GRIDS Meeting Cancelled
October 5, 2005

Nearly a million dollars worth of senior city staff waited 30 minutes this afternoon for a regularly scheduled meeting, only to be told it couldn't take place because not enough councillors showed up. The strategic planning and budgets committee was scheduled for 1:30 pm to receive a report on the city's 30-year Growth Related Integrated Development Strategy (GRIDS).

Eight senior staff arrived at the appointed time, nearly all earning more than $100,000 a year, including the city manager, the city treasurer, and the heads of several departments. But only two councillors - Phil Bruckler and Dave Braden - got there by 1:30 pm. Terry Whitehead arrived twenty minutes later, but the meeting was cancelled when the quorum of four could not be achieved.

Other members are Mayor Larry Di Ianni, who chairs the committee and councillors Dave Mitchell and Brian McHattie. The latter two are both on leave this week - Mitchell to think about his future after being forced to apologize for trying to get out of a traffic ticket, and McHattie because of a family emergency.

The next scheduled meeting of the committee is on October 19. The staff report on GRIDS is available at
http://www.myhamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/70A3172F-811D
-4859-9D33-B2BED3DCC4F1/0/Oct05GRIDSUpdateNo4v21.pdf.