It's been an active term for Mayor Bob Bratina who presided over his last council meeting Wednesday evening.
There have been the sore spots — tense arguments with members of council, a censure vote, an integrity commissioner investigation and heated debates over whether he accurately conveyed city council's transit priorities to the province.
And there have been bright spots — widespread development, a new (albeit delayed) stadium, some major downtown projects, low tax increases, and perhaps even an end in sight for the Randle Reef project.
CBC Hamilton interviewed Bratina, using some questions from readers, and asked him about his legacy, his record and his reflections on the last four years.
"Nothing," he said when asked what he would have done differently. "I'm happy with what I did."
Bratina on whether he was a good mayor:
"I can't think of anything that I really cared about (that I didn't achieve), except perhaps the internal council culture, which still I think is problematic. But I got all my things done. Someone else can judge whether it was good or not, but I didn't raise taxes to any great extent under inflation. What more can I say?"
On the negatives:
"Of course there was bad stuff. At times, certain members of council were very disrespectful of the office of mayor. They can hate me all they want, but 52,000 Hamiltonians, 13,000 more than anybody else running, wanted me to be the mayor. People with 1,700 votes were censuring me and all of that stuff. That's probably going to need at least a pamphlet, if not a book, to explain the dynamics, but basically I was coming into a culture that was old boy. I didn't think that was the best thing for the city. I didn't solve it. I paid a big price for it, but I'm happy because I got almost everything I wanted done."
On his next two months:
Bratina plans to "work on my model railroad." He'll also continue the business of mayor, including signing documents.
A question asked by a reader, Andy, on whether Bratina fulfilled his 2010 election promise to revisit amalgamation:
"I did everything I could with the understanding that it is not a municipal issue, it's a provincial issue. I would ask Andy, did you approach any of the candidates in the provincial election and bring the matter up?…During the build up, that would've been the perfect time for my friends in the amalgamated areas who still have concerns, as I do, to bring it up. I didn't hear it mentioned once. So Andy, what did you do to help me achieve that?"
On a reader question about his running a pro-LRT campaign in 2010:
"We know now from documents that I came across that even the province wasn't convinced that the LRT was the best bang for the city of Hamilton's buck. LRT is a great thing and its time will come, but I don't have the ability to impose the unknown costs of LRT on the taxpayers."
On the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce and its pro-LRT stance:
"I think (president Keanin Loomis)…I don't think he understands the big picture. (To say that U.S. Steel's closure) is OK because we're going to have cafes and coffee shops and ice cream parlours on industrial lands…There's something wrong with the chamber of commerce and I don't accept that they speak for big industry."
On how he contributed to city council's decorum issues:
Bratina said he has no regrets. "Everyone acknowledges that the decorum of my council was far better than anything in the previous councils."
On what he'd have done differently as mayor:
"Nothing. I'm happy with what I did. It wasn't the easiest road but everything I did, I followed city policy and I saved over a million dollars on my office budget, and that's the council-approved office budget…The mayor's office far outperformed any in decades. That's a fact, and you can use any measure you want to apply to that statement."
On council's censure vote of 2012:
"You tell me why I was censured because I don't even know myself."
On the stadium location issue:
"Here we are four years later still arguing about the site and we've really got to move on. That's almost psychotic to keep bringing back these old arguments of years ago. The city has to move forward."
On providing mayoral candidate Brad Clark with LRT documents:
"The request has to be complied with. The request came from Brad Clark. He wanted the document and I had the document."
Rate your council: How do you think the last four years went for Hamilton?
How would you rate council's performance from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest?
How would you rate the performance of Mayor Bob Bratina from 1 to 5?
Who was the most effective councillor on city-wide issues?
Which councillor did you agree with most often?
Was your ward councillor an effective representative?
Is Hamilton in a better place than it was four years ago?
How would you rate council's performance on economic development and attracting jobs?
How would you rate council's performance on LRT?
How would you rate council's performance with property taxes?
How would you rate council's performance on health and the environment?
How would you rate council's performance on roads, bridges and other infrastructure?
How would you rate council's performance on reducing poverty in the city?
How do you rate council's performance on stadium location and construction?
Rate council's performance on transparency and accountability?
Rate council's performance on support for the arts?
How do you rate council's performance on downtown renewal?
What issue did council do the best on?
Which issue did council do the worst on?
What area does council need to improve upon?
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