Wettstein Chooses Retirement Instead of Re-Election

As the nomination period races to a close, at least one city councillor will not be standing for re-election on October 22. Ward 6 Councillor Karl Wettstein has opted to take his leave of council at the end of November as opposed to trying for re-election for another term.

RECAP: Small But Inquisitve Group Grills Councillors at Ward 6 Town Hall

It's sometimes hard to get people to think about municipal politics on a warm summer night, let alone come out for a town hall, but a small group of Ward 6 constituents came out to the Clair Road Emergency Services Centre to hear from Councillors Mark MacKinnon and Karl Wettstein on a myriad of topics. Here's what we all talked about.

Budget 2015 Update - Opening Moves

The year started off with council already contentious about the budget process. Mayor Guthrie had announced his intention to bring a motion to the January 19 council meeting that would state that the city government should set itself the goal of not raising taxes anymore than the rate of inflation for the coming fiscal year. Of the seven councillors out of 12 that responded to the Guelph Tribune's request for comment, four were against the motion and three were against. Although the motion has since been delayed, some feel as though the mayor was going too far too soon.

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. 

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.

Karl Wettstein (Ward 6) - Candidate Questionnaire

Karl Wettstein has been a city concillor in Ward 6 for 11 years, and while some people might look at over a decade of public service as  a job well done, Wettstein is looking to bank four more.Wettstein has been a Guelph resident for over 30 years, and during his time on council he's beem Chair of Finance and Audit committees, one of the executive on the Corporate Strategic Planning, Human Resources, Real state Management/Development committees and sat on Governance, Community Services, PBBE, River Run, Guelph Junction Railway and many more. He's sat on the boards for Downtown Board of Management, Chamber of Commerce, Meridian Credit Union, Guelph & Wellington Credit Union, Cooperators Dev. Corp. Ltd. and volunteered with the Rotary Club of Guelph, the United Way and Guelph Minor Baseball and Hockey. Now, he wants to make a case for his re-election to city council.

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Election

The recently concluded Provincial Election put the real 2014 race, the province-wide municipal elections, on hold. But now that the fog has cleared, all systems are go for those looking to step up and try their hand at public office on a local level. Two new people added their names to the ballot, one is an incumbent city councillor, and the other is the first man to put his name forward for school board trustee.

Ward 6 Puts a Name on the Ballot

The long dought is over. After nearly a month with no new names on the ballot, another Guelphite has thrown his hat into the ring of the October 27 municipal election, and he's done so by being the first in the field to represent Ward 6. Mark MacKinnon (no relation to the Globe and Mail reporter of the same name), filed his papers today and let local media - including this blog - know that he'll being “Engaging Our Community” and campaigning to represent Guelph's southern most ward in the next council.

Candidate Questionnaire - Karl Wettstein (Ward 6)

1) Why did you want to run again for city council?

2) What initiatives/achievements are you proud of during the last term?

3) Please describe your position/ideas on the following issues?

a) Taxes

b) Budget

During this past term of Council we have made excellent progress in some key strategic areas that were of particular interest and concern to me. My background and experience enabled me to play a meaningful role in the following areas:

• We significantly strengthened our financial management and discipline through the approval of a number of key financial policies – designed to guide us through a very difficult recession and to position our financial decision making going into the next decade and beyond.
• We established an Audit Committee to oversee the critical areas of Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Audit.
• We overhauled the Budget process to ensure we finalized out annual budget in a timely manner – before year-end. We began deliberations earlier and added a number of stakeholder input steps prior to the final Council deliberations.
• We developed a new Governance model, with supporting policies, to ensure we maintain our current culture of teamwork and mutual respect – especially as it relates to Council, the Sr. Management team, our Unions and the public at large.
• We implemented a functional re-organization of the corporation to streamline decision making, eliminate the silo effect, and improve efficiency and responsiveness to all of our stakeholders.
• We initiated significant structural changes to our interface with the County. The primary objective being to protect the financial interests of Guelph taxpayers.
• With the help of the General Manager and his Board of Directors we developed a strong partnership with the Chamber of Commerce – recognizing the critical importance of ensuring Guelph is seen as a business friendly community.
• Primarily due to the recession and the need to put some major projects on hold we didn’t get as far as we had hoped on the South-end Recreation Centre – We did manage to maintain it as one of our top priorities and I look to the next council to make it happen.
• With the help of the University of Guelph, Neighbourhood groups, Landlords and a number of other stakeholder groups we are making very good progress in understanding and dealing with the critical issues in the Shared Rental Housing area. I have had the opportunity to be significantly involved as a sub-committee member and at the Town & Gown meetings.

Although we have made progress in a number of key areas, we need to be diligent in making sure these changes take root. This requires a Council and Senior Management team that clearly understand the critical roles that strong financial policy, good corporate governance, positive and constructive teamwork, and the ability to find consensus solutions play in running an effective and efficient 300 million dollar complex corporation.

During this past term I have chaired both the Finance Committee and the Audit Committee – I also sat on the Governance committee, Guelph Junction Railway Board, River Run Board, as well as attended all standing committee meetings dealing with all major strategic issues and all issues related to Ward 6.

I would like to help make sure these successes are fully implemented.

c) Transit

I am fully supportive of our recently approved transit growth strategy – designed to take Guelph in to the next generation of transit.

d) Development/Infrastructure

The recent $66 million infrastructure program, though disruptive to for all of us, will have major tax saving implications going forward.

e) Arts & Culture

This is a critical component of our community. Our functional reorganization will significantly enhance bringing these voices into our decision making processes in a much more effective way.

4) Is there another issue that you’d specifically like to highlight/focus on?

N/A

5) What’s your message for voters?

Thank you for your support, guidance and assistance over the past 4 years. Please vote!

Wettstein Re-ups for Fall Election

The word has just been received from the Guelph Votes website that Ward 6 Councillor Karl Wettstein will be pursuing re-election this fall. Wettstein is (fittingly) the sixth candidate to come forward for the October 25th municipal election, and the first for Ward 6. If he wins, the 2010-2014 term will be Wettstein's third on city council. He was elected in 2000, then lost in 2003 before being elected again in 2006.

If you're a potential candidate for city council, we (and by 'we' I mean 'I') would love to hear from you. E-mail adamadonaldson[at]gmail[dot]com to break news of your candidacy.