This Week in Press Releases - February 29-March 4, 2016

Every week, the City of Guelph and other groups send out notices to announce new events, imperatives, and information that you need to know. Here is this week in press releases.

Library Releases Annual Report

By the numbers, 2015 was a very good year at the Guelph Public Library. In total, 2.2 million items were circulated to 59,703 active cardholders in 2015, over 7,000 of whom were new members of the library. The library also added over 81,600 new items, welcomed over 1 million visitors, and saw over 36,600 people attend library programs (an increase of just under 10 per cent over 2014). On top of it all, the library nearly came out quits for the year having $8,923,335 in expenses with $8,920,435 in revenue. You get all the stats from the 2015 Annual Report by clicking here.

Water and Sewer Open House on Tuesday

The City is hosting an open house on Tuesday March 8 to share information about the next phase of the York Trunk Sewer and Paisley Clythe Feeder Main project, and planned improvements to Waterworks Place. This project is a $30 million, multi-year infrastructure project, and is the City’s largest water main and wastewater (sanitary) sewer project including the installation of about 6.2 km of water pipes and 3.8 km of sewer pipes. Phase two of the project will include the full closure of Gordon Street for a two to three week period, and will impact some sports fields, trails and playgrounds in the York Road and Eramosa River parks. The open house will take place at F.M. Woods Station (Water Services) at 29 Waterworks Place from 5:30 to 7:30 pm on Tuesday. To learn more about the project in advanced, click here.

Mike Layton to eMERGE in Guelph Monday

eMERGE Guelph and the Guelph Chamber of Commerce are hosting Councilor Mike Layton from the City of Toronto on Monday at 1 pm at Innovation Guelph. Layton will talking about how the City of Toronto developed a creative financing program similar to GEERS (Guelph Energy Efficient Retrofit Strategy), a proposed strategy that's currently in the planning stages in here in the Royal City. Attendance at this event is free, but you have to register in advanced by clicking here.

City Looking for a New Artists in Residence

The City of Guelph invites professional artists to submit proposals to be selected for the 2016 City of Guelph Artist in Residence program. “We are looking for projects that encourage the re-imagination of Guelph’s downtown public spaces—from its small nooks and alleyways to its expansive spaces and unique streetscapes,” says Ella Pauls, the City’s manager of Cultural Affairs and Tourism. “The Artist in Residence program is an exciting opportunity for established artists in our community, but is also open to artists working outside of our city.” For 2016, the Artist in Residence program will develop a project that explores the role of art in urban placemaking, an urban design process that helps cities to achieve public spaces that are engaging, practical, and well designed. If that sounds like something you'd like to explore, and you're a practicing artist in any discipline with a history of public presentation, exhibition and/or publishing, you can click here to apply for the position, but do so by May 2.

U of G Looking to Hire Indigenous Professors

The tenor of the Federal government has been to make amends with Canada's Indigenous people, and that spirit seems to have caught up to the University of Guelph as it has announced that they're trying to attract First Nations, Métis and Inuit scholars by hiring five tenure-track aboriginal faculty members across the disciplines in the next six to 18 months. “This initiative will help the University transform its learning environment and further enhance our existing student support,” said Charlotte Yates, provost and vice-president (academic). “We expect they will pursue new lines of research inquiry and inspire future generations of scholars.” In addition, the U of G will also create five new graduate awards for aboriginal scholars — worth $30,000 a year for PhD students and $15,000 a year for master’s students — and a new $45,000 post-doctoral award for an aboriginal researcher. According to Statistics Canada the percentage of aboriginal adults have a university degree at seven per cent, as compared to 21 per cent for non-aboriginal people, a trend that Guelph hopes to turn around with these new measures.

Police on the Lookout for Speedsters

The Guelph Police Service did a speed enforcement blitz Friday at many locations across the City of Guelph during the morning hours. Amongst the highlights were two tickets issued in a school zone, and one for speeding and the other for going through a red light; meanwhile a total of 10 speeding tickets were handed out between 11 am and 1 pm on Speedvale Avenue, with another five handed out along Paisley Rd. Police were responding to complaints about speeders in those areas, and there must be a lot of complaining because this is not the only road safety enforcement done in the past week. Last weekend, police stops handed out 47 tickets, including 12 issued in less than two hours near Woodlawn Rd. W. and Governors Rd. on Sunday morning; the weekend before that, 31 tickets were handed out including 14 near Woodlawn Rd and Country Club Dr. The Guelph Police reminds all drivers that unless otherwise posted, the speed limit on city streets is 50 km/hr.