This was a busy week at city council and it was four meetings long. There was the usual planning meeting, which went by in a way that was largely free of controversy. Less than 24 hours later, council got together again for a triple header, first to receive the audited financial statements from the last fiscal year, and then back-to-back shareholder meetings about energy and trains respectively.
Planning Meeting of City Council – June 6
This month’s planning meeting was pretty straightforward; it was over and done in about 30 minutes.
Coming out of the closed session, Mayor Cam Guthrie reported that staff were directed to support the ratification of a new agreement between the City and the Guelph Professional Firefighters Association. The heritage designation of the Albion, the removal of an non-designated building from the heritage registry, and the approval of a project at 103-105 Victoria Road North were also passed swiftly.
The one item with delegates attached was the Decision Report 1373-1389 Gordon Street. Two of those delegates were representatives of the project, which will see 99 units in a 7-storey build with commercial on the bottom floor and offices on the top. The third delegate was Hugh Whiteley who sought clarity about concerns in the report about how well the City’s stormwater system could handle the new development.
On that last point, staff explained that this initial assessment was written before the wastewater plans were updated in April, which showed that the water demands of the project can be handled by the system using the current figures. Councillors also talked about the growing traffic pressure on Gordon Street and the future needs for a signalized intersection, but for the most part there was praise for the developer who worked directly with area residents to address their concerns. (In fact, Councillor Ken Yee Chew had to recuse himself because he was one of those residents.) The project was approved unanimously.
Before concluding the meeting, there was some discussion about Mayor Guthrie’s sudden proposal for an emergency council meeting about housing. Deputy CAO Jayne Holmes explained that it might be a couple of weeks before staff will be in a position where they can have the information council will be looking for and a date for the meeting can be set. In other words, next week looks to still be a week off from council business.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Special Meeting of City Council – June 14
The Wednesday triple-header at city council started with the presentation and passage of the audited financial statements from 2022. Given the fact that this was the first time that many members of council had looked at audited financial statements, there was initially a kind of explainer.
In terms of the meat of the presentation, there weren’t too many surprises. From staff, council heard that the pending end of life for many City facilities was becoming an issue and that there was a slight increase in tax arrears last year (though these instances are still exceptionally low). GM of Finance Tara Baker also noted that last year was the first full year of the asset management plan and that council should see indicators that the City is turning the corner on those issues soon.
From KMPG, the City’s external auditor, it was a clean review with no conditions, but Matt Betik, partner at KPMG, warned that the future clean up costs of sites needing environmental remediation was going up with inflation, and that asset retirement obligations on things like landfills and buildings with asbestos are a potential future drain on resources.
Council voted to receive the audited financial statements in a unanimous motion.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Shareholder Meeting of City Council – June 14
The first shareholder meeting (and the second meeting overall) concerned Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc. There wasn’t much to report here as the biggest thing that GMHI did in 2022 was sell the remaining district energy assets to Cascara Energy, so from now all the corporation does is manage the City of Guelph’s 4.63 per cent stake in Alectra.
CEO Scott Stewart did note that Guelph has experienced 34 per cent greater benefits because of the merger when compared to the reality where Guelph Hydro continued to exist as its own entity, so that was a good decision in retrospect. The shareholder (council) asked about more quarterly reporting, what the 2023 dividend might look like, and how council, as shareholder, can balance those times when Alectra makes a move that’s best for them but isn’t great for the City. This was a specific reference to earlier this year when Alectra announced that they would no longer handle the billing for water starting in 2025.
The shareholder approved receipt of the audited financial statements and the annual report.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Shareholder Meeting of City Council – June 14
The third meeting overall on Wednesday was another shareholder meeting, this one for Guelph Junction Railway. Overall, it was a normal year for the service as it added clients, expanded service, and cleaned up the rail ties in Puslinch. The City of Guelph got a $164,000 dividend for 2022.
There was one delegate for this meeting, and it was John Fisher from the Guelph Hiking Trail Club. He expressed disappointment that the unofficial trail head to the Guelph 2 Goderich Trail is now inaccessible because GJR expanded service to a client there, and then he challenged the shareholder to get behind a project to create the Guelph Bicentennial Trailway, which would run from the covered bridge to the G2G trailhead on Silvercreek.
Stewart, now acting at the CEO of GJR, reminded the shareholders that the current meeting wasn’t meant set council policy; the role of the shareholder is to receive the dividend, it’s the role of council to look at allocating the dividend, and review park or bicentennial plans. Stewart didn’t want to discount what Fisher had to say, but dissuaded the shareholder from making commitments before they heard from the relevant staff, who were not at the meeting.
Stewart and general manager Les Petroczi were also asked about long-term business planning, and how GJR is putting an emphasis on safety, especially at road crossings. GJR has a safety officer now and they’re constantly in discussions with Transport Canada about going above and beyond in terms of signalization and other safety measures.
Once again, the audited financial statements and the annual report were received by the shareholder.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 