Author: Adam A. Donaldson

When he’s not the main/only contributor to Guelph Politico, Adam A. Donaldson also contributes to GuelphToday.com as their city hall columnist and co-hosts a political and current affairs show on CFRU 93.3 fm called “Open Sources Guelph" as well as the movie review show "End Credits."

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

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One more meeting before council takes the rest of the summer off, and in the best tradition of the last day before summer vacation, it looks like a pretty light agenda. Council will get one more chance to weigh in on the Committee of the Whole agenda, but only after a lengthy closed session with multiple topics of interest. So without further ado, let’s just get into the cliffhangers in this mid-season finale of city council. Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 23 Meeting?” →

GUELPH POLITICAST #426 – The Year at Committees So Far…

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There’s a lot of work when it comes to the grind of municipal governance and policy development, but it doesn’t always start with city council (though it does often end with them). So on this episode of the podcast we’re going to try and cram six months of work by eight different committees into 30 minutes of audio, from the retirement of the library’s head to the debate over a bus chime to the ongoing issues around housing. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #426 – The Year at Committees So Far…” →

RECAP: City Council Meeting for July 9, 2024

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Let the planning begin! 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 “RECAP: City Council Meeting for July 9, 2024” →

RECAP: Heritage Guelph Greenlight Homewood Changes

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Before taking a break for summer vacation, Heritage Guelph took care of a couple of major pieces of new business. There are some big changes coming to the Homewood Health Centre, and it’s going to impact a beloved heritage building on the site. In other news, there are more heritage designations coming down the pipe for formal approval by city council, including a well known building on campus. Here’s the recap… Continue reading “RECAP: Heritage Guelph Greenlight Homewood Changes” →

This Week at Council: No Walk in the Parks

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Just a few more meetings to go before council and council watchers can enjoy summer vacation, but there’s still a lot of important stuff to wrap our heads around before that needed time off. At this month’s Committee of the Whole meeting on Wednesday there was new moves to protect heritage and make an impact on light pollution, but the big news was around whether we should take park land and use if for housing. Here’s the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council: No Walk in the Parks” →

POLICE NOTES: Vandalism, Drug Busts, and Cosmetic and Perfume Heists

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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: Vandalism, Drug Busts, and Cosmetic and Perfume Heists” →

City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 16 Meeting?

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To this ongoing debate in our community that started with some discussions around the council table almost one-year ago, an ending. Since February, Mayor Cam Guthrie has been working hard to establish a Guelph version of A Better Tent City, and those efforts seem to have fallen on the square shoulders of the Guelph Tiny Home Coalition. They’ve already taken this to Wellington County, but now it comes back to our own council. Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 16 Meeting?” →

RECAP: Committee of the Whole Meeting for July 3, 2024

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A little later than usual, but we’re starting the month with Committee of the Whole. 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 “RECAP: Committee of the Whole Meeting for July 3, 2024” →

GUELPH POLITICAST #425 – Understanding Homelessness (feat. Dr. Erin Dej)

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Our daily news is overflowing with stories about the breadth of the housing crisis, and governments are responding with new measures and funding, but these actions are based in a system that wasn’t designed to handle a problem this massive, or this complicated. This partially explains why nothing we’ve tried so far has had the impact we’ve wanted, so do we truly understand homelessness on a systemic level? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #425 – Understanding Homelessness (feat. Dr. Erin Dej)” →

This Week at Council: Shareholder Reports and Drill Hall Decision Refined

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The end of June brings the regular meeting of council, but more specifically it means an update about the business of Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc and Guelph Junction Railway, companies owned by the City of Guelph making city council their one and only shareholder. As for that regular meeting, think plastics, and think about that big decision on the Dill Hall for which some other artists in the community had notes. Here’s the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council: Shareholder Reports and Drill Hall Decision Refined” →