Council battling over nightlife issues

The following article appeared in the April 30 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
Downtown bar owners won’t be paying increased fees to the city anytime soon, although a city council motion that narrowly failed this week wanted to explore doing just that.
Instead, council approved a staff recommendation to continue working with downtown stakeholders, including the Downtown [...]

Information session: Wildlife-proofing your property

The City is working with the Guelph Humane Society to offer an information session for members of the public about wildlife proofing property. As you know, both the City and the GHS have received several calls about encroachment by skunks and deer.
For your information, the session will be held Thursday, May 1 in Room 4 [...]

Provincial Pesticide Legislation

Staff have had a brief opportunity to review the MOE documentation regarding pesticide legislation. The announcement only conveys the Ministry’s intent to table an Act through the legislature and hopefully have it in place for 2009. However, the Act has yet to be approved and the Regulations will not be known for sometime yet. As [...]

St. George’s Park

I would like to make my views on the proposed changes to St. Georges Park known. I hope that when this comes to a vote at City Council you will vote it down. While I do not want to appear insensitive to the Lambdens, I do oppose their proposal. There is already a bench and [...]

Pesticide Bylaw - Mercury Letter

Last Wednesday, I presented a five-minute talk on endocrine disruptors to the ECO Committee while it was debating the Pesticide Bylaw. For information, below is a letter based on my presentation and which is to be published in the Mercury on Tuesday April 22.
Yours sincerely
MG
Health Minister Tony Clement’s prudent comment that it is ‘better safe [...]

Massage and Alternative Health Care Schedules to the business licensing by-law

In view of consulting with holistic practitioners, I would ad a comment or two.
I’d like to express my approval, appreciation and gratitude for the many hours of hard
work done thus far on this most difficult issue. I am very comfortable with the proposal
made at the March 17th meeting and would not have major concerns about [...]

Bar-stool tax not the answer: mayor

The following article appeared in the April 18 edition of the Gueph Mercury:
There’s nothing the city can do to compensate downtown merchants when their property is damaged by rowdy patrons of downtown bars.
A bar-stool tax wouldn’t help, Mayor Karen Farbridge said yesterday, since the city’s hands are tied when it comes to using public money [...]