59 Carden St.

Injunction served against Hanlon Creek protesters

We've just learned protesters at the Hanlon Creek Business Park site have been served with a court injunction.

As I understand it, a court injunction ups the ante for the protesters. Now, if they don't clear off the land they likely no longer face the risk only of trespassing under the Provincial Offences Act, but also of criminal charges for disobeying a court order.

It is not clear whether this latest legal manoeuvre by the city will have the desired effect.

Our reporter Rob O'Flanagan, who has been on the story all week, will have the latest in tomorrow's paper.

The rest of the dam story

Earlier this week we ran a  story on the front page about the future of the Wellington Dam, on the Speed River downstream of McCrae Boulevard.

The GRCA is interested in transferring ownership of -- and responsibility for -- the dam to the city, while the city is pondering whether the 51-year-old dam serves any real purpose since the construction in the 1970s of the Guelph Lake dam.

Due to a glitch in the editing process, only about half of the story made it into print.

We've posted the full thing on our website. Check it out here.

Tick, tock, tick, tock ...

Protestors at the proposed Hanlon Creek Business Park site on Downey Road were given 24-hours notice about 4 p.m. yesterday to get off the city-owned land.

If they do not, Guelph Police could move in this afternoon and begin removing them.

It appears an ugly confrontation could be in the works. Reports from the scene this morning suggest the protestors are digging in, and on their website they have invited citizens to join them there about 4 p.m.

We're keeping a close eye on the situation and will have more on the day's events in the paper tomorrow.

Kudos to Councillor Salisbury

 

On Monday night, Councillor Mike Salisbury was the only member of city council to go out and speak to about 30 protestors who had gathered in front of City Hall to oppose the city's development of the Hanlon Creek Business Park.

Salisbury spoke to the group of mostly young people for about 15 minutes, missing the beginning of the 7 p.m. council meeting.

While they are not in agreement on all the issues, the protestors seemed happy to have a councillor's ear.

Pissoirs, stat holiday bus service get nods from council

City concillors tonight approved a two-month pilot project for pissoirs downtown, voting to spend up to $8,400 on the project.

Council also overturned a committee decision which would scrap transit service on statutory holidays for the rest of this year as a cost-saving measure. The service will be continued for now, and likely revisited during 2010 budget deliberations.

I've missed my deadline to get these in Tuesday's paper, but we'll have more information on both Wednesday.

Protest at Hanlon Creek site underway, City Hall next target

Protestors began gathering about 7 a.m. this morning at the site of the proposed Hanlon Creek Business Park to stop the construction of a culvert, the first step in the construction of a road network to service the site.

The protestors fear the business park proposal will destroy environmentally-sensitive lands -- including an old-growth forest -- and disrupt the birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that call the south-end lands home, including the Jefferson salamander and western chorus frog, two threatened species identified to be there.

The protestors -- who claim no affiliation with Land Is More Important Than Sprawl (LIMITS) which has so-far led protests against the HCBP project -- issued a press release this morning, in which they said they have launched the occupation "to prevent the destruction of this vital land."

A second protest is planned for outside City Hall tonight at 6 p.m. The protestors said they are doing the City Hall protest to voice their opposition to the mayor and councillors as they gather for their 7 p.m. council meeting.

(If only the protestors had a copy of the city's meeting calendar, they would know councillors are meeting in-camera at 5:30, so will already be in the building by the time of the planned protest)

Click here and here for more about this issue

Guelph safest large centre in Canada

According to a new Statistics Canada report released this week, Guelph is the safest city in Canada.

Well, technically we're the safest "census metropolitan area" of the 33 nationwide ranked in the report.

The report used police-reported stats to rank overall crime rate, and also severity of those crimes. Both rankings were down five per cent nationally last year, part of a long-term decline in the country's crime rate.

We'll have a story in the paper Thursday about Guelph's ranking in the report, and I'm working on a column for Friday's paper about how the long-term trend will -- or, likely, won't -- affect the Tories' planned tough-on-crime policies.

Bell pulled on stat holiday Guelph Transit service

The city's emergency services, community services and operations committee voted without discussion tonight to scrap bus service on statutory holidays for the rest of this year and next New Year's Day.

Staff called the move a "cost containment strategy."

It seems ridership on stats is a fraction of what it is on normal days, and staff figure by axing the next five stat days the city can save more than $87,000.

The idea will be revisited after Jan. 1.

Latest pissoir proposal triples cost to taxpayers

Less than a month ago city councillors were very clear that they supported pissoirs in the downtown core, but were not willing to spend 5,000 taxpayers' dollars to fund a test project.

The proposal was sent back to the Nightlife Task Force, which we all assumed would lean on bars and late-night restaurants to pitch in and cover the cost of the trial.

Instead, the task force will ask a city committee tonight to commit nearly three times the amount councillors last month balked at shelling out.

The new proposal, to go before the Emergency Services, Community Services and Operations committee this evening, seeks a $14,200 buy-in from the city.

(The total cost to run the pilot until the end of the year is about $18,400, but downtown stakeholders have pledged $4,200)

This proposal would see pissoirs available in the downtown core 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the rest of this year, though there would be some sort of privacy screening installed.

Unlike the last proposal, which called for trough-style units, the ones now being suggested are like the one shown at right. While this style should offer more discretion for the men using them, they are clearly also designed for use solely for the emptying of male bladders.

Expect another interesting discussion of this issue tonight.

UPDATE -- The committee approved a modified version of the modified version. The units will be installed on a full-time basis, but only during the months of September and October. The costs to taxpayers was not calculated at the meeting, but I figure we're on the hook for about $8,500 using figures presented to the committee. The whole thing still has to be approved by council next Monday.

Feds get cracking with two $180 tickets

Posted by Phil Andrews

We await the reaction of the community to news that the owner and contractor of the south end property that recently saw rather vigorous logging activity are suspected of wrongdoing by Environment Canada.

Further, we await reaction to Environment Canada's proposed penalty for that alleged violation.

For two counts of violating the Migratory Birds Regulations, under the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1994, tickets connected to fines of $180 have been issued.