Welcome to the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet, a thrice-a-week newsletter meant to “tip” you off about some of the important stuff going on in the Royal City. It arrives directly in your inbox on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings.
Regular Meeting of City Council – January 25
The meeting began on time, but it ended hours later and after council had to put the whole thing on pause to pursue the planning meeting agenda. Shortly after 5:30 pm, council went into closed session, and they did not come out of it again until 6:45, at which point Mayor Cam Guthrie recessed the regular meeting and proceeded with the planning meeting.
The regular meeting began again just after 9:30 with disclosure that council had finished discussing two out of three of the issues on the agenda from the closed session. Guthrie said council received information about the LPAT appeal of 361 Whitelaw Road, and council ratified the three new appointees to the Downtown Guelph Business Association Board of Management.
After that, council quickly passed the consent agenda, and ratified all items from this month’s Committee of the Whole meeting with one notable exception (see below). Council also voted for Councillor Cathy Downer to succeed Councillor Rodrigo Goller as one of the City’s two representatives on the Grand River Conservation Authority Board of Directors.
After that, council went back into closed session to discuss the sale of 65 Delhi Street, and finally emerged again just before 11 pm to say that direction was given to staff on the matter.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Planning Meeting of City Council – January 25
When the completion of the regular meeting was postponed, the planning meeting started with the controversial proposed development at 77 Victoria Road North. The plan calls for 24 stacked townhouses that are all three storeys, but there were four people that delegated against the project who were concerned that this is too much density for the property, that the traffic along Victoria Road is already too busy, and that the parking planned for the site may not be adequate for the number of people that might be moving in.
Parking was a primary concern for a couple of councillors since there are 28 spaces in total, five of them are for visitors, which means that there are 23 spaces for 24 units. In other deal breakers both of the Ward 1 councillors, in whose area this development lies, drew a red line on having 24 units on the property and suggested that it should be 16 units, which would reduce the burden on traffic and parking at the development. The report was received unanimously by council.
Next was the decision report on the additional fifth storey of affordable housing on the development at 120 Huron Street. A couple of delegates decided to focus on the need to continue to develop active transportation options in the area as a way to dissuade people from bringing their cars with them when they move in. The decision report to allow the application to proceed was passed unanimously by council, while an additional motion asking the developer to add a ramp to the basement in the site plan to allow for easy of access for bicycles passed 11-1.
The final item for debate at the meeting was the Cultural Heritage Action Plan. The one delegate on the matter said that this file represented a challenge for city council and staff because members of the community have lost faith that their leaders are listening to them.
That was one of the things the Councillor Cathy Downer hoped to address with a series of six additional motions subsequent to the four motions passed earlier this month at Committee of the Whole. The motions expressed gratitude to the work of Heritage Guelph, encouraged dialogue with local leaders of the Catholic Church about their plans for the current underused buildings on Catholic Hill, directed staff to hire a facilitator to improve relations between City staff and members of Heritage Guelph, and asked staff to bring forward a financial incentive program.
There was some skepticism among a few members of council about the facilitator, or coming up with all new and very specific directions after staff had presented the completed CHAP. Despite those reservations, much of the rest of council voted to proceed with all 10 of the recommendations, including a formal approval of the CHAP.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
The next meeting of city council is Monday February 1 at 2 pm, and you can see that preview on Guelph Politico here. If you would like to delegate or send a correspondence for a topic at this meeting, you have until Friday at 10 am.
For more information on Guelph City Council meetings, from agendas to live-tweets to recaps, you can visit that page on Guelph Politico here.
The Government of Ontario has extended the state of emergency an extra 14 days till February 9.
The outbreak the University of Guelph is much worse than initially announced last week with now more than 40 cases of COVID-19 and 200 people (or roughly one-out-of-four students living on campus) now self-isolating as a result of “unsanctioned social gatherings” involving between 50 and 60 people at the East Residence townhouses. Campus police have handed out 27 citations worth $120 each.
Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca asked his fellow opposition leaders (including Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner) to support his legislation for mandatory sick days. This will be third private members’ bill on the subject.
A motion by Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to call up on the Federal government to address the proliferation of white supremacist groups and designate the Proud Boys as a “terrorist entity” received unanimous consent.
The COVID-19 outbreak in the Elliott Community is over, but the outbreak at the Village of Riverside Glen is back on.
Things seem to be holding steady in our region according to Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health as the 7-Day moving rate of confirmed cases has lost of couple of points to bring it down to 113.6 per 100,000. In terms of the case count, we are now back up to 480 active cases of COVID-19 in the region after falling back down to around 400 in the middle part of last week. By area that’s 304 cases in Guelph, 112 in Wellington County, 40 in Dufferin County, and 24 that are unassigned. There have also been three new fatalities over the weekend to bring that number up to 68.
Across Ontario, the number of new daily cases has fallen below 2,000 (this time without any data collection snafus) for the first time in weeks. There were 1,958 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, which is about 500 fewer than there was on Sunday, but that number still shows a serious concern because more than two-thirds of the new cases were in Toronto and the immediately surrounding regions of Peel, York, and Durham (though it’s worth noting that there were more new cases of COVID in Niagara yesterday than Durham). There were also 43 new fatalities province-wide from the virus, 27 of them were in long-term care.
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The City of Toronto released an official statement on the first anniversary of the first COVID-19 case diagnosed in Canada. Mayor John Tory marked the occasion by reminding his city to steady on, and that hope is on the way with many residents in long-term care now getting their second vaccine shot.
The mods of the CareMongering Guelph Facebook page are still cared out after taking a two week break, and they might not be back for two more weeks.
Tips to Crime Stoppers Guelph Wellington last year resulted in 33 charges and eight cleared cases.
I don’t like public bathrooms, my girlfriend is horny, and I’m being chased by a fictional movie assassin are among the worst excuses Guelph Traffic Officers have heard for speeding offences.
Coming up this week on the Guelph Politicast, we will talk to Teneile Warren of the group Reallocate WR. You’ve heard a lot about “Defund the Police”, but a community group in Waterloo Region actually submitted a plan to re-invest a proposed $5 million budget increase request from regional police. How did they do it, and what do they do now that regional council is taking some initial (small) steps?
Get the latest edition of the Guelph Politicast on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, tune in to CFRU at 3 pm for another episode of End Credits. This week Peter Salmon co-hosts as we spend One Night in Miami, a new movie on Amazon Prime that supposes a consequential night where four major figures of Black American culture met in 1964. And while we’re dipping into the past, we will also look back at some of the most important movies from a quarter-of-a-century ago in 1996.
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.
Finally!
And finally, feel free to reach out to be by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca!