The following article appeared in the October 12 edition of the Guelph Tribune:
Opinions on the city’s current strained relationship with the county varied widely at a televised all-candidates meeting for Ward 2.
“It has to be settled by new people in a room with a locked door,” said Ray Ferraro, who served in the 2003-06 council and is trying for a comeback. “People are suffering” from the “childish” dispute between the city and county, as Guelph is losing out on social housing, Ferraro claimed.
“Show some civility. Stop acting like children,” was the prescription offered by Paul Mahony at the 90-minute meeting Thursday evening organized by the Guelph Chamber of Commerce, which drew about 40 people to the public gallery in council chambers at city hall.
A third challenger to the ward’s two incumbent councillors, former NHL referee Andy Van Hellemond, said he wasn’t up on the details of the city-county dispute. “But I dealt with a lot of fighting in my career,” he noted, suggesting this experience would come in handy if he’s elected.
Coun. Ian Findlay said city council, which withdrew from the joint city-county social services committee last winter and set up its own social services committee, is justified in the steps it has been taking to gain more control over the $25 million in city tax money that goes towards social services administered by the county. The city needs to “get value for those dollars, and that is what we are pursuing with the county,” Findlay said.
Coun. Vicki Beard agreed that city council’s responsibility is to serve the interests of Guelphites. This, she said, “is far more important than a cozy relationship with the county.”
Findlay, who spent his opening remarks talking about nothing except waste disposal issues, later defended council’s decision to move towards a fully automated three-bin waste collection system.
Noting that people used to put their waste out in garbage cans, Findlay said the cart system is a sort of return to this, except “this time it has wheels and is more manoeuvrable for residents.” He said city staff are willing to work with residents on the best ways to store the three bins.
Beard noted the benefits to residents of no longer having to buy plastic bags, and she said there will be less wear and tear on waste collection staff who will no longer have to lift waste into trucks, as it will be done by a mechanical arm.
“I don’t have an answer to the three-bin system. I don’t think it’s very good,” said Van Hellemond.
Ferraro said people are wondering where they’ll store the bins and whether there will be odour problems. “We should really take another long, long look” at the three-bin system, he said.
Mahony said he was concerned the city can’t afford the bins. “I don’t think the bin system is more logical than compostable bags,” he said.
Van Hellemond said the city has to be more aggressive in pursuing new businesses to come to Guelph. “The city needs to be open for business,” he said in response to a question about the balance between residential and non-residential property tax assessment in the city.
Findlay said the city hasn’t had a lot of serviced land recently to entice companies here, but the new Hanlon Creek Business Park “is going to be a fantastic opportunity.”
Ferraro said city hall has to show more “fiscal responsibility” to prove to employers that Guelph is a good place to open a business. “We hurt ourselves very badly with the 10-year battle with Wal-Mart,” which attracted wide attention, he said. “We still have that stigma, but we can overcome that.”
As for a new main library downtown, Van Hellemond asserted that the volume of books being loaned from the downtown library is declining. “We have to stabilize our spending” before building a new downtown library, he said.
Findlay disputed Van Hellemond’s assertion, stating that book circulation is “consistently going up.”
Even though a new main library on Upper Wyndham Street isn’t in the five-year capital forecast approved by council last fall, the library project is “moving forward,” Findlay said.
Work is being done to make the project ready to go so that senior governments or other potential partners can be approached, and this work will take a year or two, he said. “The library project is alive and well, I can assure you,” Findlay said.
Ferraro said the city needs a “refurbished” and bigger library, but he said he isn’t sure it needs to be moved from where it is now to another part of the downtown.
“We are long overdue for a new library, and the downtown is long overdue for the economic stimulus that it would provide,” Beard said.
Mahony said the city can’t afford a new library for the time being. He also said that in light of new technology, he’s not sure Guelph needs a library with “row on row of books.”