Here's what I took away from the meeting:
1. GCL formed an association of neighbourhood, civic and cultural groups
2. They identified a set of core values that the community more or less shares. (through surveys, canvassing etc)
3. They aggressively promoted participation in the '06 municipal election and it seems they had quite a dramatic effect on voter turn-out
4. They were able to keep digital voting records and publish a study which compared city councilors voting records with the established values of the GCL.
here's a PDF of one of these publications:
http://www.guelphcivicleague.ca/voti...cordScreen.pdf
I think Hamilton could pull this off.
The ACO people are set to get the dialogue going in the near future.
hmagazine perhaps you can help here: for those who didn't attend last night, who can people contact at the ACO to be included in the mailing list/future discussion ?