We often hear how a budget tells us what a city values, and one of the things that residents clearly valued in the City of Guelph budget was funding for the park stewards program. We often talk about environmentalism and civic pride as big reasons to live in Guelph, so is the park steward program the ultimate expression of that, and if it is, why didn’t we talk about it before we almost lost it? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #497 – Park Stewards Never Say “Die” (feat. Margaret Middleton)”
It was a busy week for city council business with two big meetings. Nay! Make that huge meetings!! At the regular meeting, council decided (again) to pursue a renoviction bylaw and a vacant home tax with immediate effect. The real money matters though was the budget decision meeting (although technically the budget was already decided and this was just adding amendments) and there was definitely some friction to talk about there. Let’s get into the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council: Renoviction Bylaw Go and the Budget Conclusion!”
It’s the epic conclusion to the 2026 budget confirmation process! 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 during the meeting on Blue Sky or recap the complete thread after the meeting below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “RECAP: City Council Meeting for November 26, 2025”
The time has come to catch up on the 2026 budget process so far. Once again the mayor has re-written the budget (or had staff re-write it to be more accurate) in the name of affordability, but there remains little in the way of relief and there are still struggles between all things the City needs to do and all the other things that people want it to do. Presented here are the recaps of the budget presentation, and the budget delegation night… Continue reading “This Week at Council: The 2026 Budget So Far…”
On Thursday morning, Mayor Cam Guthrie and Chief Administrative Officer Tara Baker took part in the second annual budget breakfast with the Guelph Chamber of Commerce. If you’ve been following along, there was maybe not a lot of new information about the budget itself, but there was some new commentary from the mayor especially about provincial priorities and why the City of Guelph and other municipalities need more help from Queen’s Park. You can dig into the full recap below! Continue reading “RECAP: Guthrie Tells Chamber to Just Say “No” to More Provincial Downloading at Budget Breakfast”
This meeting is all about you and your thoughts about the 2026 budget! 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 during the meeting on Blue Sky or recap the complete thread after the meeting below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “RECAP: City Council Meeting for November 18, 2025”
The time has come for some budget decisions. The final countdown is underway and zero hour is this particular Wednesday morning when council sits to confirm the 2026 municipal budget! At stake is the difficult balancing act between affordability, maintaining service levels, and coping with the growth of the city, and there will be no easy answers for the ones voting in the council chambers. Let’s look at the long odds in this preview… Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the November 26, 2025 Meeting?”
Do you have thoughts about the 2026 budget? Have you been eager to share them in a public setting in front of all of city council? Can you condense all your thoughts in five minutes or less and maybe use some PowerPoint to sell your points to the city’s decision makers? Well sign up now to delegate to city council on this special night for delegations because you may not be the only one with certain thoughts about how city hall spends your money!! Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the November 18, 2025 Meeting?”
The 2026 budget confirmation process finally begins with the presentation from City of Guelph senior staff! 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 with the thread below, or you can watch the whole meeting for yourself by watching it on the City’s website here. Continue reading “RECAP: City Council Meeting for October 29, 2025”
Budget seasons is finally here! Now’s your chance to warm up those calculators and start formatting the spreadsheets because at this meeting we’re going to start crunching the numbers for the confirmation of the 2026 Guelph budget (the City of Guelph edition)! This promises to be another tough budget with affordability front of mind with the city staff continually try to find new efficiencies, but for now, here’s the opening proposal… Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the October 29, 2025 Meeting?”
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