Google Laidlaw, Application Deadline and Councillor Green?

Laying Down the Laidlaw

Ward 3 Councillor Maggie Laidlaw is taking it on the chin for some comments made during budget deliberations earlier this month. On the first night of budget deliberations, Laidlaw said that she had used the Street View function of Google Maps to get a closer look at the homes of some of the people that sent her complaints about the proposed 5.67 per cent tax increase for the 2011 budget. She noted that the more vehement anti-tax constituents had "two cars and a boat in the driveway, and these people are asking for taxes not to go up." Laidlaw’s sleuthing gave fodder to her council colleagues, got her the label “Councillor Creeper” from a Guelph Mercury blogger, and opened the floodgates of public response from the man and woman on the street.

In a letter to the Mercury a few weeks ago, Laidlaw tried to better articulate her position. “I have often wondered, over the years, whether the people who complain most bitterly about, for example, the city’s investment in public transit, community facilities, libraries, taxes, etc., are the ones who could most afford to pay taxes and, in a very small way, ‘share the wealth,’” wrote Laidlaw. “In the last couple of weeks, of the many emails I received about the budget and other things, I randomly picked out the three that appeared to be most vehemently opposed to a tax hike of any sort, and who were, in fact, pushing for a zero tax increase. I Googled their homes just to get an inkling of whether my theory might be correct.”

But Laidlaw’s clarification seems to have inspired only more vitriol. One woman writing to Mayor Karen Farbridge (which was shared by the Mercury on the 59 Carden St. blog) demanded that she “must hold this councillor to task” for violations to the Council Code of Conduct, in a manner more stringent than just a “slap on the wrist.” In her response, the Mayor wrote, “It is not the role of a Mayor to supervise Councillors’ responsiveness to constituents. It is up to the voters to make their own judgments at election time.” She also encouraged the letter writer to express herself directly to Laidlaw, but don’t expect that to sooth the savage beast, as it were.

Nope this is a hot button, for sure. Look for more responses, both heated and cooled, in the days ahead.

Former Councillor Going Green (Politically and Entrepreneurially)

Former Ward 4 Councillor Mike Salisbury is not letting his loss in last October’s municipal election keep him down. Instead, he’s now seeking higher office as a nominee for Guelph’s Green Party candidate in this fall’s provincial election. “Electing Canada’s first Green Party member will send a strong message that Guelph is a leader in Canada’s green industrial revolution,” said Salisbury in a press release. “What we need most is a local change agent who understands the cultural dynamics of our city, and can leverage our local energy initiatives to create sustainable, high-paying jobs here in Guelph.”

Indeed, these are busy times for Salisbury, who along with kicking off ambitions for provincial office, also appeared on the CBC show Dragon’s Den this week with his new Guelph-based business Tribute Caskets, which manufactures environmentally-friendly caskets that can also feature artwork and photo designs to better memorialize the deceased. The episode aired Wednesday night on a CBC station near you, so you know better than I do how things turned out for Salisbury. As for his political ambitions, Salisbury’s is currently the only hat in the ring for the Green Party of Ontario nomination. Their nomination period closes on April 17th.

Exciting Paperwork News!

If you’re reading this on Thursday, then it’s just one more sleep until the deadline for candidates from the 2010 municipal election to file their financial statements from the campaign. This is not exactly news because the Ontario Municipal Elections Act has always required candidates, both successful and unsuccessful, to file their financial paper work after a suitable grace period. But the difference this year is that those financial statements will be made available to the public through the City’s website. A press release sent out on March 14th said that 26 of the 57 candidates that ran for mayor, city council or school trustee had filed their paperwork thus far. The final deadline is at 2 pm Friday.

But out of curiosity, what happens if a candidate doesn’t file their paperwork by tomorrow afternoon? The penalty, should an elected candidate fail to submit his or her financial statement by the deadline, is the forfeiture of any office to which he or she was elected, the office is deemed to be vacant, and the candidate is ineligible to run in the next municipal election. The penalty for unsuccessful candidates who fail to file by the deadline is ineligibility to be elected or appointed to any office to which the Act applies until after the 2014 election. Well, I hope everyone’s punctual then.

Election News and GCL Re-Ups

Birtwistle Takes Up Space

Upping the game to the next level, mayoral hopeful David Birtwistle has officially opened his campaign office. The space is in a former dollar store in the plaza at Victoria and Grange Roads, the same one that’s home to Guelph’s famous Hockey Sushi. It’s another sign that Birtwistle, a former two-term city councillor (2000-2006) means business in the race to depose Karen Farbridge for the City’s highest office. Sign spotters may recall that Birtwistle was also the first off the bench with election signage after the Canada Day long weekend. As for our current Mayor, she’ll be setting up shop in the former Alma Gallery downtown later this month. To keep up with the mayoral race, visit the candidates’ websites at http://www.davidbirtwistle.com/ for David Birtwistle and http://www.farbridgeforguelph.ca/ for Karen Farbridge.

The Rest of the Race…

The second half of July brought a proverbial flurry of new activity to the various races. Ward 1 remains, by far, the most competitive with a total of eight announced candidates running so far. Further, as of press time, I have it on good authority that there may be a ninth sometime soon. That's almost the total number of candidates running in all the other wards combined, and the remaining incumbent, Bob Bell, has still yet to announce. Meanwhile, over in Ward 2, Andrew Colwill threw his hat back into the ring. Colwill also ran in the last municipal election finishing sixth at seven per cent of the vote. Now he is the fourth person to join the race in this ward behind incumbents Vicki Beard and Ian Findley, as well as former Ward 2 councillor Ray Ferraro.

The story in the rest of the wards is mostly a tale of out with the old, back in with the old. The races in Wards 3 and 6 have remained unchanged since April, with incumbents Maggie Laidlaw and June Hofland re-upping for re-election in Ward 3 and Karl Wettstein doing the same in Ward 6. His ward mate, Christine Billings, told me earlier this summer that she usually waits until late summer/early fall to announce. Ward 4 finally joined the board with Gloria Kovach announcing her intention to run again on July 15th, and Mike Salisbury following suit on July 26th. Finally, in Ward 5, both Leanne Piper and Lise Burcher are now officially in the race.

HGCL Ready for another Go

Although extremely active in the last municipal election, not much has been heard from the Guelph Civic League in the build up to this year’s contest. Recently though, the GCL undertook a process to reinvigorate themselves, and it started with the election of a new executive. Kevin Ferraro and Sharon Lewis, both new to the Guelph Civic League, have agreed to act as co-presidents of the organization, while Annie O'Donoghue will continue to act as past president. The rest of the exec is made up of Anne Gardner as Treasurer, Clare Irwin as Secretary, Kathie Lamie as Membership / Outreach Co-ordinator, Susan Ratcliffe as Events Co-ordinator, Dave Sills as Communications Co-ordinator, and Anastasia Zavarella, Local Affairs Commissioner of the University of Guelph’s Central Student Association, as Campus Outreach Co-ordinator. “The members of the executive committee are excited about their new roles and anxious to build on the work of past executive committee members,” said a message to members of the GCL’s Facebook group. Founded in 2004, the Guelph Civic League is committed to keeping citizens informed and working towards a local democracy that is inclusive, participatory, transparent and accountable. Check out what the GCL’s got cooking by going to their website at http://www.guelphcivicleague.ca.

Willow Facelift, Election News and Drugs in HCBP

HCBP open for (illicit) business

When politicians said that the Hanlon Creek Business Park was going to attract new business to Guelph, they probably didn’t have a recent discovery by Guelph Police in mind when they said it. On June 29th, the Drug Enforcement Unity was tipped off that on the city owned lands that will become home to the HCBP, there was an outdoor grow op. After investigating the police did indeed confirm that yes, there were several marihuana plants being grown in a section of HCBP. In fact, there were 340 marihuana plants in the early stages of maturation. The combined street value of those plants if they had been allowed to mature into dried marihuana would have been $340,000. So far, nobody’s been charged for the operation of this op and all plants have been destroyed by the police.

Getting a jump on Election Season

With the hot summer weather, it seems logical that there’s not going to be any big candidacy announcements, with maybe a few exceptions, until late August. (Ray Ferraro was the last person to make the plunge as of June 17th. At least at press time.) Still, there seems to be one person e chomping at the bit for the nitty-gritty excitement of electioneering to begin. In the last week, a few “David Birtwistle for Mayor” signs have popped up at strategic locations around Guelph. Too soon, some would say, considering polls don’t open till the morning of October 25th. Not at all, say the City’s election rules. Once a candidate has registered and paid a $200 deposit, a candidate is free to put up signs as they see fit. Apparently Sean Farrelly, Ian Findlay and Maggie Laidlaw have also paid their deposit, but their excitement is clearly no where near as palpable as Birtwistle is seems.

Willow West Getting Facelift

Apparently the owners of Willow West Mall are taking the departure of Zellers as a sign. Last week, it was reported in the Guelph Tribune that the mall’s owners, Bentall LP, had given notice to all stores within Willow West, with the exception of Roy’s No Frills and the R U Serious restaurant, till the end of August to say sayonara. “The idea is to redevelop the shopping centre and convert most of what is enclosed today into large-box retailers,” Angelo Di Palma, Willow West’s property manager, said to the Tribune.

Clearly the recent closing of Zellers, which anchored the south end of the mall, created an opportunity for Bentall to gentrify their holding at the corner of Willow Rd and Silvercreek. In May, the owners announced that a Leon’s Superstore would be filling the space vacated by Zellers, and currently developers are in the process to get the proper permits in order to begin the renovations on the 76,000-square-foot premises. News of a forced mass exodus of most other Willow West shops came as no surprise to business owners like Kirit Gohil of Guildcrest Jewelers, but the timetable, however, was. “If they had informed us when Zellers was going out, we could have had the closing sale (at the same time) and that would have helped,” he said about his end of August eviction date.

Reversely though, others think Bentall’s rejuvenation of the mall is excellent news. “This site has been tired and ignored for entirely too long,” said Roy Zannoni, the Roy of Roy’s No Frills. “I think the community deserves better.” Interestingly, Willow West Mall was the first enclosed mall ever opened in Guelph, and the Willow West area was one of the first commercial developments outside the downtown to be developed in Guelph. Willow West Mall itself has been marked for redevelopment for a few years now with a lot of commercial business heading to the south end of the city or further west to the Paisley and Imperial area. Exact construction dates and potential new retailers have yet to be announced.

The Past and the Future Meet in Ward 3

Welcome to the first part of my six part series “Better Know a Ward.” (Any relation between this column and a sketch done on a popular late night comedy show is purely coincidental.)

This week’s ward: St. John’s, the fightin’ third. Located in the centre of the city, it’s home to both some of the wealthiest and poorest neighbourhoods in Guelph and counts the Library and Exhibition Park amongst its landmarks, as well as a number of heritage homes and buildings. Diversity is also a feature with many new immigrants settling into the Willow area, speaking 26 languages. The councillors representing this diverse sector are the thrice-elected Maggie Laidlaw and freshman June Hofland. I talked to both of them following a Ward meeting in the main council chamber at City Hall.

Amongst the concerns of Ward 3 residents is the usual: property taxes, transit, city services and termites? Yes, it seems that the wood eating insects are something of a nuisance, coming into the ward following the rail line and moving up Woolwich Street.

“One of the issues that was contentious, but its died away because it keeps getting put off, is to have a skateboard park in Exhibition Park,” adds Laidlaw. “Some people are vehemently opposed to it. We’re one of the only cities of our size that doesn’t have a skateboard park.”

Another issue is the placement of an expanded main branch of the library. Last Tuesday, a number of scenarios were presented for appraisal by the public during a library hosted open house. The original building was designed to hold about 40,000 books, a number that it’s since exceeded by a factor of three. Still, there is division about investing in an expanded library, especially after the city lost the preferred location of the old post office on Wyndham.

“There’s still a lot of bad feelings around losing that sale,” says Hofland. “The thing that I find most difficult is that the downtown is everybody’s neighbourhood. That’s why public spaces - libraries, skating rinks - all of those things are important to the health of a city, I really feel strongly about that.”

Of course, the two big elephants in Ward 3 are development related: the Lafarge site and Wal-Mart. As reported here a couple of weeks ago, council voted down the developers’ proposal on Lafarge and now the matter is before the Ontario Municipal Board, where mediation will start in September as all sides try to reach an accord.

Hofland, who refuses to comment on her feeling of the development due to a conflict of interest, says that, “People are not opposed to the development necessarily, but what they’d like to see is a ‘complete community;’ places for people to live, work, shop, public space, as opposed to 400,000 square feet of big box commercial.”

On the other side of the ward is Wal-Mart, and this month a motion will come to council to authorize an expansion of the store and create new shopping space on the surrounding land. After the furious 10 year debate, the fight against Wal-Mart seems oddly stayed as the expansion option has arisen.

“I think people are tired,” said Laidlaw, who was one of council’s staunchest anti-Wal-Mart voices. “One thing I have heard from a couple of people that live on Woodlawn, is that they want a grocery store. And yet there used to be a Zehr’s store where the Staples store is now, so go figure.”

“I don’t think we’ll have input as to what goes into the extension, but I think we’ll have input into the urban design, maybe we’ll be able to suggest a smaller scale but I don’t know if that’ll be the case,” added a hopeful Hofland.

As reflected in their comments, Laidlaw and Hofland share more than a ward in common, but a set of values, as Hofland says; a strong commitment to protecting Guelph’s environment and heritage, while promoting the communication and accountability of city hall. Clearly the people of Ward 3 like what their about as they both won their seats with over 3,000 votes a piece.

“People in my ward want the same things that I want, that’s why they elected me,” observed Laidlaw. “I’m not doing anything I didn’t say in my [campaign] brochure, I’m doing all the things that people expect of me, and I’ve had the same platform for eight years, people know me.”

Hofland agreed, adding, “I still hope that I’m here because I reflect other people’s values and that we mirror each others values.”