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McCARTHY PROUD OF 16-YEAR COMMUNITY RECORD

Melanie Cummings, Special to the Review
Published on Oct 28, 2010

After 16 years, Margaret McCarthy is closing the last chapter of her political career.

Amid the newly barren walls and packed boxes in the Flamborough office that she has occupied for two terms with town council and three with Hamilton following amalgamation, the diminutive 46-year-old is completely composed when she says that she doesn’t have any employment plans for the future.

“I’m not moving on to another job and I don’t want to lock myself into anything. I want to give my next move some thought,” said McCarthy.
Shortly after voters gave her the nod for a fifth term in 2006, McCarthy announced it would be her last.

“At the time I don’t think anyone took me seriously. They thought I would change my mind.” But McCarthy has no regrets.

“You can’t work like I do at the pace I keep without putting a limit on it,” said McCarthy, who will now have more time to spend with her husband of 23 years, Jim, and son Jimmy, 20.

Her to-do list for her big finale was a lofty one. She set out to do all she could to St Marys Cement from building a quarry, keep area rating, push for a new twin pad arena, further develop Joe Sams Leisure Park and get a new library for Waterdown.

Missions accomplished.

“I like a challenge. I wouldn’t have gone into this if I were just going to tread water,” said McCarthy.

She stood her ground when talk turned to busing elementary school students out of the area.

“Flamborough kids deserve Flamborough schools.” In the end, she managed toconvince the development industry to foot the bill for Allan A. Greenleaf and Guardian Angels schools.

She’s proud that a new, $6.85-million library at the former Flamborough Town Hall on Dundas Street East and five times the size of the current one is on its way, as well as a $19-million twin pad arena with two NHL-sized rinks on Hwy. 5, just west of Clappisons Corners next year.

The continuous development of Joe Sams Leisure Park at Centre Road and 5th Concession East, is a public asset she takes pride in, as well as the Flamborough Family YMCA, which she worked hard to bring to fruition.

It’s the same with area rating, which she doggedly fought for and which resulted in approximately $750 being taken off Flamborough residents’ taxes for services they don’t receive.

“During the 2007 budget process, had area rating been eliminated, taxes for Flamborough, along with the other suburban areas, would have increased about 13.7 per cent for Flamborough,” said McCarthy.

Strong research is this chronic student’s forte. Even while keeping pace with the demands of public office, McCarthy took several post-secondary night classes for the sheer love of learning.

She applies a strict method of preparation in all aspects of her life: before she became a mom, she did her parenting homework by volunteering at a daycare. Before becoming a politician, she attended town council meetings for two years. And she hired a private tutor to help her with hydrogeology courses to better understand the mounds of documentation that landed on her desk almost daily in the protracted battle with St. Marys Cement.

McCarthy noted that this dogged determination has its roots in an unconventional childhood, in which at age 14 her parents sent her on her own, to work at a hotel they owned in Ireland.

It was a sink-or-swim parenting model that demanded independence, a trait that is now as natural to McCarthy as breathing, she says.

It’s that attitude that saw her fund her own election campaigns – on the cheap, she added.

It’s an expense that won’t be part of her budget anymore, but McCarthy said that when residents need an advocate, she will be there to help because of another lesson instilled by her parents: if someone needs a hand, you give it.

Margaret McCarthy

Margaret McCarthy was first elected to Flamborough Town Council in 1994, serving two terms before being elected to the New City of Hamilton Council in 2000. During her first term in Flamborough, Margaret was the only woman elected. While in Flamborough, McCarthy was instrumental in the drive to get a new public school, a new Catholic elementary school and a YMCA for her Waterdown community. Allan A. Greenleaf Public School, Guardian Angels Catholic School and the Flamborough Family YMCA all opened within a one-year span between 2000 and 2001.

Margaret has served on a number of committees within the City of Hamilton, including the Accommodation Study Sub-Committee, the Agricultural Committee, the Waterdown BIA, the Flamborough YMCA Project Co-ordinating Committee, the Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC), the Mill Street District Heritage Committee, the Selection Committee, the Social and Public Health Services Volunteer Co-ordinating Committee, the Working Group on Advisory Committees, Second Stage Services and the Open For Opportunity Task Force. She is currently chair of the Public Works Infrastructure and Environment Committee in the City of Hamilton.

Margaret’s goal is to have the City Council treat the budgets as you would a business. In her view there is too much catering to special interest groups, lobbyists and pet projects that have absorbed too many tax dollars. She continues to strive for tax fairness so that there isn’t a continual ongoing operating drain to the residential taxpayers.

Margaret is a long-time resident of Waterdown with her husband, Jim, and can often be found in the stands of Flamborough arenas, cheering on her son, Jimmy, and his hockey team.

The Time to Go is While You're Still Wanted

Terry Cooke
The Hamilton Spectator
(Dec 15, 2007)

"If there were more Margaret McCarthys on city council, my life would be easier and our local government would work a lot better". - Mayor Fred Eisenberger

At the end of a week that witnessed a former prime minister of Canada testifying about cash transactions in hotel rooms with an unsavoury lobbyist, it may be therapeutic to recognize how fortunate we are to have many politicians who enter and exit public service for all the right reasons.

One of those people is Margaret McCarthy.

After five election victories without a loss and with no serious competition in sight, the Flamborough councillor has decided to call it quits at the end of this term of Hamilton council. In doing so, McCarthy fulfills a promise made to her husband Jim prior to the last election.

In any political career, the hardest decision of all is knowing when to say goodbye.

Too many elected officials stay too long at the party and it inevitably ends badly for them, either in defeat or irrelevance.

But the good ones always want to go on their own terms.

For the 43-year-old McCarthy, the time just seems right to pack it in. She has had a remarkable run in local politics, accomplished much of what she set out to do and she knows that there is more to life than eating rubber chicken and kissing babies.

For Margaret McCarthy, life has been a continuing adventure.

And while she hasn't decided exactly what to do with herself after politics besides spending more time with her family, she is young and resourceful enough to confidently approach new career opportunities.

She learned much of that resourcefulness from her late father John Woods. He was an Irishman with a love of business and politics. He owned and operated Midtown Motors in Hamilton for many years and he took Margaret along with him to work from an early age so that she could learn the value of hard work.

Unimpressed with the quality of Canadian public education, Woods returned to his homeland with his daughter so that Margaret could attend high school and then college in the west of Ireland while he occupied himself by operating a hotel.

Later in life, when Margaret acted upon their shared passion for politics and ran successfully as a Waterdown councillor at age 29, her dad would sit behind her at every council meeting and promptly at 11 p.m. he would kiss his daughter good night, tell her he loved her and say he was heading home to mama.

Like most female politicians, McCarthy has had to work twice as hard as her male colleagues in order to get half as far.

But for McCarthy, gender has not been her largest barrier to achievement in politics. The more significant and hidden handicap that McCarthy has had to overcome is dyslexia. She's learned to compensate for that clinical condition by a relentless work ethic and rigorous preparation for all of her meetings.

That hard work, combined with an uncanny ability to build good relationships with both politicians and municipal staff, has enabled McCarthy to get a lot done for Flamborough in a relatively short time She is most proud of her efforts to spearhead a number of badly needed community facilities that now serve her Flamborough constituents, including new schools, a YMCA, bus service and the impending twinning of the local arena.

McCarthy intends to run hard for the balance of her term to avoid becoming a lame duck.

Her remaining priorities include finishing a transportation plan to service Waterdown's growth and leading the fight against a quarry proposal by St. Mary's Cement that she believes to be environmentally dubious.

While McCarthy has served Flamborough well, perhaps a larger legacy will be her positive contribution to Hamilton's difficult political culture. McCarthy has always been respectful and willing to listen to the views of others, but also unafraid to make hard decisions.

That includes her decision to leave politics at the top of her game. I think her dad would be proud of all of that.

Terry Cooke is a former Hamilton-Wentworth regional chair. He is president of Cooke Capital Corporation.


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