The three cheesy political moves designed to suppress your vote in 2018

By Gerry Barker

May 28, 2017

There is an interesting parallel comparing the controlling antics of the Bloc of Seven dominating city council and the Walt Disney classic “Snow White and the seven dwarfs.”

Before beginning our tour de fromage, keep in mind that for every action there is a reaction.

We all know who Snow White is in our comparative exercise. If you don’t, send me a self-addressed envelope and I will reveal who it is. We are going to play a little game when it comes to the seven dwarfs. I’ll name them and you mentally attach the names of these councillors who act and resemble our players in this exercise in political shedding of the Cheddar.

Here is the list of the Disney Seven. Make your choice beside the appropriate dwarf.

Doc                        Reader’s Choice

Happy                   Reader’s Choice

Dopey                    Reader’s Choice

Bashful                 Reader’s Choice

Sleepy                   Reader’s Choice

Sneezy                  Reader’s Choice

Grumpy               Reader’s Choice

I know, a couple of them are easy to identify with current members of council’s Bloc of Seven. But there is one other character in this bubbling pot of political fondue. The unelected defacto leader of the Bloc of Seven, Susan Watson, led the attack to stop Online voting by importing an Assistant Professor, Aleksander Essex, from the University of Western Ontario. He informed council that it should not proceed with Online voting because it lacked cyber security and trust. More on this later.

If you just arrive in town from a trip to the Moon, here is the scoop on the Bloc of Seven and how they lost their Snow White in the Kingdom of Guelph’s forest.

With a couple of exceptions, the Bloc votes on most issues as a group. The exceptions include the recent defection of Cathy Downer who voted for Online voting and retaining the operational Committee of the Whole (COW) system.

There have been three key occurrences involving the Bloc that were offensively planned to stop progress of the business of council. All three were self-serving and cheesy politics rolled into one gigantic cheese ball.

The infamous walkout by the Bloc of Seven

The first was the walkout January 25, 2016 by the majority of Bloc councillors to thwart a meeting to discuss the Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc.’s (GMHI) disastrous failure.

Well here’s the skinny. We believe the closed meeting was to discuss a personnel matter, a legal reason. When the Bloc of Seven did a head count, they were outnumbered 6-5 because two of that group were absent.

But let’s hear Phil Allt’s response: “You will have to trust that this rather simple message is of importance to all Guelph residents. By denying a quorum we were defending the integrity of the city as a corporation and staff.”

No, Mr. Allt, you and your colleagues were complicit in covering up the most serious mistake of the previous administration ever recorded in the history of the city. We learned in May 16, 2016 that the GMHI losses over five years was $26.6 million and an impaired loan of $65 million provided by Guelph Hydro, a wholly owned utility by the city and controlled by GMHI.

Aside from the Allt explanation, it wasn’t until May 16 that the truth and details were revealed. Did Mr. Allt take back his pious worded stated four moths earlier? “By denying a quorum we were defending the integrity of the city as a corporation and staff.”

Ah, the essence of Blue Cheese permeates that statement

Whistle while your work

The next Havarti experience by the Bloc of Seven came when a straw vote was held in a COW meeting last month to reaffirm allowing Internet Online voting in the 2018 civic election. Prior to that vote, Susan Watson expressed her disapproval of the Online voting. Two weeks later, she trotted out the Assistant Professor who specializes in cyber security and Internet voting to bolster her position.

Essex is not a resident of Guelph and dumbed down the Bloc of Seven to believe it was too risky to use in 2018. This was stated despite the fact that 13,000 residents voted online in 2014 without any threat, loss of privacy or security. Also, 97 Ontario municipalities use Online voting, Unfortunately it failed to impress the deniers and the system was cancelled by a 7-6 vote.

You don’t have to look further than British Columbia where the final outcome of the May 4 Provincial election is still not confirmed. The province does not have electronic or Internet voting. This is what happens when your election system has not caught up with the 21^st century.

This motion to defeat Oline voting was an orchestrated effort by the Left on council to suppress voting. The denial affects hundreds of Guelph citizens who are disabled, the elderly and those whose schedule denies their vote.

The only conclusion is that the Left saw Online voting as a threat to their re-election.

Crackers anyone?

The latest power move by the cheesy Bloc of Seven was to kill the new council operating system called the Committee of the Whole. Last fall council voted to approve the system with a 12-0 margin. It eliminated the individual committee meetings thereby opening the process of government to allow transparency and accountability.

So here comes the Limburger part. The Left noticed that two supporters of the COW, Councillors Cathy Downer and Andy Van Hellemond, were absent and quickly called for a vote that killed the COW by a 6-5 margin.

Before the cheesy crowd could exalt over their victory, the City Clerk, Stephen O’Brien, offered the option of suspending procedures and re-voting the issue. The concerns of councillors emerged when they discovered there was no alternative immediately available. The vote had the effect of dismissing the staff recommendation to retain the COW.

Following a break, a second vote was taken with only Coun. Leanne Piper opposing.

Following the meeting there were some interesting comments made by those who voted to eliminate the COW.

Coun. Gordon said: “The first (vote) was a signal, the second was maintaining our democratic process until we can reassess.’

He went on to claim that, “it has a lot of problems, it’s ineffective, it’s confusing.” He added that it doesn’t matter if this committee made things easier for staff. “That’s not our job.

James, that being the case, why did you vote for the COW systemlast fall? Is it your plan to reassess the COW before the next election? Your bench mate Phil Allt agreed with you saying that the “highlight was public confusion as one of the biggest issues.”

There they go again, the breeze brothers defining what their job is. If what they say is true, who’s confused here, you two or your constituents? Your job is to help and inform your people to understand the issues.

Holding regular closed session meetings does not help public clarity of city business.

Please pass the Camembert and crackers.

 

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Is the Dark State ruling Guelph?

By Gerry Barker

May 23, 2017

Yes, who is running our city? Why have there been so many closed session meetings of council? Whose reputation is being protected?  Why is the public’s right to know being consistently thwarted?

In a letter to the editor in the Toronto Star, Pat Biondi, takes umbrage over an editorial in the paper entitled: Long live the deep state in Washington – May 19.

Biondi’s opening paragraph set the stage for a blistering criticism saying, “I could not believe the Toronto Star, the self-proclaimed bastion of democracy, would stoop to such a level.”

At this point, I should reveal the headline of the letter: “Civil servants subvert the will of the people.” Such headlines are designed to capsulate the content of the letter but also to attract the reader.

It sure got my attention.

Biondi went on to say, “that in a democracy, it is the elected officials empowered by virtue of the ballot box. It is those same politicians who are held accountable for their actions the next time the electorate is asked to pass judgment on their performance while in office.”

That has a familiar ring about it when it is applied to Guelph governance. Looking back, the electorate in Guelph responded in October 2014 to defeat the mayor and two of her council supporters plus two others who chose not to run.

Biondi continues: “A deep state (i.e. civil servants) working in the shadows is the antithesis of what democracy is all about. The notion that a few unelected and unaccountable career civil servants can subvert the will of the people expressed in a free election is absurd and dangerous in the extreme.”

Starting to see what the letter writer is talking about as it’s applied to the unelected senior management of the City of Guelph in the past 10 years?

It’s no secret there has been an inordinate amount of turmoil in the past two years not only among the senior staff but also with the hardworking rank and file who carry out their orders. Look no further than the lawsuit by a fired 30-year veteran of the city Building Department, Bruce Poole, who performed as Chief Building Inspector for the past 20 years.

Mr. Poole sued for $1 million for wrongful dismissal by former Chief Administrative Officer Ann Pappert.

Follow a mysterious dump of some 53,000 emails sent to Poole’s lawyer containing hundreds of confidential and personal information, the case was promptly settled by the city. It was a legacy left by the former top civil servant for the citizens to pay.

Here is another statement by Biondi. “ When a society is governed by a deep state, democracy crumbles and anarchy ensues.”

Isn’t this the accurate description of how Guelph has been controlled by a two-term autocratic mayor and equally pervasive senior civil servants? They were really running the city with the support of a council that rolled over in their sworn responsibilities to the public.

The examples of that eight-year domination of Guelph governance have been well documented. Millions were wasted on social engineering projects under the guise of world leadership. This included making the city into a world-class leader in the environment, reduction of greenhouse gases, and restriction of vehicular traffic routes to accommodate bicycle lanes and waste management.

What really occurred in that time period, was increased property taxes by a compounded 36.7 per cent; the cost of basic civic services such as electricity and water soared; waste management’s so-called innovation racked up millions in operations and capital and it mostly occurred in secret sessions of council.

Autocratic senior managers and members of council, almost all who have left the city, for a variety of reasons, have left a legacy of alleged corruption and financial mismanagement. Yet, the disastrous policies of the previous administration continue to be supported by the majority of the current council.

Any evidence of city council working together to solve the tattered legacy of the previous administration has not happened in three years. The majority of council is known as the Bloc of Seven as they frequently vote as a bloc thereby dominating the 13-member council.

Regardless, some pluses have occurred, including revelation of the Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc (GMH. This wholly owned subsidiary of the city is the most costly failure by the previous administration. Chaired by the mayor, this functioned under the Community Energy Initiative, with former CAO Pappert as Chief Executive Officer of GMHI for four years.

Losses to date are $26.6 million plus a $60 million impaired loan from Guelph Hydro that has no collateral in GMHI to even pay the interest. That loan now sits on the city books as a declining asset.

Are you starting get the picture? In my opinion, this is why there is a concerted effort to sell Guelph Hydro, wholly owned by the city, to cover up the huge liability of GMHI.

Ms. Pappert left the city in May 2016, following publication of the provincial Sunshine List in March 2016 of those earning more than $100,000. It reported that she had received an annual salary of $237, 501. This was received even though she only worked five months in 2016. Her increase, along with three other senior managers, was approved in a closed-session meeting of council December 10, 2015. The public was made aware of the $98,202 awarded to four top managers in March when the Sunshine list revealed the increases.

In view of this, why does the mayor continue to endorse Ann Pappert who is seeking a new job? Mr. Guthrie is mentioned twice endorsing Ms. Pappert in her lengthy new profile posted on LinkedIn

It’s all part of the culture of entitlement that pervades the senior management of our city from civil servants to elected councillors. Both share responsibility with one glaring exception: Every four years, councillors must face their constituents and explain their performance. Meanwhile, the hired staff is free to carry on as if there was no election.

A clear example was the reorganization of the top senior staff in November 2014. CAO Ann Pappert conducted the reorganization during the lame-duck period between the changes of administrations. Mr. Guthrie took over December 1, 2014. The new council never had the opportunity to approve the new management arrangement because it was not in charge at the time.

It only took 13 months for the top four managers to receive hefty increases and the public was never informed until March 2016.

I realize that some GS readers are critical of the constant reporting of this event.

It states truth to power and the perpetrators got away with it and now only one is left, CAO Derrick Thomson.

Judge for yourself; is this a responsible and honourable way to run our city of 131,000?

Only if a resolute, informed and politically centrist group of councillors are elected in 2018, can necessary true reform and change occur.

 

I would be interested in hearing from readers about their feelings, good, bad or indifferent. Send your comments to guelphspeaks.ca or email gerrybarker76@gmail.com. Your identity will be protected if requested. Thank you.

The high cost of departed senior City of Guelph managers

By Gerry Barker

May 18, 2017

We learned this week that former Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Ann Pappert is looking for a job according to an extensive online Linkedin profile. Ms. Pappert left the city last May 26 for a new position as Assistant Deputy Minister in the Tourism, Culture and Sport Ministry.

That position lasted from October 2016 to February 2017. For whatever reason, she left prior to expiry of her six months probation. The 2016 Ontario Sunshine List shows Ms. Pappert received $263,757 from the city of Guelph although she only worked barely five months. The question is: What were the other benefits to which she could have been entitled? What were the terms of her contract? Such benefits could include pension, car allowance, unused vacation and/or sick time, travel expenses and insurance.

We do know that part of her package awarded in December 10, 2016, during a closed session by council, was reimbursement of unused vacation time, and a $28,000 retroactive performance bonus. Much has been written about that closed session but there has been no official acknowledgement or explanation why Ms. Pappert, Al Horseman, Derrick Thomson and Mark Amorosi were given such high increases.

The kicker is not one person in the entire Guelph administration said a word about those increases until the Sunshine List was published in March 2016.

The revelation ignited a wave of the four senior manager’s departures. Pappert left in May, Thomson resigned shortly after the Sunshine list announcement to take a job with the Town of Caledon, Al Horsman left in August 2015, and Mark Amorosi left the city last February.

These four executives were handsomely rewarded by a gob-struck city council, in secret, not having the guts to tell the people who pay the bills. To this day the minutes of that closed session are locked up. I know, I tried to get them released. Turns out the special “Closed Session Investigator,” a city paid consultant from London took four months to even reply to my request. Their opinion is that the city acted according to the rules of the Ontario Municipal Act.

The thing that citizen’s should take away from all this behind closed-door handling of the public’s business is that our Mayor, Cam Guthrie, went along with it.

Today only Mr. Thomson remains the last of four top senior managers who, after resigning, was hired last June to take over the CAO’s job. Why wouldn’t he? His first year on the job will earn him $245,000 including a $9,900 car allowance. To his credit he went public with his salary.

There were some astonishing inclusions and exclusions.

According to the 2016 Provincial Sunshine list, former CAO, Ann Pappert, was paid $263,757.32 in 2016. Now you would assume that was for the year but Ms. Pappert left the city May 26, 2016, Seems like a lot of money for less than five months work. Why did she earn a $28,000 performance bonus? People earning performance bonuses don’t plan to leave, so why did she leave Guelph?

Checking the 2015 Provincial Sunshine list it showed Ms. Pappert was paid $226,060.96.

The only possible conclusion was that Ann Pappert was paid $489,818.26 for 17 months work as CAO, from January 1, 2015 to May 26, 2016. That works out to a monthly salary of $28,812.

At those rates, why did she resign when the Sunshine List revealed her increase onMarch 2016?

So while her provincial government job did not pan out there are still many unanswered questions about that December 10, 2015 closed council meeting. A total of $98,202 salary increases was awarded to Ms. Pappert, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer’s (DCAO) Al Horsman, Derrick Thomson and Mark Amorosi.

But there is more:

Former Chief Financial Officer, Al Horsman, left the city in August 2015. Today his name shows up receiving $188,999 in the Sunshine 2015 report, the equivalent of a full year on the job. Not bad for eight months work … in 2015. The question is, why did Horsman leave? He was deposed as CFO in the November 2014 reorganization of the senior management and switched to the Waste Management, Environmental Services and Engineering portfolio.

Former CAO Ann Pappert supervised that reorganization, following the 2014 civic election.

Horsman discovered the debacle of the deal made with the Rizzo brothers of Detroit to recycle material shipped from the motor city. The deal fell apart and was reported to have cost Guelph some $2.5 million. In December 2015, Solid Waste General Manager Dean Wyman, who was involved in the Detroit deal, left for a similar job in Edmonton.

DCAO Scott Stewart is now engaged in a rationalization procedure to discover and fix why the Waste management operating costs are losing $270.000 a year.

With Horsman gone, it left just three Senior managers, CAO Ann Pappert, DCAO’s Mark Amorosi and Derrick Thomson.

The revelation of the large increase awarded by council to the remaining three top managers in March 2016, triggered the resignation of Mr. Thomson who said he was taking a job with the Town of Caledon. In April, Ms. Pappert announced she was resigning. But Mr. Thmson came back.

Along with her duties as CAO, Ms. Pappert was also Chief Executive Officer CEO) of Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc (GMHI), for four years. As CEO she signed off, along with her successor at GMHI, Pankaj Sardana. They jointly presented the report to council, acting as shareholders, May 16, 2016. It revealed that the city-owned GMHI was broke and had lost $26.6 million. Ten days later she left her job.

The unfolding story of GMHI leaves many questions to be answered.

Was Ann Pappert paid two salaries for her two senior responsibilities as CAO of Guelph and CEO of GMHI?

Why did two Councillors, June Hofland and Karl Wetstein, both appointed to the GMHI board, not report to council about operations? The chair, former Mayor Farbridge, appointed them. Did they not realize that appointment carried specific fiduciary responsibilities to the public?

What was the role of Guelph Hydro in the Community Energy Initiative program?

How much did Guelph Hydro invest in GMHI in four years?

Why did Guelph Hydro loan GMHI $65 million without any collateral or expectation of repayment?

How can GMHI give the city $9 million over four years in dividends and lose $26.6 million in the same period?

Were the GMHI financial books audited, if so by whom and when?

What was the impact of Guelph Hydro bills to residents during the five year period, 2011 to 2015?

Will the city reveal the total wind-up costs of GMHI and when?

How do GMHI’s financial costs and losses impact the sale of Guelph Hydro?

Is the potential Guelph Hydro sale to pay off these GMHI losses and clear the city books of the debt?

This is the result of misuse of political power and mismanagement of city resources.

The closed session meetings, regardless of what the staff says, are nothing short of secret manipulation of events and decisions. Much of it is political because the city has been held hostage for the past ten years by the political left, supported by the powerful labour movement.

If the majority of citizens don’t complain and demand answers from their elected representatives, then nothing will change. Property taxes will continue to grow exponentially annually. The same will happen with user fees.

The fall-out is that we allowed a CAO to leave this city after receiving more than a million dollars after just over five years on the job.

We can only blame ourselves for allowing it to happen.

Our only chance for electing responsible and experienced councillors next year, to clean up the financial mess the city is in to reduce the operating overhead, restore the reserves and demand performance of the professional staff.

 

 

When it comes to managing city finances we are sheep without a shepherd

By Gerry Barker

May 15, 2017

Having lived in Guelph for 14 years, I cannot understand how a city of 131,000 people has not had an independent Chief Financial Officer for 30 months. Here’s the scorecard since the able David Kennedy was dismissed in 2007: There have been seven individuals acting as CFO in the past ten years.

The seventh is Tara Baker, a senior analyst in the Finance Department who is coming off maternity leave to take the reins over from James Krauter, the current acting General Manager of Finance.

In that 30-month period, the city lost key senior management personnel. That’s about how long it took the secret Manhattan project to detonate the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert in 1945.

Here is a partial list of the departed:

Operations Chief Derek McCaughan;

Chief of environmental services and engineering, Janet Laird;

Chief Financial Officer, Al Horsman;

Chief Administrative Officer, Ann Pappert;

Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, Mark Amorosi;

City Solicitor, Donna Jaques;

General Manager of Solid Waste, Dean Wyman;

General Manager and Treasurer, Janice Sheehy;

General Manager and Treasurer, Katrina Power;

Deputy City Engineer, Don Kudo;

Fire Chief, Shawn Armstrong.

Operating the city efficiently and responsibly, these 11 senior employees represented various city departments. Nevertheless, it remains an abdication by the council failing to maintain a senior management staff.

So, what happened? What were the reasons for some to leave that were earning top rated salaries, some exceeding $200,000 per year? Who would walk away from a job like that with security, great benefits and working conditions?

It is easy to assume that the majority of elected members of the administration, commonly known as the Bloc of Seven, were responsible for the dissatisfied defections.

Or, was it influenced by the defeat of former Mayor Karen Farbridge in October 2014?

When it comes to finger pointing, the underlying reason is too much city business is conducted behind closed doors.

The discovery of what’s going wrong lies with a few reporters and bloggers who try to pry back the lid of cover-ups, to report what is going on in the management of our city. I can assure you, it is not easy and I have the experience to know the high cost of defending details of secret meetings and information that I discovered.

Wanted: A new shepherd to run our finances

That’s because the elected majority of council believe we are sheep to be sheared every year to pay for the past mismanagement of our business and its cost to citizens. There are many citizens who try to stand up to the administration. At this time, there is no underlying civic activist umbrella organization to support and work to change the policies of a cadre of city managers and councillors. The politicization of some senior staff is perpetuating policies of a former administration that was responsible for wasting millions.

That’s why we need an independent, experienced Chief Financial Officer to put on the brakes of spending and reform financial management.

Sometimes GS is criticized for being negative and beating the same drum repeatedly.

But I’m a taxpayer and have to right to comment and criticize. The law in Ontario is very clear that authorities cannot suppress public participation in public business by taking legal action against any citizen to stop their right to speak up.

Guelph City Council took another step in late 2015 to suppress resident’s critical commentary and objections to political action by passing the Indemnification Bylaw 19995. It guarantees reimbursement of any legal costs as a result of a citizen taking legal action against any member of the administration including elected officials.

Summarizing this action: If you initiate legal action against anyone in the administration, that individual has his/her legal expenses paid by … you, the complainant! Last February, CAO Derrick Thomson stated that this bylaw covers all former employees who are involved in a legal procedure with a citizen or corporation.

The only case I can recall was Bruce Poole’s million-dollar suit against the city for wrongful dismissal. It was settled quickly following the accidental release of 53,000 emails by the city to Poole’s lawyer that had little to do with the lawsuit.

Is the city paying Mr. Poole’s legal expenses? After all, he was a former employee and presumably entitled.

Killing online voting for the wrong reasons

But it gets better. Recently city council voted against allowing online voting in the 2018 election. Only six members voted to allow online voting, Mayor Cam Guthrie, Councillors Christine Billings, Cathy Downer, Dan Gibson, Andy Van Hellemond and Mark MacKinnon. The motion was defeated despite the pleas by citizens to allow it so that the elderly, informed and disabled citizens could vote.

This is another suppression of the rights for all citizens to participate and vote in civic elections. The City Clerk, Stephen O’Brien, informed council that online voting was used in the 2014 civic election advance poll. More than 12 600 votes were cast and no reports of voter fraud or problems. There are some 90 Ontario municipalities using online voting.

Now do you see us as sheep being herded around without recourse or little ability to express ourselves?

I for one refuse to believe I am a sheep to be shorn by hypocrisy, lies and ineptitude. I have paid a price for my opinions and reporting of facts. Remember, we sheep changed the city administration big time in the 2014 civic election. The regressives were shocked and, in my opinion, are seeking revenge.

It’s time to put the flock back together again and defeat the Bloc of Seven regressive councillors in their own bailiwick, and take back our city.

Baaaa, Baaaa, Baaaa

What happened to those dedicated reserve funds totaling $77,782,000 in 2011?

By Gerry Barker

May 11, 2017

It’s the stuff that happened six years ago that we soon forget. What stuff? Let’s start with the annual 2011 financial sitrep (situation report).

A check of the GS archives produced a column reporting the December 31 city financial data. It included a status of the city’s reserve, all 97 dedicated cash resources that totaled $77,782,000. Stating in the now defunct Mercury, Coun. Leanne Piper chided those naysayers who opposed the budget. She went on to say, nothing to worry about here because the city had $83 million in reserves. Yep! Nothing to worry about here.

This cavalier attitude was reported in the Mercury by former city hall beat reporter Scott Tracey. He said there was nothing new about using reserve funds to reduce the impact of property taxes on the budget. Okay, which of the 97 reserve funds was to be tapped to reduce property taxes?

Well, it turned out the tax stabilization reserve fund only had $1,383,000 in December 2011. That is a drop in the bucket to stabilize a budget in which the city had a major $2,571,000 negative budget variance in 2011. Five budgets later, in 2015, the negative budget shortfall was $1,143,123. In that five year period there was only 2014, election year, where the city declared a surplus of $1,O85,153. You will recall that year was the first in which the property tax rate was, for the first time, below 3 per cent.

Regardless, that was the years Mayor Karen Farbridge was defeated by Coun. Cam Guthrie.

In 2011, the accounting firm, auditing the city’s finances, stated that it was “a poor way to run the corporation.” It went on to say that using dedicated reserve funds to balance a budget is like borrowing an your credit card at 22 per cent. The effect is the same.

Sadly, nothing has changed except that there are only 26 reserve funds today with an estimated value of $11,000,000. In just a little over six years, the destruction and mismanagement of the city’s finances has cost millions of the public money. Those who are accountable are gone and there is no recourse available to the public.

As Chief Financial Officer, Derrick Thomson, put it, any attempt to commence a legal action against city employees or elected officials, akkdefendants’ legal expenses will be paid by the city. This indemnification bylaw also extends to former employees or elected officials.

This bylaw is nothing short of suppression of the rights of the public to take appropriate legal action against some 2,100 city officials from top to bottom.

The 2018 campaign has already started

Turning to an important aspect of how the Bloc of Seven is working hard to ensure their re-election next year.

The local weekly covered a meeting of the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition (GNSC). The Guelph Civic League (GCL) organization founded 10 Carden Street, a community activist group. GCL supported former Mayor Karen Farbridge and a number of like-minded councillors in 2006. One of GCL founders is Coun. James Gordon.

GNSC is based in offices at 10 Carden Street across from city hall. Meanwhile, 10 Carden Street applied for a Trillium Foundation grant to operate a civic support group to promote greater participation in public affairs and elections. A few years ago the group received a $135,000 grant to promote greater public participation.

That was then. A couple of weeks ago, the majority of council voted not to allow online voting in the 2018 civic election. It does seem strange and awkward for the GNSC, a second cousin to 10 Carden Street, to be linked to the online voting ban. It further exposes the real purposes of 10 Carden Street and the GNSC. It is cloaked in the murky business of political action.

One would agree that the newspaper article pointed out some details of the work the Coalition does, providing food to children and the less fortunate. It appears it has grown sufficiently to build an activist organization consisting of 13 neighbourhood membership groups available to participate in the 2018 election.

There is little we know of the officers of GNS. What is its status as an organization, budget, staff, finances or mission statement. Besides the city and United Way are funding GNSC Carden along with unnamed grants. That does not exempt it from its links to the left’s political action group, the Guelph Civic League, which seems to resurrect itself prior to every election since 2006.

Bottom Line? There is no way this city can survive another four years maintaining the policies of the previous administrations. They willfully spent millions on self- serving, narrow gauged projects that often failed.

The time has come to stop the hardcore, ideological activists who have controlled our city for too long. This election has already started.

There will be more on this later.

Student tells Mayor how his family had to move because of Guelph’s high taxes

By Gerry Barker

May 8, 2017

This student told the Mayor that his family was forced to move to Fergus because Guelph taxes and fees exceeded their ability to pay. For his part, Mayor Guthrie was sympathetic and wondered if his own children would be able to afford their own homes in Guelph.

It comes as no surprise that after ten years, three successive administrations have painted property owners into a corner with average annual tax increases of 3.5 per cent.

Starting this year, property owners will be facing a two per cent special levy to pay for infrastructure and a slush fund called “City Buildings.” Toss in the growth of compulsory user fees such as electricity, water, storm water, public transit, waste removal, and parking. Adding those essentials the cost of owning property and living in the Royal City is making it tough on pensioners, lower income folks, and young families just starting up.

Another factor influencing the rising cost of housing in the city is exacerbated by the demand of people escaping the soaring costs of housing in the GTA. Our problem is years of financial mismanagement resulting in the loss of millions, has added to our corporate debt, the reduction of reserves and an operational overhead that is 50 per cent greater than either Kitchener or Cambridge.

The city has received all kinds of advice from consultants and citizens to reduce spending and overhead. According to the latest Statistics Canada census, the population of Guelph increased by 9,000 in the past five years. That’s about 7.5 per cent or 1.5 per cent increase per year.

The mayor claims that the city is forced by the provincial “Places to Grow” demands for higher density residential development. Guelph’s PTG target is a population of 175,000 by 2031. That’s an arbitrary target of population increase of 45,000 that must be met within 14 years.

Whoa! Increasing our population by 9,000 in five years and maintaining that rate, the city will miss the target in 2031 by 20,000 new residents.

The frantic efforts of the two Farbridge terms in office has accelerated the number of homes by greater use of land, building complexes of low-rise condo buildings mixed in with strip housing. Very few single-family homes in comparison have been built in Guelph since 2007.

So, after ten years of almost killing single-family home construction, forcing builders to seek more friendly communities to develop housing, this great social engineering mission has failed its purpose. Purpose? To cram people into areas without front or back yards in most cases only benefits the builders and boosts assessment revenues to the city.

The City of Guelph has oodles of land, most of it owned by the University of Guelph, to develop properties that are calm, open and beautiful residences. These are the real places to grow. Such development gives character and convenience to those folks who don’t want to live in the crammed ghettos, the hallmark of an administration that fails to understand the need for personal space as a part of living.

The high-density developments in the south end between Victoria and Gordon, on Eastview orchestrated by the administrations has created a new kind of sprawl in which traffic increases, access is limited for emergency and city service vehicles.

Now that we put two and two together, the Farbridge plan was to plan a new city on the reformatory lands owned by the province. It is now revealed that city staff was used to plan the new city where vehicles would be banned except for deliveries, businesses would locate allowing workers to walk or ride their bikes to work, shop or play tennis.

This was the plan to meet the provincial Places to Go population targets.

Just last February the administration announced that it was pursuing ownership of the lands. The cash-strapped provincial government was not prepared to give the property away to the city and it was listed for sale.

But wait! Plan B called for attracting developers to participate buying the lands, because the city does not have the capital to do so. Here we are with a land use plan and detailed construction of mixed housing, commercial and industrial development.

There has been a lot of public money spent already on this project laying out detailed plans for development. Trouble is the city doesn’t own the lands that contain the former reformatory complex and potential available land for development at about 55 per cent.

Why is the administration even considering this? Now we know why. They need the property to meet the PTG target and control the design and elements of the lands.

I don’t know about you but combining the capital that has been misspent, blown on failed projects and draining the reserves, this social engineering project should be stopped. Stopped that is, until the city finances have been restored to be able to afford such enterprise.

The prices of housing will taper off but Guelph housing is already too costly for the average person.  The question is will the high-density residences hold their value?

We need development that serves the people and is broad in terms of variety, location and choice.

Today we don’t have that choice.

 

P.S. Today is my wife’s birthday, Barbara is the eternal goddess who has brought joy and all that other good stuff to our union. Happy 39^th, honey.