59 Carden St.

Subcontractor Bingo, part deux

We posted an item over on the From the Editors blog that seems worthy of further exploration.

Managing editor Phil Andrews took a call last week from a local contractor concerned about some municipal tendering practices. The call was prompted by our coverage of the Isabel Warren tragedy, in which the company that won the contract to build the washrooms at Southend Community Park deflected responsibility by essentially claiming they had done very little of the actual work.

How appropriate is it, the caller wondered, for city-approved contractors to hand off the heavy lifting to subcontractors presumably exposed to a lesser level of scrutiny by municipal officials.

Head over to the Editors blog to weigh-in.

Almost at a loss for words

So those of you heading to Riverside Park today might want to rethink your choice of beverage containers.

The Rotary Club of Guelph has banned bottled water from being brought to, or sold at, Guelph's annual Canada Day celebration.

But that's okay, because they're selling reusable aluminum water bottles for "only $10," according to the event's website.

Does anyone else find this outrageous?

I can only imagine the problems this will cause when people show up with their kids and are told they can't enter the park with water, but can spend 10 bucks for an aluminum bottle.

The initiative is being undertaken, the website states, "to help the environment and to raise money for Rotary charities."

The Rotarians will be providing "unlimited refills," which means either that they're using bottled water themselves, or they're giving us back our own tap water and claiming that as a selling point.

This could cause the biggest Canada Day kerfuffle since Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York' was played during the fireworks finale back in 2000.

City Hall Grand Opening rescheduled

The grand opening of the new City Hall has been rescheduled for Sept. 19.

You'll recall the event was supposed to happen last month, but was postponed after a Bishop Macdonell Catholic high school student was killed a few days earlier when a wall collapsed in a city-owned park.

Click here for the press release with the details about the rescheduled celebration.

And you think three streams are tough

The next time you're feeling miffed about having to sort your trash into three different bags, think of the poor residents of Kamikatsu, Tokushima, Japan.

The small town -- population about 2,100 -- has declared itself a "zero waste" town, with all household waste separated into 34 different categories and then sent for recycling.

A few years ago the town recycled about 55 per cent of its waste. Today that number is above 80 per cent.

While the town is environmentally motivated, its current system of recycling has also helped it avoid purchasing a costly incinerator.

In this photo, a member of the Zero Waste committee stands by some of the makeshift recycling bins.

Site of washroom death turned over to city

The Ministry of Labour has completed its investigation in the city-owned washroom structure where 14-year-old Isabel Warren was killed when a wall collapsed last week.

The city will now begin its own investigation in the facility at Southend Community Park, behind Bishop Macdonell high school where Warren was about to complete Grade 9.

The washroom will remain closed while the city conducts its investigation, according to a news release issued this morning.

A funeral for Warren was held today in Burlington. We'll have full coverage in the paper tomorrow.

The city's curious position on Tim's cups

You might have been surprised at the story on the front page of today's paper about recycling Tim Hortons cups.

In particular, you might have been surprised at comments from city officials that the cups are not recyclable, particularly in light of some fairly convincing evidence this is already being done.

It seems Toronto's Turtle Island Recycling is already recycling the plastic-lined cups and even the plastic lids.

But the city's Tara Sprigg told my colleague, Greg Layson, that hot beverage cups "are currently not recyclable."

"If technologies evolve (or) improve and there becomes a way to recycle post-consumer hot beverage/polycot cups, the City of Guelph will work toward recycling them," Sprigg wrote in an email to Greg.

Perhaps someone at Environmental Services might want to get on the phone.

Tim Hortons officials say Guelph customers will be able to recycle their cups and lids -- as well as chili bowls and carry-out trays -- within city limits by the end of this year.

The photo attached shows a poster inside a North Vancouver Tims location.

The ghosts of city councils past

There were shades at last night's council meeting of the Kate Quarrie/Maggie Laidlaw battles of the last term, but this time the terse words were being flung by Karen Farbridge and Gloria Kovach.

While discussing the contentious issue of whether staff should be given responsibility for doling out more than $60 million in infrastructure cash, Kovach suggested it would be "irresponsible" of councillors not to hold special meetings during the summer to award tenders.

That raised the ire of Farbridge, who made a point of order to remind Kovach this term of council is supposed to be a giant love-fest where nobody says anything remotely disparaging about anyone else.

Kovach, clearly miffed at being cut off mid-rant, countered that she was only expressing her opinion and should be allowed to do so.

After a couple of rounds of "Are you done?" back and forth, the discussion continued.

To tell the truth, after such a sanitized term of council so far I kind of enjoyed the spirited exchange.

Look for more on the infrastructure spending issue in tomorrow's paper.

Latest on the urinals front

City councillors tonight approved open-air urinals to handle the downtown weekend bar rush, but only if downtown businesses are willing to pony-up the dough to cover the cost of the pilot project.

Staff had suggested the operations department pay for the controversial test run. Operations boss Derek McCaughan said his department would commit $5,000 to the piliot, which he figured would be enough to instal, remove and clean the units for four to six weeks.

If the pilot was to be extended beyond that, McCaughan told council, it would require financial support from those businesses open during the bar rush.

But councillors had another idea, suggesting business owners put their money where their ... well, you see where I'm going.

Given how willing downtown bar owners have been in the past to contribute to the cost of dealing with problems related to the bar rush -- read: extra policing, early morning clean-ups -- don't expect to see urinals any time soon.

We'll have more in the paper tomorrow, and I'll be trying for business reaction for a follow-up story for Wednesday's paper.

To see what we reported earlier on the issue, click here or here

Someone needs some extra time with the teacher

As the school year winds down this week, it's not only our kids who will be receiving their report cards this week.

The Guelph Civic League will release, this evening, its 2008 Council Voting Record, on which it ranks councillors by how well their performance aligns with the Civic League's values.

Each member of council was assigned points based on how they voted on 15 issues identified by GCL members and supporters as the most significant.

Most of the councillors scored fairly well, which is really not at all surprising. But a couple -- you know who you are Gloria and Christine -- will need to do some cramming over the summer if they want to please the Civic League, which they likely don't.

To see the complete scord cards, click here Download GCL VR-2009

 

Too few hands on the purse strings?

This might be more a matter of bad timing than anything else, with the stench of eHealth Ontario's $5 million in untendered contracts still lingering in the air.

Guelph CAO Hans Loewig has floated a proposal which would essentially see him solely responsible for doling out more than $66 million in city, provincial and federal money under the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund.

The report, to go before council Monday, notes the urgency with which the city needs to get the 21 approved projects underway in order to not miss the 2009 construction season and make sure all the work gets done by the end of March 2011; a requirement for getting the bag of cash in the first place.

Still, the optics of one person having control over that much money cause concern. I'm hoping for more than a rubber-stamping of the proposal on Monday night.