Hamiltonius.com

There was a pretty interesting conversation going on yesterday between myself and an anonymous poster on Topix.com yesterday. It directly goes to show that Topix is not always bad and evil, but can sometimes yield real discussions and exchange of ideas. Here it is:
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/richmond-mo/TLIMU92LH6JVQ7B25

campaign

I’m so proud to accept the endorsement of the Firefighters Local 3133.  I remember when I was a boy seeing firefighters put out a fire at a building near my elementary school and thinking, “wow, I want to do that!”  Well life took me a different direction, but I still know a hero when I see one, and these guys are the real deal.  I look forward to working with the Firefighters to move Richmond forward, and I thank them deeply for their support.

Tim

As you know, I release all news to the web first, so here’s a copy of my reply to the City Council Questionnaire I received from The Daily News  to be published March31st in their Voters Guide.  I realize that some might think this might not be a tactically wise decision, but I think it’s more important to let people know where I stand then to play “politics”.  So as always, let me know what you think at Tim@Hamiltonius.com

1. Please list your name, age, occupation, and years as a Richmond resident. (You may also list your family and memberships, as well)?

My name is Tim Hamilton, I’m 33 years old.  I’m a software developer at Hallmark Cards, Inc.  I moved to Richmond just before my freshman year of High School in 1991, and I’ve lived here ever since except for the time I was away at college.  I moved into my home on East Lexington Street in 2002 just before my son was born.

2. What prompted you to run for Richmond City Council?

One of my favorite teachers in High School once told me, “You have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”  This is why, even in the current climate of personal attacks, incivility, and rancor, I believe that I must hold true to the courage of my convictions and try to make a difference.  While volunteering almost 2 years ago to build and subsequently maintain the City website I have got to work with many City employees and really enjoyed becoming more involved with City affairs and issues. I believe the city has some real and impending challenges looming on the horizon.  That is why I think City affairs should be, and can be dealt with in a civil and non-vindictive manner.  The days of personal attacks and grudges must give way to open and fair dealings with not only the citizens of Richmond, but its employees as well.  The Council must be a place where all are heard.  The Council must be a group who will listen and fairly debate what is best for our City. The Council must deal more with the matters that affect the citizens and children of Richmond, and less with the politics of divisiveness.  Our city deserves this.  Our community should be seen for the great things we have.  The Parks that are getting better almost every day, the recreation department that provides opportunities for our children to learn the benefits of fair play and teamwork, the wonderful free concerts in the park.  These and many more wonderful aspects of our city should be the ones depicted in the media, if elected I will do my best to make sure this is the case.

3. What issue do you feel deserves Richmond leaders’ top priority?

The top priorities for the City going forward have to be our aging and deteriorating infrastructure, specifically water and sewer.  This must be handled in an environment of falling population and declining tax base, which makes the problem even more difficult.  The infrastructure issue I believe is tied incontrovertibly to our size.  With a population decrease, we see lots of negative things don’t we? Fewer people mean less tax-base. This in turn means the burden of infrastructure expenses, and all costs really, are born by a smaller number of people, which makes that burden rise per capita. That higher burden makes it less attractive to prospective individuals thinking about moving here. I mean, if I’m some family thinking about relocating, but I know the, for instance water bills, are high in Richmond does that negatively impact my decision to possibly move to Richmond? Fewer people also mean business is less likely to move here. Of course businesses bring jobs. Jobs bring more people. More people means a larger tax base, and hopefully if managed well, bring better economies of scale and less cost per capita. So that being said it seems we need to grow our population, right? I believe the answer is an obvious “YES”.

I feel I should also mention another issue I find just as important.  The failing relationship between the Council and City employees must be repaired.  How are we supposed to attract and retain quality individuals in the current climate of animosity and rancor?  We can’t.  This issue must be resolved as well.

4. How does Richmond best address its aging, deteriorating infrastructure while keeping city services within a price range its citizens can afford?

One way we can leverage our tax dollars wisely is by taking advantage of the currently available matching funds from the federal government like the currently pending bond issue.  We can increase our buying power by leveraging programs like this.  Ultimately though, the real problem is outlined in my previous response.  Richmond must grow, not shrink!  That growth is imperative to keep services affordable.

5. Richmond’s elected and commercial leaders have emphasized the community’s need to establish new industries in the past year. What avenues would you champion to best promote Richmond’s commercial growth?

Richmond has seen some economic growth as obvious in the new developments over the past few years such as the growing number of businesses at the intersection of 13 and 210. However, the growth has been slow and limited to mostly retail, fast food, and service industries. In order to grow our economy we need to re-evaluate what incentives we are offering to businesses that provide jobs that families can afford to support themselves with. We need to actively pursue businesses looking for a lower cost for their operations and develop incentives that are aggressive in attracting those businesses to move their manufacturing or operations to Richmond. The more jobs that are brought to our city that families can support themselves with, the quicker our economy will grow.

6. Richmond City Council and City employees have shared a sometimes strained relationship. What would you do to remedy the situation?

I want the people of ward 4 to know what they can expect if they give me the opportunity to represent them.  First, I will not now, nor will I ever resort to personal attacks.  I believe the only way to deal with our problems is to form consensus, and build bridges.  This can never be done while attacking someone personally.  I will also never respond to any personal attacks.  I believe to respond to personal attacks is to give them credibility.  I look forward to working with all of the council and City employees.  I know it is inevitable that there will be times we disagree, but they will always find me willing to listen to their ideas and give them the respect they deserve as individuals who are also giving of their time and talents to make our City better.  City employees must have the opportunity to provide their input, and that input must be valued and respected.  After all, they are the ones in the ditches fixing the pipes, they are the ones patrolling our streets, they are the ones who help us in our time of greatest need, they are the ones doing the hard work it takes to make our City run, and I for one appreciate that.

I have accepted a request for an interview with the Richmond Daily News.  The interview is tomorrow at midday.  Look for it on news stands soon!

In other campaign news, it looks like I’ll be ordering signs very soon!  If you’d like a sign to grace your front-yard email me at Tim@hamiltonius.com and I’ll get one for ya!  Thanks for all the support!

I posted some of these ideas on Topix.com, but I wanted to post them here as well. Had some ideas about solving the recent issue with notifying people during the boil order. I’m really glad the City used the features I built in to the City site to post about the boil order, but there were a lot of people, me included, who didn’t get the info in what I would consider a timely fashion. That made me wonder what we could do to solve this problem. I think we should investigate the costs of using a service like textcaster. This service allows the city to send text messages to people who subscribe when there are things that happen that people need to be made aware of, like the boil order. This service isn’t free, as I said, but another option that is free (well I’d volunteer to set it up, so no cost to the City) is to create a form on the City site for people to subscribe to an email list. This way the city could send out a huge email to all those that have subscribed in the event of another boil order. We could also extend this service to other areas, like parks and rec cancellations etc.

Idea 2:
Why don’t we stream City council meetings over the internet? I know the City has had talks with companies to do this, but with our current budget issues, spending thousands of dollars to make this happen doesn’t seem like a great idea to me! I will volunteer to set this up if you all think it would be beneficial. What if we made an archive of past meetings so you didn’t have to watch live, but could watch whenever you wanted to? Would that make it more appealing? I personally think the more people that see what goes on at these meetings the better it is for the City as a whole.  Would you watch?  Use the comments feature below to let me know what you think about these issues!

Later,
Tim

Please use the comments feature below and let me know what you’re thinking about Richmond.  What do you like, what would you like to see changed?  Let me know!

In the spirit of releasing info to the web first, here’s my press release for tomorrow.

Contact: Timothy Hamilton

Tim@Hamiltonius.com

For Immediate release:

1-15-2010

With a pledge to bring civility, openness, and consensus building to the City Council, Tim Hamilton announces his Candidacy for City Council,  Ward 4.

One of my favorite teachers in High School, Mr. Pointer, once told me, “You have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”  This is why, even in the current climate of personal attacks, incivility, and rancor, I believe that I must hold true to the courage of my convictions and try to make a difference.

I believe the city has some real and impending challenges looming on the horizon.  That is why I think City affairs should be, and can be dealt with in a civil and non-vindictive manner.  The days of personal attacks and grudges must give way to open and fair dealings with not only the citizens of Richmond, but its employees as well.  The Council must be a place where all are heard.  The Council must be a group who will listen and fairly debate what is best for our City. The Council must deal more with the matters that affect the citizens and children of Richmond, and less with the politics of divisiveness.  Our city deserves this.  Our community should be seen for the great things we have.  The Parks that are getting better almost every day, the recreation department that provides opportunities for our children to learn the benefits of fair play and teamwork, the wonderful free concerts in the park.  These and many more wonderful aspects of our city should be the ones depicted in the media, if elected I will do my best to make sure this is the case.

I want the people of ward 4 to know what they can expect if they give me the opportunity to represent them.  First, I will not now, nor will I ever resort to personal attacks.  I believe the only way to deal with our problems is to form consensus, and build bridges.  This can never be done while attacking someone personally.  I will also never respond to any personal attacks.  I believe to respond to personal attacks is to give them credibility.  I look forward to working with all of the council.  I know it is inevitable that there will be times we disagree, but they will always find me willing to listen to their ideas and give them the respect they deserve as individuals who are also giving of their time and talents to make our City better. I will be available to the people of Ward 4 and do my best to represent them openly, honestly, and in a way they will be proud of

I believe I’m qualified to handle this responsibility. I’ve lived in Richmond for most of my life.  I went to school here. I graduated from high school here.  I’ve lived on East Lexington Street in Ward 4 for almost 8 years.  I’m proud to say my son currently attends Richmond schools. I Graduated from  the University of Central Missouri with a degree in Business and Computer Information Systems.  In my volunteer capacity designing, creating, and maintaining the City website over the last few years I’ve had the opportunity to meet with, and work with, many city officials and become familiar with their roles and responsibilities.

Over the next few weeks I will be developing a platform of ideas and opinions regarding the issues facing our city.  I plan to post this information online at http://Hamiltonius.com.  I hope you will visit and we can start a dialogue about the things you would like to see happen in our community.  I look forward to meeting with you throughout my campaign, and I appreciate your support.

Timothy J. Hamilton