City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the February 25, 2025 Meeting?

And now we’ve come to the end of February – well, nearly – and we get to the last city council meeting of the month. At this gathering of Guelph’s civic leaders we will dig into the new reports focusing on political and administrative oversight, and we will also revisit Committee of the Whole business assuming that anyone has any lingering questions. Let us take a look at what to expect from this regular meeting of council for this second month of the year!

NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting in-person or via tele-presense but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on Friday February 21. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.

NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.

CLOSED MEETING:

February 2025 Public Appointments: Guelph Cemetery Commission – As with all public appointments, this will be discussed under Section 239(2)(b) of the Municipal Act for “personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees” before any appointments are approved in open session.

2024 Annual Report of the Integrity Commissioner – Always scintillating but rarely controversial, it’s this year’s Integrity Commissioner’s report as presented by John Mascarin from Aird Berlis. According to the report, there were two complaints against a councillor last year for “intimidating and bullying” behaviour, and there was a third in January for the same. All three incidents were in response to social media posts, and the commissioner recommended to all councillors to be more careful with their posts. There was another complaint that a councillor helped organise a “non-City meeting” that led to “violent counter protests” but the complaint came in too late to begin an investigation and there was a complaint that a member of council “overreached their position, and had acted purported to speak for ‘all Council’ with respect to a matter of significant controversy”, which was dismissed. There was also this matter from last November.

2024 Annual Report of the Lobbyist Registrar – The lobbyist registrar Suzanne Craig will present her first annual report to city council and there’s not much to present. There were zero formal complaints and zero informal complaints in the first year of business for the registry.

Consent Agenda items from the Committee of the Whole meetings on February 4. (Items can be pulled by a councillor seeking additional information, otherwise all items will be voted on as a slate without further debate.)