Surprise! It’s a surprise meeting, and that means a surprise meeting recap! Following up the first big political controversy of 2026, a special city council meeting was called to figure out what was to be done about the sudden cancellation of the daytime shelter plan out of Royal City Mission and Stepping Stone. The details were mostly in-camera, but you will learn all about what came out of it in this recap of the meeting… Continue reading “The Week at Council: Two Hours In Camera”
The State of the City is a key event on the annual political calendar as it gives some insight into the mind of the mayor; what do they value, what do they consider accomplishments, and what do they see as the biggest challenges? It’s also a look inside the mind of the mayor and how they see the big picture outside the day-to-day issues and crises that come up. So let’s look inside the mayor’s head from one year ago. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #505 – The State of the City 2025”
Let us wrap up a very busy, and a very difficult 2025 in the council chambers. 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 from BlueSky, 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 January 13, 2026”
It seems as though the City of Guelph is feeling the heat following the sudden announcement on Thursday that a long-awaited daytime shelter program for the unhoused and precariously housed would not open as scheduled on Monday. A demonstration downtown on Saturday seems to have pushed Guelph’s mayor to pencil in a special council meeting this coming week while the City of Guelph is explaining itself in a surprise Sunday post. Continue reading “City Moves to Quell Concerns About Daytime Shelter Debacle”
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”
The 2025 State of the City event at the Delta Hotel and Conference Centre is one of the first big community events of the year gathering folks from the business community, area non-profits and government reps and staff. Last year, Mayor Cam Guthrie used is a platform to announce his about face on Strong Mayor Powers, so we enter this year’s speech with some questions about what he might do now…. Which are answered in this recap! Continue reading “RECAP: Mayor Touts City Resilience and Future Concerns at State of the City”
The 2025 State of the City is coming up soon – Thursday February 6 to be precise – and as we always do at this time of year, we’re going to roll the audio from the previous year’s State of the City as a refresher course. The goal is to remember where we were at the time, where the mayor wanted to take us, and where we ended up now before Mayor Cam Guthrie starts looking to the future again! Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #451 – The State of the City 2024”
What do you think this year will be remembered for in the annals of Guelph history? Will it be the debate over the Public Space Use Bylaw? Was it the announced closure of the consumption and treatment site downtown? Was it when the mayor re-opened the 2025 budget to try and shave off two-thirds of the proposed levy increase? In any event, all roads lead back to one place, or rather, one person. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #447 – The Strong Mayor Year (feat. Cam Guthrie)”
Three meetings in 24 hours! It kind of sounds like a gimmick, but that’s the way the schedule shook out this past week with the continuation of the November 13 planning meeting, the regular meeting of council and then the budget confirmation meeting. There were some interesting new developments, some predictable hiccups, and at least one big surprise, and capturing it all is this week’s council recap post… Continue reading “This Week at Council: Heritage, Integrity and Budget in 24 Hours or Less!”
The 2025 budget will reach its finale today! Or not… 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 November 27, 2024”
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