It was some point after the end of the seventh hour of the Committee of the Whole last week when Ward 6 Councillor Karl Wettstein decided to take his council colleagues to task.
The issue was the 2019 Budget Schedule and Process Change, and Wettstein was in a critical mood because only five out of 13 of this fellow council members had taken the time to fill out a survey from staff, a follow-up to gather council’s thoughts on last year’s budget process.
Maybe most of the people on council were just fine with how things went with last year’s budget scheduling-wise. Maybe some of them are anticipating not being there for the 2019 budget debate and don’t care. Whatever the reason, Wettstein was hearing no excuses on the matter!
Ward 1 Councillor Bob Bell agreed but fessed up that he was one of this “Hateful 8” of survey slackers. He wondered though if he had started the survey and then, in a senior’s moment, forgot to finish it. Was there a way staff could check that?
There was not.
Then Mayor Cam Guthrie piped in to say that he did not like the tenor of Wettstein’s original comment, as it inferred that some people on council weren’t doing their job. And then I realized, almost seven and a half hours into this thing, what we were all here to do was sew our election bona fides.
Typically when a council meeting is reaching the eight-hour mark, there’s a palpable feeling of let’s get the heck out of here. Not this past Tuesday though!
Why? It’s less than a month before nominations open for the municipal election this fall, which means that the time to make headlines is now. And this month’s committee meeting had no shortage of juicy topics (politically speaking) for councillors to sink their teeth into. There was Uber, election signs, and the transit service review, which all have immediate and relevant interest from your average Guelphite.
The Uber debate alone, which was really about setting the stage for a review of the taxi bylaw and new regulations for vehicles for hire (and not just Uber), took up most of the first half of the meeting. The surprising part was that there were only two delegations, a representative from Uber corporate and a Red Top Taxi driver there to speak for himself.
It almost seems like this is a debate that’s a couple of years past due. Uber, in other words, just isn’t as controversial as it once was.
Instead, the debate at committee exploded into an economic thesis about free market capitalism and regulation. Does Guelph restrict the number of hamburger restaurants that can open in a year, the mayor asked. Not an unreasonable analogy, and there’s an interesting debate to be had about why we control the expansion of cabs more strictly then any other type of business in town save for adult entertainment establishments.
However, that’s not the debate council asked for, and that’s not the report staff delivered.
On the other hand, maybe some people were trying to prove that they’re not a red tape loving, regulation-obsessed, typical politician that’s in business to get in the way of other people doing business.
And then there was the great election sign debate, where members of council haggled over how big the signs should be, how long they should stay up, and whether taking election signs off private property within 100 metres of a polling station is a dangerous precedent.
All those points were thoroughly debated because, obviously, time is of the essence on that one. There was a charming section of the meeting where it seemed like we were auctioning off the length election signs can stay up: 60 days? No, 30! How about 45? Sold!
One man that frequently doesn’t say much at city council is Ward 2’s Andy Van Hellemond. I once asked him about that when he appeared on Open Sources Guelph, and he said, to paraphrase, that there was lots of time to ask staff questions between when an agenda is released, and when it comes forward in council.
In other words, he thought some of his colleagues sometimes liked to be seen asking the questions so they could be seen asking the questions.
During the haggle, Councillor Bell asked staff for more options about the length of time signs could stay up aside from their recommended 60 days. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Colleen Clack said that it would be staff’s preference for council to give them specific direction.
Bell said, and I quote, “Yeah, but I don’t want to do that.”
Why? Because the point of the struggle with this one was to show off the struggle. Look how hard we’re working! We’re weighing every contingency with maximum thought and consideration!”
On the other hand, maybe I was just cranky because I was tired, hungry and ill. Perhaps next time, council could move to open some kind of concession stand in the chamber so long as we’re investigating all the angles.
