This week’s Market Squared welcomes you to 2025 with some self-improvement concepts for Guelph council and employees
It’s the primary week of the 12 months! Have you ever set your New 12 months’s Resolutions but?
I haven’t.
I stand on a matter of precept that if you wish to change, then you definately shouldn’t await some arbitrary date to get began, however within the spirit of the event I assumed it is likely to be attention-grabbing to set some New 12 months’s Resolutions for Guelph metropolis council and employees. I’ve bought 4 for them…
1) Cease Letting Doug Ford Set the Agenda.
Earlier than disappearing for Christmas trip two weeks early, the Premier of Ontario appeared confused. He was happening American TV to speak about issues of worldwide commerce, his authorities had simply handed new legal guidelines about bike lanes, and he introduced his intention to finish homelessness by simply eliminating encampments.
In different phrases, Ford doesn’t know if he’s the Premier, the PM or the Mayor of Toronto, and when he does keep in mind he’s the Premier, he’s embracing cruelty and enmity. Ford and his colleagues left the job of fixing the housing disaster to personal builders and you’ll’t even say the outcomes are blended; whereas housing begins in Canada went up by eight per cent in December, the went down in Ontario, and as an alternative of doing one thing to repair that, Ford determined to assault the victims.
Considered one of two issues is happening at Queen’s Park, both Ford has no additional concepts about fixing the housing disaster, or he simply doesn’t give a rattling. So cease letting him name the photographs, get in his face and demand motion at any and each alternative. Additionally, if in any respect potential, might the mayor cease letting himself be used as a prop for any extra of Ford’s bulletins till the Premier decides to get critical about housing and affordability?
2) Get Robust with the County.
I do know Mayor Cam Guthrie thinks it’s a giant deal that the Metropolis of Guelph and the County of Wellington are collaborating by means of the Social Providers Committee once more, however as a Guelph resident I’m not seeing loads of profit for the town, and once I go to these conferences, it’s the county that’s doing the loudest complaining.
It’s been virtually a 12 months for the reason that county hosted its well being and housing symposium and no formal report has been launched, and the parts of the symposium that had been supposedly recorded for later public consumption have but to be posted. In the meantime, there’s a bunch organizing to help unhoused individuals and so they’re utilizing Metropolis of Guelph cash accepted by council to do it, however we do not know who they’re.
On the identical time, the grassroots push to construct a tiny dwelling venture within the mould of A Higher Tent Metropolis hit a stone wall on the county as a result of it fails to suit into their fastidiously ordered provincial mandate, which forgets the truth that their very own symposium audio system demonstrated that the present shelter system isn’t working as a result of the issue has modified so fully. In the meantime, the county is sweating concerning the influence on ambulances as soon as the CTS closes, and whereas they need to, they solely appear to care about this stuff when it impacts *them*.
If it is a partnership, then it wants to begin wanting like a partnership, and meaning the identical minimal of openness and transparency we’ve come to count on from the town, and that features (lastly!) recording their rattling conferences and making them accessible for individuals to look at on-line!
3) Get some consistency with the council assembly schedule once more!
In December there have been three council conferences, and solely one in every of them was on the standard time; the planning assembly, because of its large agenda, began at 4 p..m. and the common assembly was at 9 a.m the following day.
Coming this January there are 5 conferences together with a Wednesday assembly that begins at 9 am, and a particular noon-hour assembly that begins earlier than committee of the entire. Oh, and there’s one other 4 p.m. begin time for this month’s planning assembly, which suggests one other lengthy agenda, and that assembly will likely be adopted by the aforementioned 9 am assembly the very subsequent day.
It’s price noting that there was precisely one council assembly final January, and out of that got here the initiation of the Public Area Use Bylaw, which was the reason for at the least two swiftly scheduled conferences, together with one in August when there are sometimes no council conferences.
A part of constructing belief in authorities is creating consistency and regularity. Sure, there’ll all the time be trigger for particular conferences and last-minute conferences, however we actually have to get again to Tuesday being council assembly day and beginning these conferences at 6 p.m. If there’s a risk that we’re going to be there until midnight-ish, then we are able to begin further conferences, and with extra of a transparent and early clarification about why that is occurring.
4) Extra openness and transparency interval.
At one in every of December’s conferences, Mayor Guthrie came upon an perception I’ve had for a very long time with a word about delegations on the Reasonably priced Housing Technique: Generally, individuals simply wish to be heard. It might not be an uncommon factor for a metropolis council to have an open mic evening, and I believe that needs to be one thing council might do that 12 months.
I will even make my perennial request to pierce the veil of the closed assembly course of. As we noticed up in Stratford final 12 months, some unhealthy issues can occur in closed session the place councils suppose nobody is watching, and there’s been at the least one time at Guelph council the place a choice made in closed led to some complicated penalties within the open session.
So let me once more suggest one thing radical by suggesting that there needs to be no closed assembly of council with out a report telling us what the assembly is about and what council is being requested to debate. We don’t want to listen to what all people says in level type, however studying the topic line and saying, “There, now you’re informed,” isn’t sufficient.
This needs to be a rebuilding season for our native democracy, and in a way it already will likely be. The overview of the Advisory Committees of Council will come again in March, and that will likely be a bellwether for metropolis corridor’s intent: Are the ACOCs meant to offer the individuals higher entry to coverage making, or are they meant to rubberstamp the need of council and employees?
It’s a brand new 12 months, which suggests there are many new alternatives. Right here’s hoping that our civic leaders would possibly attempt to seize them, and perhaps, for as soon as, hearken to my recommendation.
