Here’s a selection of literary sound bites from Wednesday evening’s special city council meeting and decision on a ward boundaries review, council’s composition and the job status of councillors – part-time versus full-time:
(1) “It’s harder to get support for a bad idea if you need to get seven people to agree with you.” – Coun. Mike Salisbury
(2) “I think having councillors who are in the world, gaining perspectives in their careers, in their place of work and in their personal lives is of value to a council.” – Coun. Dan Gibson
(3) “There’s never a true comparator. In some ways, it’s like we are the parents watching a parade and we’re saying ‘Look, everyone’s out of step but my boy.’ What I mean by that is maybe we’re the ones that are doing it right. Maybe Guelph is the model one that is the model that is working.” – Coun. Leanne Caron
(4) “Each of us comes to this decision with bias. I think it would be disingenuous to say that we didn’t.” – Caron
(5) “My brain has been going ping, ping, ping on either side of this.” – Coun. Cathy Downer
(6) “While I am elected from Ward 3, and councillor Hofland is elected from Ward 3, I know in my heart that councillor Hofland, councillor Goller, councillor Downer, councillor O’Rourke are all councillors for Guelph, we just happen to be elected from a certain area to ensure there’s geographic representation from throughout the city.” – Coun. Phil Allt
(7) “I have never been, in my time on council, more inspired, impressed by the articulate, passionate, well-reasoned arguments I’m hearing on both sides of the equation this evening. I think that conversation would diminish if there were only eight of us speaking to it.” – Coun. James Gordon
(8) “We just need to be silent. I don’t think it assumes full-time or part-time or anything, it just assumes that there’s a job to be done … I don’t think we should mislead people who want to run. You just have a job to do.” – Downer
(9) “Do we have a requirement to be bold right now? and is it the right thing … to be bold right now? I land on no. … I just don’t buy that it has to be a bold decision right now.” – Mayor Cam Guthrie
(10) “We’re back to 13. You’re now a councillor Scott Stewart.” – Guthrie ( following a slip of the tongue while referring to the city CAO)
