GUELPH POLITICAST #450 - The Year at Council (September - December)

Guelph Politicast

Last year was very busy for Guelph City Council, and the last four months of the year were perhaps the busiest. In fact, the business of council has gotten so busy to properly cover it all this "Year in Review" podcast now has to be done in three parts, splitting the year into three near equal sections for over two hours of combined content. So now, at the end, the final part of this trilogy.

The big thing from the back third of 2024 was the confirmation vote for the 2025 budget. Earlier in the year, Mayor Cam Guthrie used Strong Mayor Powers to direct staff to get the budget down to an overall four per cent increase, and there was a great deal of consternation about what that would mean. Council didn't get all the way to that four per cent mark, but it was a heck of a ride getting there!

And speaking of rides, there was a lot of drama over, of all things, fireworks. Guelph tried to rework its fireworks bylaw only to get burned when many people felt that it went too far. There were also metaphorical fireworks in the form of Mayor Guthrie's advocacy outside the council chambers, the eventual fate of the OR Lands, and a certain greenhouse on the campus of the University of Guelph which still may or may not be demolished.

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this recap covering all the council action from September through to December. That's 17 different meeting (well, 16 when you consider that one meeting took place over two nights) and countless hours of back and forth over motions, counter-motions, concessions and compromises. Culled from the files of Guelph Politico, and a couple of thousand tweets, let's remember where we're going before we decide where to go next.

So for one more time, let's recap what happened at city council in 2024 on this week's Guelph Politicast!

Everyone will be back around the horseshoe again on January 14 for the first Committee of the Whole meeting of the year, and you can keep following all those developments at Guelph Politico and through the Tip Sheet newsletter.

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