Mayor Bratina gives exit interview

Bob Bratina’s term as mayor of Hamilton is quickly winding down. He’s hoping to move on to federal politics, after becoming the Liberal candidate in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek.
But before Bratina looks ahead, we asked him to look back on his time as the city’s chief magistrate.

Bratina talked about what he says are his successes, his biggest failure as mayor and the legacy he left which he defines as ‘the good feeling that has come over Hamilton in the last four years’.

Outgoing mayor Bob Bratina: “Coming in on council: why are you running? I want to fix the downtown. How are you going to do that? Well, I’m going to get the train station back on James Street North.”

10 years after Bob Bratina was elected ward two councillor, the new GO station is under construction. A project that was realized during his time as mayor. But it was another development that divided council and the city during his term.

(Do you regret that we’re not standing down the street from the new pan am stadium? That it wasn’t built near this GO station?) “No, the stadium should not have been built in the Barton-Tiffany lands. The stadium probably should have been built on Confederation Park. We spent 10 million dollars buying decent houses off of people, expropriating them when why would you spend money to get land when you already have land?”

Bratina says there was no “best spot” to put the pan am stadium – but the renovation of Ivor Wynne was a good one.

“I think if we could move this whole stadium over to the west harbour, it’s an extra 10 million for the property we bought which we own this and then there is a 30 million or so site remediation so that’s the 40 million extra for what we paid. There is not one new extra tax dollar in the stadium that’s behind me now. It’s all accounted for so that was a very good deal for the Hamilton taxpayer.”

So no regrets over Pam Am. But there are things Bratina says he wishes he would have accomplished in office.

“Well, I certainly wanted to change the culture (in council) and I don’t think that happened. We had a report on ethics and values audit internally and we didn’t pass. It was not good. Many staffers felt they were made to compromise their own principals and ethics by what was happening around them and nothing has been done to address that . So that would be my biggest failure is that it’s basically the same old same old.”

Bratina says the city is better now than it was four years ago. And points to brining McMaster downtown and a grocery store downtown as pieces that make up his legacy.

More now from our one on one interview with Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina as he reflects on the past four years in office and some of his most memorable moments.

The mayor spoke about the time he was censured by council and the heartbreaking event he calls the strange irony of his career.