12-year Hamilton city councillor will not run in October
Published March 28, 2022 at 5:32 pm
The decision of Coun. Judi Partridge to not seek reelection in Hamilton’s Ward 15 means that at least one-quarter of city council will be turned over this fall.
Partridge, a three-terms councillor for the fast-growing Flamborough-Waterdown area, announced on Monday that she will not run this October. She said in a statement that she is “welcoming a season of change.”
That makes it four open seats among the 16-seat horseshoe at Hamilton City Hall. Coun. Brenda Johnson (Ward 11) Coun. Sam Merulla (4) have already stated they will not run. In Ward 5, appointed Coun. Russ Powers is serving out the term. Chad Collins vacated the seat after he was elected to Parliament last September as the Liberal Party of Canada MP for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.
A statement from Partridge, who resides in the community of Carlisle, called attention to the addition of new city services in her ward. That included approval of the Waterdown Bypass, a new police and fire station for Waterdown, and the construction of outdoor recreational facilities.
Last fall, Partridge voted with the majority of council to reject a staff recommendationsto expand Hamilton’s urban boundary. The proposed expansion would have meant that thousands of hectares of arable land would have been opened to development, likely contributing to the cost and climate impacts from urban sprawl.
However, a few months earlier, Partridge voted against the decision for the city to negotiate a new agreement for the light-right transit (LRT) project. The construction for the LRT has been in the hopper at City Hall since 2007. Partridge has said she was initially supportive, but around 2017 she changed her town, writing in an op-ed for a community newspaper that the LRT was ” a cost burden that we will never recover from.”
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The LRT was cancelled by the Ontario PC Party government near the end of 2019. However, last spring it was revived by both the provincial PCs and the federal Liberals, and the two senior levels of government will split the $3.4-billion projected construction cost while Hamilton will be responsible for operating it.
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