City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 23, 2025 Meeting?

The epic midseason finale of city council this year will be even more epic because we will welcome a new character to the line up! Before council rises for the summer they will select their newest member by employing the rarely visited but recently very important City Council Vacancy Policy. In all, 26 people will try to make their case as to why they would like to join Guelph city council, at least for another 16 months…

NOTE #1: There will be no delegates for this meeting, but you can submit written delegations and correspondences through the clerks office. The deadline to submit is 10 am on Friday June 18.

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

NOTE #3: This meeting will take place at the special time of 4 pm.

Ward 6 Councillor Vacancy Appointment – As you may be aware, there’s a vacancy on city council. Former Ward 6 Councillor Dominique O’Rourke joined the House of Commons at the end of April, which left a vacancy on council that needed to be filled. Given the cost and timing of a by-election (now less than a year before the next municipal election begins), council opted to fill that vacancy with an appointment process. Each candidate will get five minutes to outline their qualification, and each councillor will be able to ask them up to two questions max. The candidates will appear in alphabetical order and then council will vote. The clerk read the list of candidates in alphabetical order and voting will continue until someone gets seven out of 12 votes.

The candidates are:

Rebecca Adam
Michelle Bowman
Jeremy Cavan
Gregory Cawsey
Dakota Cherry
Robert Coole
Shane Coulis
Morgan Dandie
Jessica Ferlaino
Randy Freese
Hesham Genidy
James Gordon
Katherine Hauser
Donald Hay
Justin Hendrikx
Daniel Kaufmann
Michael Keegan
Vivian Li
Annika Maldonado
Barbara Mann
Renata Mares
Gerry Masi
Laura McQuillen
Ryan O’Connor
Evaristo Ramos Jr.
James Sowden

Declaration of Office – Once the new councillor is chosen, they will be sworn into office and Guelph City Council will have 13 members once again!