It hasn’t gotten any better. Last year about this time, the news was grim with stories about the banning of certain books, political influence on what’s being taught in schools, and rhetorical fist fights on whether library material is appropriate given the subject matter. What little difference a year makes because Freedom to Read Week rises again with more threats against Free Expression. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST – Freedom to Read Week Again”
Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s a planning meeting. You can click here for the amended agenda from City Hall, and you can click here for the Politico preview. For the complete blow-by-blow of today’s council meeting, you can follow along on Twitter, or follow the tweets below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “LIVE BLOG: City Council Meeting for February 14, 2023”
In many ways, the February Heritage Guelph meeting was a continuation of the January meeting with the committee affirming the new boundaries for the proposed Cultural Heritage District for the OR Lands. In other news, Heritage Guelph took staff’s Top 10 list of the non-downtown heritage properties they’re most concerned about and added a couple of amendments including a big one on Catholic Hill. Continue reading “RECAP: Heritage Moves Ahead with OR Land Boundary and “Top 11” List”
February for city council began with a stacked agenda at Committee of the Whole and loads of new information about the Chief Administrative Officer’s 2023 plan, the future of Our Food Future, and the newest iteration of the Operations campus. We also kicked off “Workshop Wednesdays” with a meeting to look at the City’s relationship with long-term care. Continue reading “This Week at Council: CAO Plan, Campus Update, and LTC Workshop”
There are 145,000 stories in the Royal City, and this is some of them. Looking at a week’s worth of media releases from the Guelph Police Service, there’s a lot going on in our little city crime-wise speaking, so let’s run down some of the charges, issues, and requests for information from the Guelph Police Service over the last seven days. Continue reading “POLICE NOTES: Door-to-Door Scams, Animal Abuse, and Too Much Stunt Driving”
The Year of Transit (which may soon be declared as an actual thing) marches on with the February edition of the Transit Advisory Committee meeting. This month’s stacked agenda will include updates about the transit changes coming later this year, the usual discussion about recent transit issues, and a special field trip for committee members to check out the department’s newest asset (see above). Continue reading “MEETING PREVIEW: Transit Advisory Committee Meeting for February 16, 2023”
Picking up where we left off in January, council will continue with their review and refresh of the Strategic Plan. This work will guide the business corporation for the next four years in terms of goals, and the funding to reach those goals through the multi-year budget. Budgeting will be one of the things we focus on at this meeting as we march closer to July and the approval of the new plan! Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the February 22 Meeting?”
This month’s Committee of Adjustment saw a number of variances handed out in the name of creating more units in the city, but only one caused any real dilemma. When one man wanted to turn the garage on his rental property into an additional accessory unit, City staff and his neighbour both said no, and then it was up to the committee to unravel the moral conundrum: Could they find a way to get to yes to get one more until in stock? Continue reading “RECAP: Committee of Adjustment Approves Garage Conversion Over Staff Objection”
Shall we discuss long-term care? You can click here for the amended agenda from City Hall, and you can click here for the Politico preview. For the complete blow-by-blow of today’s council meeting, you can follow along on Twitter, or follow the tweets below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “LIVE BLOG: City Council Meeting for February 8, 2023”
The story is familiar at this point: A Code Red is called, and there are no ambulances available to respond to an emergency. It’s a piece of the healthcare puzzle that doesn’t get a lot of attention; we sit up when we hear the words “Code Red”, or when we see those line-ups of ambulances on social media, but the problems are ongoing, and in many ways they’re the same problems affecting other aspects of our healthcare system. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #360 – When Ambulances Are the Emergency”
Guelph Politico 