59 Carden St.

What's in it for cities?

Posted by Magda
The federal budget is out, and it's got a few interesting tidbits for cities.

• Permanent gas tax: The federal gas tax -- until now a temporary source of funding for things like infrastructure and transit -- will become permanent. That means it's a source of funding cities can count on. By 2009, it'll be $2 billion a year across the country.
• Transit: The feds have committed $500 million for transit projects from the 2007 surplus. Projects have to be fairly advanced -- the application deadline is the end of March. Michael Chong, the Wellington-Halton Hills Conservative MP, said he hopes locally the plan to bring GO trains to Guelph or a light-rail service planned in Waterloo region might qualify for this.

Read more in the Mercury tomorrow.

More conflict of interest

Posted by Magda
Interesting to note that Ward 3 Councillor June Hofland announced yesterday that she wouldn't be voting on anything related to the former Lafarge property, because of how close she lives to the property. I'll try to investigate this whole conflict issue this week.

Hanlon study

Posted by Magda
The last meeting about potential Hanlon Expressway expansions drew 300 people. Now you can take a look at the environmental assessment that'll be discussed March 7.

TWO incinerators?

Posted by Magda
East Hamilton could be getting not one but two incinerators. Read all about it.

Let's talk trash

Posted by Joanne Shuttleworth

If you have thoughts on Guelph’s garbage collection system, now is the time to voice them.

The city is accepting feedback on the data it has collected and any new ideas for consideration as it develops a 25-year solid waste management master plan, which should be ready by the fall at the latest.

An open house at the Cutten Club Thursday evening attracted about 100 residents, but all the information is available here. Deadline is Feb. 28.

My thoughts:

• I don’t have a problem sorting my trash into three streams but I don’t like having to purchase special colour-coded bags to get rid of it. When used shopping bags seem to multiply in my closet without input from me, it seems counterintuitive to make me spend money on more plastic bags.

• A few times a year, the city encourages residents to put unwanted but still useful household items on their curbs for others to take for free. It’s brilliant and what I think of as a city-wide sidewalk sale. But I do wish the city would also haul away the leftovers the following week.

• Get apartment dwellers on board with recycling and composting programs.

• The city should subsidize the cost of backyard composters. Alternatively, neighbourhood garden groups that compost might appreciate receiving compost contributions.

The committee is prepared to listen to your trash talk right now. Let them know what you think.

Pecuniary interest

Posted by Magda
On his blog, Councillor Mike Salisbury explains why he doesn't believe he's in a position of conflict when he votes on transit issues, even though his wife is a bus driver (questions about this have been raised on this blog and elsewhere). You can read that on the Ward 4 blog.

What about my banana peels?

Posted by Magda
Seems like we're not getting a compost plant until 2010, if things go according to schedule.

When the plant first closed in the early summer of 2006, staff tried to find another composter that would take our organics. But when a deal with Hamilton's composter fell apart that September, they signed on with an incinerator in Niagara Falls, NY, even though it's widely accepted that burning organics is an inefficient thing to do. (The city argues that it's better than using up valuable space in landfills.)

In January 2007, Environment director Janet Laird said this about reopening the plant: "It's not going to be 12 months. Eighteen months is about as soon as we expect." That would have meant the plant would open in the middle of this year, and made it sound like incineration was something we could just grin and bear.

But a presentation at last night's waste public meeting puts the composter as opening in 2010 -- 24 months from now. Perhaps it's time to reconsider what we're doing with our organics in the meantime.

Thanks for livening things up

Posted by Magda
My colleague, Tanis Fowler, has advanced an interesting theory. She suggests that whoever pulled the fire alarm on budget night at city hall Tuesday was reading this blog, saw her posting about how budget deliberations could use a bit of livening up -- perhaps a Wolf Blitzer-style bank of screens -- and decided to liven things up. Wolf was busy, so the next obvious option was the fire alarm.

An odd response

Posted by Magda
For a few months now, I've been getting several emails a week from the Guelph Waste Management Coalition. They're mostly copies of emails sent to city staff, asking for information, linking stories and information about composters elsewhere. The emails have ranged from polite to angry, frustrated, and sometimes disrespectful.

Even so, I'm surprised about the most recent discussion between the group and the city.

On Feb. 8, Ken Spira, a member of the group, sent a message to the mayor and council detailing his attempts to find out how much it cost the city to operate the wet plant during the last year compared to the last year in which the wet plant was operating.

He described how the group asked for the information Nov. 22, Dec. 19 and Jan. 26. They got a response after ten weeks from wet plant staff saying resources can't be dedicated to answering their question. He suggested to council this was unacceptable.

Last Friday, Hans Loewig, the city's chief administrative officer, responded. Here's the text of that:

"Thank you for your letter dated Feb.8, 2008, regarding the response that you received from Dean Wyman, the City's Manager of Solid Waste Resources.

"You and the Guelph Waste Management Coalitions (GWMC), have sent many requests for basic information to Mr. Wyman in the past and have received timely responses to these requests. Your two most recent requests for information have received responses which are unacceptable to you.

"The GWMC is not a recognized organization/body by either the Province of Ontario or by the City of Guelph and therefore we do not intend on providing any special consideration to you.

"Our staff are very busy and do their best to respond to all requests, however, be advised that your continued barrage of questions, criticisms and demands will no longer receive our attention or response."

This is surprising, and disappointing. The group may or may not be recognized, but that has no bearing: it's made up of Guelph residents, and thus merits answers. There is of course a limit -- I don't think anybody would benefit if a wet plant staffer had to spend all of his or her time answering questions. But people on the public payroll need to find a balance between doing what they think their jobs should be, and doing what the people who pay their salaries think their jobs should be. I can understand someone saying they don't have time to answer a question right now, but to suggest that all questions received from a particular group of residents won't receive a response is indeed unacceptable.

Budget night breakdown

Posted by Laura

Budget night turned out to be way more eventful than I expected. There were protesters, random outbursts and the night wrapped up with a fire alarm acting as the soundtrack to the vote. Given what had transpired in the four and a half hours leading up to that point, it seemed like a strange but fitting way to end the night.

Here's what council ultimately supported in the 2008 budget:

• 4.5 per cent increase or a tax hike of $113 for the average homeowner with a property assessed at $238,000

Here are some of the highlights:

• 20-minute transit service starts in July. Buses will run every 20 minutes from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and every 30 minutes after that. Transit riders face a hike of 25 cents on cash fares and tickets and $5 on passes.
• $72,000 for a youth shelter, to open in October
• Service improvements to land ambulance -- one more ambulance staffed 24 hours a day to serve Guelph and Puslinch; better ambulance staffing in Drayton
• Roughly $1 million each for Hospice Wellington and Guelph General Hospital spread over the next five years. The funds will be used to establish a residential hospice and support the hospital's MRI & More campaign.
• Some of the new hires in 2008: four new police officers, an energy conservation co-ordinator, environmental planner, municipal lawyer, community energy plan project manager, playground inspector/repair person, organizational development specialist/human rights adviser, 12 students to improve park maintenance, curbside adviser to educate citizens about sorting waste. 
• Three to seven per cent increase on most recreation fees, ending last year's freeze
• No changes to sidewalk snow removal
• More money to renew city buildings, but less than expected. Councillors voted to contribute less to reserves in order to keep the tax increase at 4.5 per cent
• Funding for municipal election enhancements