Negotiations and Special Guests

Union to City: No dice.

The city’s unionized workers have said forget-about-it to taking five unpaid days off in 2010 and instead temporary lay-offs may be implemented in order to save $1.2 million from this year’s budget. Both the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1189 and the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 241, which represent the city’s transit and outsider workers respectively, voted against the budget proposal by a “very clear majority,” according to CUPE 241 President Brad Kelloway. The result, according to director of human resources Mark Amorosi, is that some city services could be outright closed for five days, and that might include Guelph Transit. Exact details weren’t given, but chances are good that the disruption to city services isn’t going to be nearly as invisible to citizens as city hall had hoped. CUPE Local 973, which represents the city’s inside workers, have yet to vote on the proposal. For updates, see my blog at http://guelphpolitico.blogspot.com

Cool Deal for Family Thrift Store

Milan Lesic is undoubtedly a happy man. The businessman landed a cool $1.25 million in selling the Wyndham Street storefront that he owns that was most recently the home of Ray Mitchell’s Family Thrift Store. The final figure Lesic’s receiving for the sale was revealed last week after the deal to buy the property was officially closed. Next items up for bids are the buildings on either side of the old Family Thrift Store including the former Wyndham Arts location, which has a closure date set a few months hence. But if you were ever a patron of the Family Thrift Store and that amount seems exorbitant to you, Mitchell himself agrees. “It's funny, because the standard formula to estimate the value of a building is to multiply by ten the yearly gross rent,” said Mitchell in an online post. “In this case, the three businesses fully rented paid about $85,000 a year, so we should have paid at most less than a million. And, in this case, since two of the three stores had no working furnaces and therefore no tenants the amount should have been even less.”

City Wants you to name stuff

For your information, today’s the last day for you to be able to submit your suggestions to name new city properties. As part of a new Commemorative Naming Policy, the city wants your suggestions for what the name of six new city assets should be. These sites include the Northern Heights, Morningcrest, Conservation Estates and Westminster Woods subdivisions; a park on the former Eastview Landfill site; and the Civic Square in front of City Hall and the new Provincial Offences Court.

“Names will be reviewed by the City’s naming committee,” said a City of Guelph press release. “First consideration will be given to those names that have geographic, civic or historic significance of the neighbourhood where the asset is located. Second consideration will be given to names of individuals who have achieved at least one of the following: excellence, courage or exceptional service to the citizens of Guelph, Ontario or Canada; worked to foster equality and reduce discrimination; or risked or given his or her life to save or protect others.”

For more information, visit the city’s website at guelph.ca/parks.

Valeriote bring in Trudeau

With Parliament prorogued and nowhere to go it seems, our local MP Frank Valeriote is welcoming Member of Parliament for Papineau, PQ (and son of a former Prime Minister that needs no introduction) Justin Trudeau to the Royal City. Trudeau’s coming into town Friday to be part of Our Lady of Lourdes high school’s annual Flag Day festivities where the school will give the Liberal MP their National Leadership Award. The award’s ceremony will take place in the morning, and will be followed by an open house at the Italian Canadian Club where members of the public can meet and greet with Valeriote and Trudeau from 1:30 to 3 pm.  For more information contact Valeriote’s office at 519-837-8276 or valerf1@parl.gc.ca

Mitchell's Back, Project Chilled, and Communications Breakdown

Ray Mitchell’s Back in Business

Ray Mitchell, formally the owner and operator of the Family Thrift Store, is back in business downtown with a new store on Wyndham St. The store, called Dis-A-Ray Antiques and Collectibles, is located next to The Cornerstone and opened in a low key fashion on October 17th with cake, and the news of the move has quickly spread to Mitchell’s loyal clientele. “It’s ostensibly an antique store, but it’s an antique store for kids,” says Mitchell who adds that by his reckoning roughly half of his customers are under the age of 30. “It’s going to be all the best of the Thrift Store with none of the bad.”

There are a couple of big differences though. First, due to space restrictions, the new store won’t be carrying much in the way furniture (although today, you can get a pair of old roller coaster cars that are sitting in the window). Mitchell’s also disappointed that that he won’t be able to help students and people on welfare in the same way he used to, and while he can’t be the patron of the arts he was by offering a venue, Mitchell says that he’ll continue to be a supporter in whatever way he can. “I’ll let them use the window, and may be the occasion acoustical concert, that kind of thing […] But you’re going to see me somewhere down the road with some kind of musical component.” In the meantime, Mitchell invites all his old customers, from far and wide, to come by his new store and say hi.

City Chills on Big Projects

In irony news, just as Mitchell’s getting his retail life back in order, the City is shelving certain capital projects from the five year capital budget forecast, including the new public library that was to be built at the north end of Wyndham. Avid fans of The G-Beat will remember Echo’s cover story this past spring about the project, which would effectively shut down every business between Cowboy Bar and the old post office. Unless they moved somewhere else to do business like Wyndham Arts last fall.

But tough times, economically speaking, have meant that certain big ticket capital projects are getting mothballed until the city can see its way out of recession footing. Chief among those projects is the new Main Branch of the public library, which was to be the linchpin of the entire Baker Street redevelopment project. Other projects on that list include a new south end rec centre and the Wilson Street parking garage, which, if remaining in a state of development limbo, will have a pronounced negative impact on business development downtown. With a second Co-operators office moving downtown and the arrival of Go trains next year, those parking spaces are seriously needed.

All hope is not lost though. Treasurer Margaret Neubauer told he Guelph Mercury that “There probably is some capacity later in the forecast to get started” later on, but still the city is looking at being unable to fulfill on promised parking needs and leaving several buildings vacant in a development limbo for, potentially, years.

Communication Dysfunction

In more irony news, a city initiative to answer a note of concern in 2008’s Citizen Satisfaction Survey identifying 'communication with residents' as a key issue, three community communication sessions on October 22nd and 26th were cancelled due to lack of interest. The City cancelled the sessions last week due to low registration, and will instead issue a survey, both online and by hard copy, for area residents to comment on pertinent issues facing the city. The City of Guelph's Corporate Communications Plan is intended to foster effective, two-way communications that encourage public involvement for the purposes of government decision-making, and professional, consistent, open communications between the City and its stakeholders, according to a City press release.

Vandals, Evictions and Pollinators

Updates and Evictions

Despite grassroots support – and a cover story in last week’s Echo – it appears that Ray Mitchell’s fight to save the space he’s operated his Family Thrift Store from for 16 years, is over. After I interviewed Mitchell for last week’s cover story, he was handed a 30-day notice by his landlord Milan Lesic. Mitchell and Lesic were unable to reach an agreement on terms of a new lease; Lesic wanted six months, Mitchell wanted three-to-five years. Mitchell may be able to move his business into the building formally occupied by Wyndham Arts, but it would only be a temporary salvation. “We’re out of here at the end of the month, and I think we’re going out with a seven day music festival,” Mitchell told me last Thursday. “Rather than be negative, we’ll be positive because that makes city hall feel even worse.” The seven day festival is tentatively to be called “Thrift-stock” adds Mitchell.

Quarterly Vandalism spree hits core

Several proprietors and employees of 20 different downtown sites were greeted with delightful messages of "kill police and their families," "fight the pigs," "kill police," "we are winning," and "No 2010 Olympics on stolen native land," last weekend. The River Run Centre, Old Quebec Street mall, Knox Presbyterian Church and the law office of Hungerford, Guthrie and Berry were amongst the venues not sparred from the spree. Strong anti-police sentiments are a regular in graffiti incidents in town; several squad cars were spray-painted in April 2007. As for the anti-Olympic lobby, this follows an occurrence back in November where the McDonalds on Wellington and Gordon was vandalized to the tune of $5,000. There’s currently no evidence of a connection between the incidents, but police are still investigating.

It’s a (tentative) deal!

With three days to spare before a strike deadline, the City of Guelph reached a tentative deal with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) locals 241, 973 and 1946, who represent approximately 550 outside, inside and library employees. Details of the settlement will be available when all parties have had an opportunity to present the settlement to their respective principals for ratification. The CUPE locals have been working with out a contract since January 31 and a strike deadline of Friday, March 6 at 12:01 am was set.

Valeriote talks cars

Our local MP demonstrated again last week that he’s a man of parliamentary action, as Frank Valeriote was appointed to a committee studying the crisis in the auto industry. Five Members of Parliament will sit on the sub-committee which begins its work immediately and will report its findings and recommendations to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology by March 24, 2009. “The auto industry has been a driving force in Canada’s economy and has contributed to the vitality and prosperity of communities right across this country. Canadian families depend on the good jobs that have traditionally been associated with the auto sector,” said Valeriote in a press release. “This study is a welcome opportunity to study the industry, share information with Canadians about the industry, and draw conclusions as to the appropriate federal response to address this crisis.”

Pollinator Postponed

Last week, council formally approved a plan to turn part of the old Eastview landfill into a pollinator park, but cost issues in some aspects of the conversion may slow the process. The first phase of creating a community park on the old landfill site – which will include the creation of lit football fields (both kinds) – will cost about $1.74 million, an amount that’s already been budgeted. The remaining costs, totalling about $6.8 million, may have to be spread over five or six years. But at least the pollinator function of the park should proceed in a timely manner; the city’s planning chief, Jim Riddell, says that the non-profit group called Pollinator Guelph will handle fundraising responsibilities to install pollinator-friendly plantings without any direct cost to the city. The pollinator park project is part of a sustainability effort to combat the decline of pollinators like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and moths

The Last Stand of a Family Thrift Store

Along the aisles of this store is a veritable haberdashery of knick-knacks and articles. A certain Echo columnist once completed his set of McDonalds collectable Batman Returns cups here.

But on this Thursday, you can walk past tiki heads, Buddha statues, convenience store candy racks, old sports jerseys, and stacks of VHS tapes and books. There’s no shortage to the treasures and oddities you’ll find at the Family Thrift Store on Wyndham; be it a valued record or some random guy’s head x-ray.

And that’s to say nothing of all the hundreds of people of limited means that have been assisted by the store since Ray Mitchell took it over 16 years ago. But now it seems increasingly likely that future generations will not have this resource to draw upon.

A council meeting on February 17th seems to have sealed Mitchell’s fate, and that of his store. The city approved the concept calling for the construction of a new 90,000 square-foot building face, the centrepiece of which is the new main branch of the Guelph Public Library. Open space, new parking and a re-development of Baker Street to include new commercial and residential space is also part of the plan.

“This concept for the Baker St. site offers upwards of 20,000 square feet of commercial space, mixed residential development a minimum of 400 public parking spaces,” said Peter Cartwright, Guelph’s General Manager of Economic Development and Tourism Services in a press release. “More details about the types of housing and the distribution of parking spaces will become clearer as we develop our project plan.”

Another aspect that isn’t clear is the timetable. For development to move forward, the four buildings currently sitting on the block – from the Cowboy Bar to the Old Post Office – will have to be torn down. But when? “Somebody should have been here Wednesday morning to give me a time frame, even if the time frame is ‘we don’t know for sure,’” says Mitchell. “At least I’d know, do I have a month? Do I have a year? There’s no common courtesy at all.”

What bothers Mitchell is not so much the city’s slow reaction to giving him firm deadlines to move out, but that they’ve know it’s been coming for a while now. “They spent a million dollars on a search process when they already knew where it was going to be,” says Mitchell. “They pretended that they were going through the process. […] Two years ago, they put a chill on this whole block and that’s why all the buildings are empty.”

Mitchell does have support on council though, despite the overwhelming vote of 10 to 2 for approval of the plan. The two were Ward 6 Councillor Christine Billings and Ward 4 Councillor Gloria Kovach. Amongst their concerns is the loss of commercial space and affordable housing units, as well as taking on the huge cost for construction in the midst of the global economic recession.

“Finance has not conveyed how we are going to pay for it,” explains Billings, who adds that she also has questions about the full extent of the downtown’s parking needs. “The downtown has on numerous occasions requested more parking than they have in the Baker St lot. This current proposal, with the number of residential units identified would not achieve this. When I asked staff at Council if there was enough parking, the response was that they didn’t know.”

“I fully support branch libraries and feel the main branch could use some upgrades, however we don't need to spend $55 million, which will be over $70 million by the time their done for this project,” adds Kovach. “Council needs to be realistic when it comes to spending and realize what is happening economically and to our City.”

Economics are foremost on Mitchell’s mind, both the economics of losing the store that provides his livelihood, and the optics of the city’s desire to remould downtown into something more appealing to a certain type of resident. “What you’re going to get is a downtown full of rich people and the first thing they’re going to do is complain about the noise at night, and then there’s no more night life,” he explains.

“They want it to be ‘family-friendly,’ but my store’s the Family Thrift Store. How much more family-friendly can you get?”

Further, Mitchell accuses city staff of playing a shell game with the announcement of this important vote. “They weren’t even going to let us know about the meeting. They sent out the notice the Friday before the long weekend and we had about three hours to respond on Tuesday morning; we should have had at least two week. They’re really trying to keep opposition to a minimum.”

And the opposition is quite substantial. Mitchell not only donates furniture and other items to local charities, but he donates cheap studio space to local artists and musicians. Even the store itself has become an impromptu musical venue.

Right now, five University of Guelph arts students are using Mitchell’s space, and he considers it a worthy investment because every successful artist needs helping starting out. A fact that the bands Magic and the D’Urbervilles know all too well having owed a degree of their success to Mitchell’s graces.

“I’m only one person, so I won’t be the big loser in the whole thing,” says Mitchell. “It’s going to be my thousands of customers and the kids that come to the concerts and the artists that paint next door. They’re going to be missing me more than I’m missing them.”

Mitchell’s sanguine about his fate. On an above average busy day at the Thrift store the one thing on many of the customers’ minds is “What’s next?” The Guelph Downtown Business Association has said that they will assist businesses and tenants in finding a new location and moving costs, but looking out at the expanse of curios and furniture that stretch across two floors, one’s forced to wonder where such a space downtown can be found. The truth is, and Mitchell agrees, that it probably won’t.

Wyndham Arts Supplies used to be sandwiched between the Cowboy Bar and Family Thrift Store, but it moved across the road and down the street last Fall. Other store fronts on the block have been empty for over a year, with no new renters because of the perception that any store wouldn’t be operating on that site for very long.

Mitchell, and the other tenants that have stayed, now feel the pinch especially. “If I had a lease, they’d by me out of the lease,” explains Mitchell. “But because the fix was in two years ago, my landlord hasn’t given me a lease in two years and now he wants to put my rent up because if it goes to expropriation he gets more money.”

Despite his steady business, and a grassroots effort for a reprieve, Mitchell sees the writing on the wall. “I’m completely screwed,” he says flatly, adding that the only compensation he could get is in the seemingly unlikely event he could find a new location for his store. In the meantime though, “My sales go down, my rent goes up and if I leave then he gets rent relief from the city because he lost his tenant. So at the end of the day he can end up with no tenants and more money.”

But what happens to the vast array of items in the actual store? “It goes to the dump or maybe a big free sale,” says Mitchell. “Or maybe we’ll get a chain gang together and take it all down to city hall and dump it out front. I’m not really sure.”

Downtown Troubles, Union Issues & Hanlon Headaches

Downtown redevelopment brings out crowd

Last Tuesday, it was a full house at a City Council meeting as councillors approved the new variation of the C2 plan to build the new main branch of the public library at a site at the north end of Wyndham. Good news for fans of a new library, but really bad news for the business owners and patrons of the current occupants of the four properties that’ll need to be demolished to make it happen. In fact many of the people in the gallery, along with six delegations that spoke at the meeting, were there to support Ray Mitchell and his business, the Family Thrift Store, which Mitchell has owned and operated for the last 16 years.

Despite the interest and the speakers, the motion passed by a vote of 10-2 with only Gloria Kovach and Christine Billings voting against. The vote seemed to come down to more a matter of supporting the new library that’s been in the works for years, rather than being against the businesses on that corner. In s city press release, the Mayor touted the vote as a measure to help rejuvenate the city’s core. "I am delighted that after years of work and study, we are moving forward with a design concept for our much-needed new central library. This design concept is the best choice for the library, and the best choice for the revitalization of the north end of our downtown," said Karen Farbridge.

The property between the Family Thrift Store and Cowboy Bar has been in limbo for the last few years as debate over library plans raged. One of the block’s biggest tenants, Wyndham Arts, moved to another location on Wyndham last fall, seemingly in anticipation of this decision. As for Mitchell and other business owners, the Guelph Downtown Business Association says that they’re going to assist displaced business owners and tenants, but that won’t do much for the artists and musicians renting studio space above the Family Thrift Store, or those living in about 30 affordable apartments in the same buildings. We’ll be covering this story as it develops.

Feel like a municipal strike?

It could be in the cards as the City of Guelph continues its collective agreement negotiations with Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) locals 241, 973 and 1946. The unions’ previous contracts expired on January 31. A provincial conciliator has been requested and appointed to provide mediation services to both parties in an attempt to reach a settlement. The next meeting is set to take place on March 2; a tentative strike deadline of Friday March 6 at 12:01 am has been arranged. CUPE locals 241, 973 and 1946 represent approximately 550 outside, inside and library employees.

Hanlon improvements mean headaches for some

The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario unveiled its latest plan for upgrading the Hanlon Expressway for the consideration of city council in March. So you can only image what happened next. If you said, somebody’s against the plan, you’d be either a lucky guesser or a long-time resident of Guelph. Yes, residents on Old Colony Trail are quite displeased with the plan which calls for a service road on the west side of the Expressway connecting Kortright/Downey to Stone Roads, to be built right behind their homes. The MTO says that the plans, if initiated, would not encroach on the properties on Old Colony Trail, with the exception of three at the south end near Woodland Glen Drive. Further, the MTO has pledged to work with affected residents on a one-to-one basis, but they are firm in their contention that this is the best of all options following public consultation and feedback last Fall.

Meanwhile…

The LIMITS (Land Is More Important Than Sprawl) press conference scheduled for last Thursday (February 19) was postponed until Friday because the group didn’t want to compete with U.S. President Barack Obama’s official visit to Canada. But due to the move, the conference was held a day too late for Echo’s deadline, so for details head to “Guelph Politico” at http://guelphpolitico.blogspot.com for more information.