City council gets back to business next week, but before we open the book on 2022 we need to sign off on what happened in 2021. Picking up where we left off in episode #286 of the Guelph Politicast, and the last meeting of council before summer break, we start in September and follow the blow-by-blow of every fight around the horseshoe. There were even some non-fights.

What will the last four months of 2021 be known for? There was a big decision to invest millions of dollars in new transit services over the next decade, which was really great. Council also reaffirmed its commitment to fighting climate change with 10 recommendations to accelerate the Race to Zero, and they passed the draft update to the Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw as well as the draft secondary plan for Clair-Maltby.

But there was a dark side too. Some of the debates around the 2022-2023 Guelph Budget were pretty contentious. There was a call to review the governance of the Downtown Business Improvement Area, but a lot of the debate seemed to be built around misunderstandings. Speaking of misunderstandings, there was a solid week there in October where council was stuck on the demolition of an old farmhouse.

So this week on the podcast, the first of 2022, we will dive into the last four months of city council and take you through them meeting by meeting, subject by subject, touching on all decisions from the major to the minor. From an optimistic view of the pandemic landscape in the late summer, to being confronted with the pessimism of Guelph’s young people when it comes to climate change, these were the last moves around the virtual horseshoe in 2021.

So let’s recap September, October, November and December at city council on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

You can check out the previews, recaps, and post-views for all of last year’s council meetings under the city council tab, and you can also get Politico’s city council post-views sent directly to your inbox by subscribing to the Tip Sheet. The next meeting of city council is the Committee of the Whole on Monday January 10 at 2 pm, and you can click here to see the preview of the meeting.

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Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.