Your Life is Christmas Now
With the passing of Remembrance Day, there's now nothing between you and Santa!
Welcome to the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet, a twice-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 Tuesdays and Fridays.
The first annual Transit Summit and Town Hall took place on Saturday, and while many of the presentations dealt with the regional transit picture, many of the questions from attendees had to deal with issues of local transit. For highlights, videos, and the live-tweets of the Q&A check out the full coverage on Guelph Politico.
It turns out that the vast majority of us are pretty darn satisfied to be living in Guelph, and the work that our City Hall does.
A 61-year-old lady got a jump on her Christmas shopping Sunday by helping herself to some items at Stone Road Mall. When staff became suspicious, the Police were called and when they checked her car they found numerous stolen items. The lady’s been charged with five counts of theft under $5,000, two counts of possessing property obtained by crime, and breach of probation. The lady will spend her Christmas waiting for her court date, which will be on December 27.
Also in the News…
Lloyd Longfield is officially your Member of Parliament again (and you can officially find him at his new constituency office starting today).
Ceramicist Annie Burgess and textile artist Jagdeep Raina are the co-winners of this year’s Jane Graham Memorial Award from the Guelph Arts Council.
Check out this story about Sarah Duncan, whose car was stolen, and then found, and then stolen all over again!
CTV News looked into a point of local fascination, the anti-abortion bus ads. A local woman is trying to get the ads taken down, but Guelph and Area Right to Life is standing up for their right to Free Expression. Council revisited the standards for bus advertising in October 2016, which aligned the City’s policy for ads on buses and bus shelters with the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards. CTV asked Ad Standards about the Right to Live ads, but they had no comment since they’ve never been asked to rule on these ads officially. To be continued…(?)
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University of Guelph history professor Matthew Hayday did an interview with the CBC about the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street, and how CRTC rules about American content on the show helped shape Canadian culture.
Stone Road Mall’s been going through some big renovations at the old Sears end of the plaza, and after the New Year, they’re going to do a major renovation at the other end. The food court in the mall will shutter for 11 months (according to GuelphToday.com) for renovations. All the restaurants in the food court will close save for the Tim Hortons and the Dairy Queen, while other restaurants throughout the mall like Pizza Pizza, Burger’s Priest, and the Starbucks at Indigo, will remain open.
The cold weather is here – and if you don’t believe me, look out the window – so it’s a good time to know your emergency services and when to get them.
November 12 – Planning Meeting.
Council will revisit the decision on 1533-1557 Gordon Street and 34 Lowes Road West to see if it can break the tie in October. People will still be able to delegate on the issue, and four people already have. The other two main items are the statutory public meeting for a six-storey apartment development on College and an eight-storey apartment development with commercial use on Gordon.
You can find the full preview for the meeting on Politico here. The meeting will begin at 6:30 pm and so will the live blog, which you will be able to follow on Guelph Politico, or on Twitter @adamadonaldson.
November 13 – Deliberations on the 2020 Capital Budget and 10-Year Forecast, and Non-tax Supported Operating Budget.
At this meeting, council will pass these two budgets. The agenda package includes a memo from staff about the cost breakdown on the Operations Campus for 2020.
You can find the full preview for the meeting on Politico here. The meeting will begin at 4 pm* and so will the live blog, which you will be able to follow on Guelph Politico, or on Twitter @adamadonaldson.
*A previous newsletter said that the start time of the meeting was 6:30 pm, which is incorrect.
Also coming up at City Council:
November 18 – Budget Meeting, Tax Supported Operating Budget.
The Tax Supported Operating Budget and Local Boards Budget were both released yesterday. The Politico preview isn’t written yet, but the too long; didn’t read version is that the 2020 levy features an increase of 3.88 per cent over 2019 with much of that being carried by a 2.02 per cent increase in the local boards and shared services budget, and a 1.74 per cent increase in capital financing. All the budget deets are here.
November 20 – Budget Meeting, Presentation of Local Boards and Shared Services Budget.
There will be no public delegations for these two meetings. That will take place on November 30.
November 25 – Regular Meeting of Council.
November 30 – Budget Meeting, Delegations for the Tax Supported Operating Budget, Local Boards and Shared Services Budget.
December 2 – Committee of the Whole.
December 3 – Deliberations on the Tax Supported Operating Budget, Local Boards and Shared Services Budget.
December 5 - Deliberations on the Tax Supported Operating Budget, Local Boards and Shared Services Budget. (If Required.)
December 9 – Planning Meeting.
December 11 – Special Council Meeting – Workshop on Transportation Master Plan and the Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw.
If you don’t feel like going to the Planning Meeting, you can still go to City Hall and check out the preliminary ideas for the new Sign Bylaw in the Marg MacKinnon Community Room. (You do have to pre-register though.)
There will be a pop-up to get feedback on the Dolime Quarry solution this Saturday at Old Quebec Street from 1 to 5 pm.
There will be two workshops for Clair-Maltby Parks and Open Spaces next Tuesday, one at 1:30 and one at 6:30, both will be at the the Salvation Army Guelph Citadel on 1320 Gordon Street South.
Journalist Robyn Doolittle will be in Guelph Next Tuesday to talk about her new book Had it Coming. The Q&A starts at 7 pm at the eBar. Tickets are $8, or $6 for Bookshelf members.
***Upcoming Town Halls***
-A Ward 5 town hall with Cathy Downer and Leanne Piper at Mary Phelan Catholic School takes place at 7 pm on November 21
-A Ward 2 town hall with Rodrigo Goller and James Gordon at the Evergreen Seniors Centre takes place at 1 pm on November 23
-A Ward 4 town hall with Christine Billings and Mike Salisbury at the West End Rec Centre takes place at 7 pm on November 26.
Coming up this week on the GuelphPoliticast, you will hear from Nate Leipciger, who was sent to Auschwitz when he was 15 years old, and thanks to the guile of his father, he was able to survive. Twice. It’s a fascinating story that Leipciger tells in regular talks, and he told it again last week at the University of Guelph. You will be able to hear that, plus my own short follow-up interview, on this week’s podcast.
Get the latest edition of the GuelphPoliticast on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, tune in to CFRU at 2 pm for another episode of End Credits. This week, Candice Lepage co-hosts as we get an early jump on the holiday season with a review of the romantic-comedy Last Christmas. We’re also going to be taking about James Dean’s digital comeback, breaking up the Disney monopoly, and Candice’s list of the Best of the Decade.
Then, Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU, it will be a new episode of Open Sources Guelph as Scotty Hertz and I will be talking about the Don Cherry controversy, and the beginning of public hearings on Trump’s impeachment. We will also be joined by Robert McCabe, a survivor and victim’s advocate for people abused by Catholic priests. We will also be talking to Matt Gallagher, the director of Prey, which will be screened at the River Run Centre this Saturday.
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.
Thursday is going to be very, very busy Thursday with a Mike Schreiner town hall at 7 pm at the 10C Shared Space, and the All Eyes on Nestle Guelph stop at 7 pm at the Trinity United Church, plus a there’s a town hall about the proposed development of container homes at 106 Beaumont at 7:30 pm at William Winegard Public School.
The first November Mangez! will be posted later this week.
This Sunday is the Santa Clause Parade, so it’s pretty much impossible to avoid Christmas now. Strap in and enjoy!!!
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!