REPLAY – LiveBlog: Ontario Municipal Board Second Pre-hearing Hamilton Ward Boundaries – TPR Hamilton | Hamilton's Civic Affairs News Site

September 18, 2017
The Ontario Municipal Board is holding its final pre-hearing as they prepare to decide on City Council’s gerrymandering of boundaries in the face of expert reports stating the boundaries fail to meet the standards of democratic balance in representation.
Today’s pre-hearing will finalize the “issues list” and witnesses that each party will be able to call to testify during the hearing.
I’ll be liveblogging from the hearing starting at 10am.
(You can read the liveblog from the August pre-hearing here)
Some key terms and people in this hearing.
OMB panel
The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) members deciding this case are Dr. Bruce Krushelnicki and Paula Boutis. Krushelnicki is the Executive Chairman of the Environmental and Land Tribunals of Ontario, and is therefore the highest ranking member of the OMB.
City of Hamilton Legal Counsel
City Council retained outside legal counsel for the hearing as the Council voted to not accept the recommendations of professional experts Watson & Associates, instead creating their own boundaries as a Council.
The outside Counsel for the Council are Steven Ferri, partner at Loopstra Nixon LLP, and Cindy Yi, as associate at the firm.
Applicants
Two private citizens have appealed the Council’s new self-created ward boundaries.
Mark Richardson is being represented in the hearing by Hamilton lawyer Craig Burley, who is working on the case pro-bono.
Robert Dobrucki is self-representing, a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and a lawyer by trade, he is appealing as a private citizen. (Dobrucki was a guest on The Public Record Radio Show in October 2016 on the topic of ward boundaries)