Guthrie and Stewart Pleased With AMO Meetings

As the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference winds up for another year, delegates from most of Ontario's 444 municipalities are taking stock of their time with provincial government officials, and among them are members of the Guelph team. In the waning hours of this year's conference, Guelph Politico talked to Mayor Cam Guthrie and Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Scott Stewart about what was accomplished, and what the first AMO with the Ford government was like.

GUELPH POLITICAST #133 - Cathy Downer on AMO

At city council this week, a resolution from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) to support the North America Free Trade Agreement and stand with governments across Canada against Donald Trump's aggression on trade was passed unanimously. You may be asking, "What good does that do?" You may also be asking, "What the heck is AMO again?"

Things We Learned at the Ward 5 Town Hall

Although not the same draw it was back in the fall after Homecoming, a Ward 5 town hall last night at St. Michael Catholic School brought over 40 people out to hear from their city councillors and city staff about the progress made in preventing another excess of partying, and to hear about student housing issues.

GUELPH POLITICAST #116 - A St. Patrick's Day Special

Things were going pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but it seemed like Town and Gown had found a way to perfectly co-exist inside the City of Guelph thanks to the diligence of City Hall, the police, the university, and student groups. And then Homecoming happened...

GUELPH POLITICAST #107 - Best of OSG: Budget and Hydro

So I think many of us feel like the last month went by in a blur, there were a lot of big issues, big discussions, and a lot of consequential decisions made by council. So before diving into a new year with new issues and new decisions, let's revisit what happened in the tired and true format of the clip show.

VIDEO: Some Kinks and Confusion on the First Ride of the #99

Months of hard work led to this: the launch of the new Guelph Transit route system and schedule. The City of Guelph kicked things off with an inaugural ride on the new northbound #99 Mainline as members of city council, transit staff, and commuters all boarded the bust to see if all the prep and promotion had paid off.

GUELPH POLITICAST #91 - The Open Sources Guelph 2017 Interviews

This week on the Guelph Politicast, we're doing a bottle episode for another show entirely. If you don't listen to Open Sources Guelph (and why wouldn't you, you can find it on the same podcast channel as the Guelph Politicast), this is your chance to get a taste of what we offer every Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU.

Important Upcoming Meeting Dates

This is certainly a busy fall season for political events, and the next several weeks are no exception, so if you've got money on your mind, put the following dates into your calendar.

OPEN SOURCES GUELPH BEAT #5 - City Councillor Cathy Downer (Ward 5)

With council taking the month off, this is the perfect time to catch up with your city councillors. As part of a project on Open Sources Guelph, we're endeavouring to host every member of Guelph City Council on the show by the end of the year. Those efforts have been catalogued in two installments of Open Sources Guelph Beat so far. This is the third.

VIDEO: Infrastructure and Environment at Top of Mind at New Year's Levee

When everyone got to the Italian Canadian Club Sunday for the annual New Year's Levee with the Member of Parliament and the Member of Provincial Parliament it was pouring down rain, but as they left there was already a substantial amount of snow on the ground. It almost seemed like a metaphor, perhaps a statement about how quickly change can come. As for the levee itself, change was definitely a theme as Lloyd Longfield and Liz Sandals have a lot of work to get done on some pretty big issues if those in attendance have any say.

Scenes from a Swearing In

Mayor Cam Guthrie being sworn in by City Clerk Stephen O'Brien

With the dulcet tones of the Guelph Youth Singers, a song by new Ward 2 Councillor James Gordon and a declaration of intent by the new Mayor of Guelph Cam Guthrie, the next term of council was called to order tonight at the council chambers of 1 Carden St. In front of a packed house, platitudes were offered, and promises were made as Mayor Guthrie and a team of seven new councillors and five veterans embark on a quest to guide the City of Guelph well over the next four years. 

Guthrie Wins Handily, Becomes New Guelph Mayor

Courtesy of Guelph Mercury

For the next four years it's going to be a Cam, Cam, Cam, Cam World here in Guelph as the one-term Ward 4 Councillor now steps up into the role of mayor after defeating incumbent Karen Farbridge in yesterday's municipal election. With nearly 39,000 ballots cast, or 45 per cent of the electorate, Guthrie took an early lead with online voters and stayed out front till the moment all polls were tabulated. Guthrie will now be joined by as many as five incumbent councillors and seven rookie (or in some cases rookie-ish) politicians around the horseshoe to helm the Royal City for the next four years.

Election Name Game - Who's Run Before When?

As I was buttoning up the candidate questionnaires and looking ahead to election night through past election stats, I hit upon a question that interested me: How many of this year's candidates have run before? Incumbency has been an occasional point of conversation this election: How many terms is too many? Maybe what council needs is new blood. Et cetera. I'm not sure where I lean on the issue of term limits. On the one hand suggesting that someone should hold an elected position for a set number of terms stifles democracy; if the people want to vote for a person beyond a predetermined number of terms, why shouldn't they be able to? On the other hand though, maybe we should be conscious that a career politician, no matter how well meaning, might become as concerned about getting re-elected as doing the things they get re-elected for. Without too much implied partisanship (I hope), I compiled a list of 2014 candidates in the Municipal Election who have been on the ballot before going all the way back to 1997.

Cathy Downer (Ward 5) - Candidate Questionnaire

Cathy Downer was first elected to city council by Ward 5 in 1994, and served for four terms working on committees and boards like including Planning, Works and Environment, Heritage Guelph, Family and Children’s Services, Loretto Convent Task Force and Guelph Non-Profit Housing. She was also chair of the City Hall/Courthouse Redevelopment Committee. Since leaving council in 2006 she's been on the Boards of the Guelph Community Health Centre and the Guelph Youth Music Centre, and was Elections Ontario Returning Officer for Guelph from January 2011 till December 2013. Downer has also served as a volunteer mediator with Community Justice Initiatives and the John Howard Society, and has received her Advanced Mediation and Conflict Management Certification from the University of Waterloo-Conrad Grebel Peace and Conflict Studies. She also holds a Chartered Mediator designation from the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario/Canada and currently works in private practice as a mediator. Finally, Downer was awarded with a Guelph YM-YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Public Service in 2007. And now she's back! Ready to rejoin council and answering the questions in the candidate questionnaire.

Burcher Exits Ward 5 Race

Despite registering to run for re-election the first day that nominations were open, Ward 5 Councillor Lise Burcher has decided to withdraw her name from the ballot. Burcher's is the second departure from the Ward 5 race in the last two weeks as Robert Routledge withdrew his candidacy last week citing work commitments. If no other names join the race, this effectively makes the Ward 5 race a fait accompli with only two names on the ballot remaining: incumbent Leanna Piper and former councillor Cathy Downer. Burcher, who is also a landscape architecture professor at the University of Guelph, was elected to council in 2003, and has also served on the Board of Directors for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The last day to register as a candidate is September 12; the election takes place on October 27.

Election Year Day 2 - More Names on the Ballot

Either an indication of how busy the local balllot's going to be this election, or that there are a lot of eager beavers out there, three more names have been added to the rolls for the 2014 Municipal election. As per the Guelph Votes website, three people have added themselves to October 27 election, including two for mayor and one for city council.