton Centre, but came at a terrible time for both downtown Hamilton and the Eaton’s chain in general. The Centre had a couple of good years before things started going downhill, leading CF to abandon the project to the Eaton family, itself struggling to survive. Eaton’s was done by 1999, and almost every major retailer had fled the dying mall, still decorated as if it was forever stuck in 1994.9

When it was announced that a big development firm had bought the City Centre and intended to turn it into a massive mixed-use condo development, I was…skeptical. Sure, they promised to get rid of the eyesore that was the City Centre, but we’ve heard a lot of big promises from condo developers in the past.

The City Centre project was proposed by IN8 Developments, a Waterloo-based developer that’s also working on the 1107 Main West development in Ainslie Wood on the site of what was once Grace Lutheran Church. That project has seen a number of changes since IN8’s initial application in 2020, but no progress has been made on getting shovels in the ground.

While IN8 has a roster of 12 completed projects (all but one in Kitchener and Waterloo), their finished products are often not what was advertised. IN8’s “DTK Condos” project in Kitchener is apparently riddled with problems, including what previous tenants and owners say are paper thin walls, cheap flooring, regular water leaks, and a façade that started peeling just months after completion. In addition to that, folks on the r/Kitchener subreddit talked about how the sales office for the building was in Markham and flyers were sent to people in Toronto, in a blatant attempt to both entice commuters to a region with cheaper rent/prices and appeal to speculative investors. Rather than provide desperately needed housing in Kitchener (where rental vacancy rates have been hovering around 0 for a while), this was just another attempt to make a quick buck.

So maybe it isn’t the worst thing that IN8’s plan for “epic” condos at the City Centre is now “on hold indefinitely”. As reported by the CBC, IN8 has indicated the entire project is paused until the real estate market improves.

Of course, the market could take a long time to correct itself. And, while it is working on magically making itself better, we will still have both a housing crisis AND a vacant failed mall that’s looking worse and worse with each passing day.

But what if there was a way to ensure greedy developers don’t just sit on assets until such time as they can turn enough of a profit to buy themselves a third boat?

This is where a “use-it-or-lose-it” policy would come in handy. Basically, a use-it-or-lose-it policy would place a time limit on all the required permits, permissions, and plans that come along with building something. Buy a property, come up with a plan, and get moving on it. The present standard allows developers to buy a property, let it fall into disrepair, blight an entire neighbourhood, and only start work when the conditions will allow them to turn a profit. We are, in essence, subsidizing speculation, rewarding poor judgement, and encouraging lethargic business practices. Our communities suffer because of the bad business call by some cocky developer.

If you buy a property, you damn well better be ready to do something with it.

Policies like this are being implemented and proposed across Ontario. New Tecumseth has a new use-it-or-lose-it policy that gives developers three years to complete a subdivision, with the possibility of earning a 1 year extension (with a focus on approvals for water). The provincial Liberals pitched a use-it-or-lose-it tax on developers during the 2022 election. And, during the 2022 municipal election in Toronto, John Tory proposed asking the province to implement a version of a use-it-or-lose-it policy that would result in “higher taxes and expired zoning approvals” if they failed to meet certain deadlines.10 Just a few months ago, the provincial Tories were even suggesting they might roll out a use-it-or-lose-it policy province-wide.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll keep saying it: we can’t rely on the corporate market alone to solve this problem. We need community-led development of affordable homes, a major emphasis on co-operatives, not-for-profit, and affordable rentals, and strict regulations on private builders. Developers whine and complain every time new measures are proposed that could help consumers, residents, and communities, because they know their cost-cutting, slapdash, get-rich-quick way of developing properties creates more headaches than problems solved. They write lengthy editorials, send their lobbyists to city hall and Queen’s Park, and pour money into municipal and provincial campaigns to maintain the status quo because the status quo makes them money. And all we get in return are 1/4 owner-occupied cardboard-and-plexiglass vertical disasters-in-waiting.

A use-it-or-lose-it policy could help to get developers moving. But it also might make those developers who are in it to make money fast rethink their investments. That would leave those developers with established reputations and a strong business model more room to carefully select projects and ensure they’re built to a high standard. And it will also ensure community assets (like dead malls, former schools, and abandoned churches) might be more readily available for community-led development instead.

Oh no, he’s talking about social media again

Yeah, sorry, just a couple things on X/Twitter. First, an excellent CBC investigation came out on Tuesday that found reputable brands had their advertisements popping up beside hate-based content. While some brands, like Bell, SunLife, and Angus Reid have “paused” advertising on the site, other groups, including the oil-industry lobby Pathways Alliance and B'nai Brith Canada have decided to continue supporting the site.

The case of B'nai Brith Canada is extremely upsetting, as their ads have been featured alongside anti-Semitic hate speech from figures such as white nationalist Richard Spencer. The head of B'nai Brith Canada, Michael Mostyn, told the CBC that “B'nai Brith has made a conscious decision to remain on social media…So if you're making a conscious decision to stay in the social media space...there's a lot of good and bad that comes with all of that.”11 Mostyn, it should be noted, was a two-time Conservative Party candidate for Parliament in York Centre, losing both times to Hamilton-born hockey superstar Ken Dryden of the Liberals. Mostyn and B'nai Brith Canada are playing a dangerous game here, hoping the ad will appeal to the few mainstream conservatives remaining on the site instead of further enraging the most dangerous fringes of the far-right, which are quickly taking over X/Twitter.

Second is another shameless plug for Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day newsletter. On Monday, Broderick published a great look at how Musk and his far-right fan club became obsessed with Twitter during the early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic, particularly because of how easy it was to hype up crypto scams on the social media site. This piece goes into how Musk was coached by an unknown right-wing influencer on how to turn the site into a playground for neofascists. This influencer told Musk it would be a “delicate game of letting right wingers back on Twitter” and told him he could help staff the newly right-wing-ified site with people who held similar views to Blake Masters, the failed 2022 Arizona Senate seat candidate who is backed by Peter Thiel. For those who are blissfully unaware, Thiel is an associate of Musk’s whose political views are best summarized as “what if we did the medieval ages over again, except this time, more slavery and tech entrepreneurs are the nobility?” He also has a habit of running his former employees (Masters being one of them) for office as Republicans, though, after his right-wing spending spree on candidates in 2022, seems to have given up on politics in 2024.

More and more people are abandoning the site as it transitions from “semi-reputable news and culture feed” to “basically Stormfront”. But many people are still active on the site, using it as if the change in leadership and far-right drift haven’t happened. As we approach 2024, I’d strongly suggest those last remaining holdouts to ask if they want to continue to post updates on a site that caters to active hate groups. I let my account fall into dormancy because the changes on X/Twitter made me extremely uneasy. And, while I don’t want to judge how people convey information on the internet, it is also getting harder and harder to justify remaining on a site that’s allowed conspiracy theorist and hate monger Alex Jones back on “in the name of free speech”.

I know there aren’t good alternatives. I mean, we could all suddenly jump on to TikTok, but, just like with Facebook, when everyone’s aunt starts posting on there, it’ll start to fade away too. But when the town square has been overrun by fascists, we have to ask if it is worth heading down there anymore.

Send that tree to hell

Ahh, the sweet smell of Ailanthus altissima. Unmistakable, unforgettable, and, as of this past Monday, unacceptable in Ontario.

You might know this tree by a few different names. The Linden tree, Chinese sumac, or, most common in these parts, Tree of Heaven. These ubiquitous trees can grow up to 27 metres tall, live for around 50 years, and are known for how quickly they sprout up and mature.

They’re also known for that smell. You know…that smell. The smell That Mitchell and Webb Look poked fun at (while also getting in some good digs at Victorian prudishness). That smell that makes middle school kids giggle. That smell that Shawn Micallef, writing in Spacing, said was like “the Cecil B. DeMille Hollywood fog in his 1950s version of The Ten Commandments” for how it takes over our scent surroundings in June.

You can’t make me say what that smell is reminiscent of because this is a semi-respectable newsletter and I will not stoop to that level. Maybe… Yet… I don’t know...

Anyway, Tree of Heaven is all over Hamilton. Back in February, council received a report about the symbiotic relationship between the Spotted Lanternfly and the Tree of Heaven. The lanternfly, a very destructive invasive insect, seems to need Tree of Heaven, with the report indicating “the tree potentially facilitates part of the insect’s life cycle.”

Importantly, the report notes that the city’s public urban tree inventory has found 1059 Tree of Heaven…umm…trees in the city. That’s just public inventory, though. Tree of Heaven is so common around here because homeowners liked how fast it grew, giving their properties quick natural shade. And a distinctive odor.

Sarnia-based gardener and nursery owner (and one-time host to the Lambton Right to Life bake sale, for which he’s apologized) John DeGroot observed, on a visit to Hamilton in 2019, “Tree of Heaven…growing behind fast food joints and shawarma take-out shops.”12

But, on December 11, the provincial government announced that Tree of Heaven was one of 14 new species/groups of species to be classified as either “prohibited” or “restricted”, effective January 1st, 2024. According to the press release from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (forever MNR in my mind, as an avid Ontario camper):

Tree of Heaven, by the government’s own criteria, “changes chemical and microbial activity in soils, reduces soil nutrients, displace native plant species, associated with several fungal pathogens and the preferred host to the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula).”14 While the MNR’s website says “it is illegal to import, deposit, release, breed/grow, buy, sell, lease or trade restricted invasive species,” it also notes that exceptions can be made if you’re “trying to manage or control it”.

This is a destructive, invasive, stinking tree that harms anything growing around it. Delicate native species, which were ignored and ripped out by governments and gardeners unable to see the incredible ecological diversity that existed in this part of the world before colonization, are threatened by Tree of Heaven, which grows tall, grows fast, and smells terrible.

Hopefully this is one small step toward finally prohibiting the propagation, selling, and continued existence of a dangerous invasive species. And, if you’re looking for an alternative native plant, always make sure to check out the Ontario Invasive Plant Council’s “Grow Me Instead” guide!

A Sewer Socialist solstice song

Will there be a song? Or is the section title just alliterative for no reason? Read to the end to find out!

This is the 40th edition of The Sewer Socialists, a little project I started back in February because of…well…see above piece about X/Twitter.

Since this will be my last edition of 2023, I thought I’d take a look what I’ve done this year, the results of the survey from a few weeks back, and what next year looks like for the Sewer Socialists.

A year in review

Since starting this project in February, I’ve written 209,706 words over 39 editions. That’s roughly 2 to 2.5 nonfiction books worth of newsletter.

The average edition is 5377 words long. That would take a person reading at average speed about 25ish minutes from start-to-finish without stopping. So good on each of you who read to the end!

The longest edition was the one where I focused on Vancouver (9,015 words). The shortest (other than my intro post) was my Cool Newsletter for Cool People edition (2,074) that I wrote despite promising myself I’d take time off to work on other things.

Of those 209,706 words (including spelling mistakes, missing ends of sentences, and telling myself to “shup up” multiple times in one piece), here are a few of my favourites from 2023:

• The globalists made me walk here/A 15-minute conspiracy (February 23, 2023) - My second-ever Substack edition! In this piece, I get into the 15-minute city conspiracy theory peddled by Jordan Peterson and every Convoyist looking for their next angry fix after the heady thrill of occupying the capital wore off. Honestly, the entire edition is one of my favourites. I looked at 1083 Main Street East, the Peel Region merger/divorce, linked to a Policy Options piece of mine, and had a pretty tight Cool Facts for Cool People.

• Not So Great Scott! (September 14, 2023) - In this piece, I look at the political shift of former councillor and MP Scott Duvall. Or, to look at it another way, I consider Duvall’s politics as being similar to other “labour traditionalists”, who fight for the rights of working people and maintain a taxpayer-focused, antiquated notion of who working people really are. Considering the man came within 217 votes of being elected to council, and many (including a certain former Ward 3 candidate) echo these views, I thought it was important to give them a little more attention.

• Cooper’s Mountain (July 9, 2023) - This was a fun piece to write, because I got to do a deep-dive into a story that didn’t receive much criticism when it came out. A mountain resident named Rob Cooper got a big write-up in the Hamilton Mountain News where he blamed the encampment crisis on the city’s rental housing licencing program, peppering his complaints with anecdotes that seemed far-fetched at best. I did some internet sleuthing, looking into past Rob Cooper-centric stories and how the Rob Cooper interviewed for the story might also be a prominent mountain Conservative.

• Larry Lanes (June 15, 2023) - This one got buried in my lengthy look at alternative voting systems for municipal elections. Former mayor Larry Di Ianni took to X/Twitter in early June to echo anti-bike lane talking points from other right-wing politicians, despite his record on council showing him consistently voting in favour of cycling projects. I was particularly happy with this line: “Larry’s snarky tweet really only tells us one thing: we can’t rely on the politicians of the past to fix the problems they chose to ignore when they were in power.”

• The Supermarket Sweep (September 22, 2023) - I spent weeks working on this one, carefully mapping out historic grocery stores, researching past grocery practices, and spending way too long on the biography of Ted Loblaw. I’m so happy I got to share this with everyone.

• We are one with the plume (November 2, 2023) - Whereas The Supermarket Sweep was the result of weeks of research and work, my plume story came together much, much faster and in response to the “plume” event at ArcelorMittal Dofasco. But, holy wow, was this one fun piece to write. Bankruptcy, Coal Oil Inlet, chemicals spilling into the harbour…a rollercoaster of historical fun that actually helped me, though my research and writing, better understand this city.

The survey

The November 23 edition contained a reader survey to check in and see how I was going with the newsletter so far. The polls were only open for a week and, in the end, around 34 people responded. That’s a voter turnout of around 32%. Ooof. Still, considering only 60% of recipients even open the weekly email, it was nice to see quite a few folks provide some insight. That, and I also had a couple other people send me email responses with more detail.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• The majority of respondents said they read every edition (65%) and that they heard about the newsletter over social media (53%)

• The majority also said the length is “just right”, while a sizable minority (29%) said it was “too long” or “way too long”

• A whopping 73% said the newsletter should keep coming out weekly and 87% said keep it coming on Thursdays

• A majority said the newsletter’s focus is fine, but another sizable minority would like more Hamilton-specific stuff

• While 84% of respondents like the concluding “Cool facts for cool people” section, “Trustee time” received a more tepid response, with a 50/50 split between people liking it and people having no opinion

The most interesting results were about the name. As I mentioned in that section, the name of this newsletter has been the topic of minor debate. But 58% of respondents indicated they were “totally content” with the name and half of respondents said they have a “very positive” view of the word socialist.

The question about changing the name had an interesting result: 23% in favour of a change, 29% opposed to a change, and 48% saying it didn’t matter.

As I wrote in that edition, this is mostly just a barometer so that I can gauge where I am and give me ideas as to how I can move forward. So while I can’t commit to many changes right now, I do have some ideas.

The future

I have really enjoyed the responses I get to this newsletter. People seem to really like the perspective I bring, the stories I highlight that might have slipped under the radar, and the context provided, be it historical, social, or philosophical. I’ve heard so much positive feedback from people that inspires me to keep on trucking with this little project. And sometimes, fans go above and beyond, like Sewer Socialists fan Tim who had custom shirts made with my Children of the Plume graphic!

Hamilton is a big city, but one that is suffering from a significant media deficit. The quantity and quality of the discourse in this city has been on the decline for a long time, and I think folks are really responding to this tiny effort of mine to provide an alternative viewpoint. Hamilton’s web-based media (CBC, Joey, etc.) are picking up a lot of slack and I try to add my two cents to both support their work and present issues in a way that reflects my values and interests.

I am going to spend the next couple of weeks reflecting on what The Sewer Socialists is and can become. I’ve wanted to try some different things - maybe live events, video essays, audio components, etc. - and would love to pick a couple of “features” and really work on them. Expanding somehow to create a larger, more sustainable progressive outlet would be ideal, but I have little idea how to make something like that happen.

I also want to acknowledge that this is a tough endeavour for me each week. I spend hours working on pieces, combing through archives, doing background reading, and getting as much information as I can before I publish something. Still, I make mistakes, publish with spelling errors and broken links, and (most frustratingly) sometimes neglect to include details I spent hours researching, rendering all that effort useless.

I am hopeful that I’ll be able to keep this going and provide all you wonderful readers with the context, commentary, and creativity you’ve come to expect this past year.

Okay, here’s a song

Wishing every reader a joyful, peaceful, and hopeful holiday season and start to 2024. May your new year be filled to the brim with potatoes!

Here’s my parting song of 2023 for all you wonderful folks.

See you in 2024, comrades!

Cool facts for cool people

• In a very cool move, council has decided to let taxpayers know why Hamilton’s water bills will be so expensive next year. As Mayor Horwath tweeted today, “#HamOnt water bills will show how much of the increase is caused by provincial downloads.”