Bill Kelly: Don’t expect much reform from a new Hamilton city council

If you’ve started to peruse any of the campaign literature from the candidates in next week’s municipal election, you’d notice that some radical changes to the way council does business are being proposed.

Things like the ever popular term limits for councillors, pay cuts for the mayor and councillors, a different voting system and even redrawing the ward boundaries, although I’m not sure there’s much of an appetite to revisit that agonizing process.

I’m sure that the candidates who propose these kinds of changes have the best of intentions, but the reality is, not much is likely to change, even with three or four new faces on the next council.

There is a core of long-serving councillors whose mantra seems to be “we’ve got a good thing going here, don’t rock the boat.”

There are, of course, some veteran councillors who still make significant contributions to our community, but even for them, radical changes like term limits or electoral reform are non-starters.

Realistically, what councillor would support an idea to reduce their salary or change voting procedures to make it easier for someone to defeat them in a future election?

New faces on council is a good thing, but let’s temper our expectations.

As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Bill Kelly is the host of the Bill Kelly Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML