Hello and happy Friday, people of London, Ontario and welcome to your city’s own little news service, London Ontario Online News. Here in Canada’s London, we’re reeling from a municipal election and looking directly at the people we just put in power, and we’re saying “Now what?”
Well, this what. For months, we wondered and planned and speculated and discussed. Now we get to find out what’s in store, and it looks like we’re starting with A LOT of politics. Fear not - we have your weekly free local news ROUNDUP to brief the heck out of you. That’s because we want our community to be as strong as it can be, and we’re encouraging London Leaders (that’s you) to seek out reliable information when making decisions. Thanks for that. You rock like Bolan (see below).
And this is London, Ontario, where the autumn colours are really lovely this year. Have we all noticed this? Our shared place is absolutely gorgeous, and sometimes we need to remind ourselves of that, and stop to enjoy it, or at least to rake the leaves1. Our city offers so much and I’m so happy to be part of it.
Soundtrack of the week
Let’s get our engines running on this crisp, cold November day, and this clip comes with the added joy and amusement of being part of a pop music TV show, and you are welcome. It’s Marc Bolan and T.Rex and such a good riff, hell yeah, whatever century it’s from.
Please tell your network about this free weekly service.
Backyard chickens: City Hall gets clucking
Local government continues to occur. On Wednesday, I talked about Mayor Josh Morgan’s plan to have two deputy mayors, and here’s a neat two minutes on it from Christine Taleski at Rogers tv. This features a high incidence of that wonderful broadcast TV tradition of making people walk up and down for the camera. Love it!
(As always, let’s reshare that Wednesday column.)
And two other further reports under this heading:
Daryl Newcombe at CTV London reports that the Old East Village BIA2 is putting $48,000 into bringing Londoners back to the neighbourhood and calling on the incoming council to take responsibility for street safety as the BIA stops paying for private property cleanups, broken windows and security. The story is here.
Farther east on Dundas Street, where bus rapid transit construction has already disrupted business, vandals tagged at least three businesses overnight, leaving racist and anti-LGBTQ2S+ graffiti on the front of Dundas Auto Sales, Daryl reports for CTV London.
Special feature: who’s on what
My oh my - there’s a lot of new information in the first agenda of the four-year term, supporting the meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on Wednesday. That’s the big committee that all 15 council members join, setting up policy decisions for the next Full Council meeting.
This kick-off - the day after the swearing-in et cetera at the Inaugural Council Meeting - is the moment when the new council chooses members of City Hall’s committees and the boards of its arm’s-length bodies, such as London Police Service, London Public Library, Covent Garden Market and so on. (They’re often called the ABCs - agencies, boards and commissions - but that acronym just puts the Jackson 5 in my head so I don’t use it much.) You can read the full list of everyone who has applied, and see their attached applications, on the City’s website here.
My early review shows a lot of people who ran for office and didn’t win, and several former council members: I see Peter Cuddy, Steve Hillier, Cheryl Miller, Denise Brown and Virginia Ridley.
Wait, how many boards and commissions?
Let’s have the whole list of all the orgs. Council members or members of the public will be selected for the following:
City of London standing committees (council members): Community and Protective Services; Infrastructure and Corporate Services; Planning and Environment
County/City Liaison committee
Dearness Home management committee
Governance Working Group
Argyle, Hamilton Road, Hyde Park, London Downtown and Old East Village business improvement areas
Kettle Creek, Lower Thames Valley and Upper Thames River conservation authorities
Elgin area and Lake Huron water supply boards
London and Middlesex Community Housing
London Hydro
Middlesex-London Food Policy Council
Museum London
RBC Place London
Tourism London
Western Fair Association’s Board of Governors and Fair Board
Western University’s Board of Governors
Covent Garden Market Corporation board
Eldon House board
London Public Library board
Committee of Adjustment
Committee of Revision/Court of Revision
London Transit Commission
Audit Committee
London Police Service Board
Middlesex-London Health Unit Board
Phew, a lot. And there are plenty of candidates for them all.
I counted 40 applicants for the police board, including current chair Ryan Gauss. Council will choose one person. And the library board seems to have 77 people applying for seven seats. (Just know my math skills are nowt to shout about and we’ll need an error margin. Still a lot of people, whatevs, point made.)
Look out for more on this after Wednesday.
Roads and getting around
Round here, we regularly point out that sitting at home in your house in London does not insulate you from its car culture. Oh no - you might still have a vehicle pass between you and the TV. In fact, vehicles crash into buildings in London an average of five times per month, based on this CBC story.
Well, here’s a new report, from Reta Ismail at CTV London, that somehow highlights an even worse situation. It’s a local family saying their insurance didn’t cover all the damage after a driver crashed into their house - through their deck. I cannot even imagine the stress of this.
More on road safety? This is a national study by the CAA, picked up for a local story by Sean Irvine of CTV. The headline includes: New study finds about five near misses a day at crosswalks near schools. (That’s national, not local.)
Slow down and get off your phone, eh?
Deck the halls, apparently
[please imagine your own vaguely journalistic noise here; clicks from a ticker or something - it’s Friday and I’m not doing folio work]
This just in: it’s almost Christmas again. I’m shocked because I feel like we only just put the decorations away, but time marches on and soon the snow and indeed the reindeer will fly. Events begin tomorrow - incredibly - with the Santa Claus parade, and you can find out more here.
Also coming up soon is the holiday train, and here’s the Tourism London event listing for that.
The holidays are a lot, eh? I’m already feeling a little overwhelmed and I haven’t so much as brushed my lips with eggnog. How will we cope?
Well, The Loon will be here to make sense of it all (and take the minty festive piss), and we’ll highlight strong communication that keeps our community informed. Here’s an example of that - an extensive list of holiday parades and such, from CTV London, with links to event pages. Great work there! LINK
The Missing Middle - on gift cards
Christmas-adjacent: I enjoy this podcast/multimedia offering involving economist and Londoner Mike Moffatt.3 This latest edition is an interesting one, all about gift cards and why we should keep our money in our own pockets.
Let’s run through a few more stories from the big issues around town.
Homelessness
CBC London’s Kate Dubinski put a spotlight on the work being done at London’s Hart Hub. Spoiler: it’s helped 20 people in recovery to find permanent housing.
And Jessica Singer talks to Ark Aid Mission and London Cares about folks on the street and their grief due to frequent deaths. Story here.
Affordability - London’s Living Wage
This week included the annual release of Living Wage calculations - that’s the pay people need to meet basic needs, guaranteed by Living Wage Employers who sign up to a voluntary program. In London, the Living Wage is calculated at $21.15 an hour, and that’s the lowest in the province. Here’s CTV with more.
Jobs and workers’ rights
Workers at Motive Espresso are protesting, demanding wages they say they’re owed. This story showed up in a few places locally and is a great example of grassroots PR work. These folks pitched the story all over town and the media showed up for them. LINK
The Lightning Round
I miss having local basketball. (I was recently in a crowded elevator with London Lightning owner Vito Frijia but resisted blurting out “Where’s my chuffin’ basketball?” Would somebody please drop that in his ear? Thanks.)
Anyway, quick list of stories - GET STRUCK.
NDP leader Marit Stiles was in town for the latest London Chamber of Commerce event. The Chamber is bringing in speakers for a ‘thought leadership’ series and I’m so there for it. LINK
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! I’m sharing this as a weak excuse to reference the Wizard of Oz4, of course, but the story is still a corker: nobody knows how many big cats are being kept in backyards in Ontario. (There are no bears - I added that.) LINK
These young lads are getting a bit of local press with their movie. There’s a CBC audio podcast about it here. The blurb: Brothers Andrey and Dmitry Sarumyan are riding a wave of success with their independent film. The high school students joined London Morning to discuss their filmmaking process and share some of the secrets behind their success.
The Free Press shares some of the lineup for next year’s Rock The Park. LINK I’m a million years old and a furriner, so I have no idea who anyone is, but Lakeview, Zach John King and Josh Ross will perform on Thursday, July 15, with Hardy headlining. McCoy Moore and Max McNown will take the stage on Sunday, July 18, before Riley Green closes the festival. More to come from that!
Please don’t use A.I. to generate ads. It’s gross. Even a hand-drawn ad with stick figures would be better. Here’s a CBC story about local small biz doing just that. LINK
Opinion alert: let’s support local businesses, however they make a flyer. Not everybody can switch their marketing as soon as the season changes…
From The Loon
Matt Brown welcomed Carol Dyck on Monday, to talk about the coming inaugural meeting of council. LINK
Steve Cordes is doing a two-part interview with Mayor Josh Morgan. Part one is here and part two is incoming later today.
Read Diana Tamblyn’s plea to help save the Forest City Gallery here and Cedric Richards’ tour of the Wellington Road area here.
Enough
(grips jacket lapels and leans back laconically)
There, oh wonderful subscribers, is your ROUNDUP. I feel it has served you with a selection of the snippets you need to be an engaged Londoner. Thank you for following along with The Loon, this remarkable collection of hopes and headaches that is devouring the lives of at least five local people. We’re having a lovely time and we hope you are, too.
Steve is here at around 2:30 with his Josh Morgan interview and I’m off to plan for Christmas5, starting with cocktails and, well, I don’t have a plan beyond that, admittedly. Look, it’s a cold day and when you’re from Dundee that means rum.
Have a marvellous weekend, everybody.
Keep rocking like Bolan.
- Mike
The Loon (London Ontario Online News) lineup
Local independent journalism bringing you new content every day.
Find our editorial standards and policies here.
Meet the Londoners who team up to send you a new feature every weekday:
Monday - Buckle Up - podcast with Matt Brown
SPONSORED BY HAMILTON ROAD BIATuesday - City Tours with Cedric Richards
SPONSORED BY LONDON BICYCLE CAFÉWednesday - City Hall Notes by Mike Donachie
SPONSORED BY SPERO LAWThursday - the Forest City Arts and Culture Roundup by Diana Tamblyn
SPONSORED BY DOWNTOWN LONDONFriday - Reflections with Steve Cordes
SPONSORED BY OLD EAST VILLAGE BIA
Also on Fridays: the local news ROUNDUP.
Every other Saturday: The Matt Brown Podcast. It’s the show about all things local, and maybe some other stuff too. SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE.
I have thoughts about a large maple tree that verge on unpatriotic. Goddamn leaves.
As we always disclose in our articles, the Old East Village BIA is a sponsor of The Loon.
I have happy memories of the Metro London Reader Panel, which included Mike and a few other engaged locals.
I’m not crying - you’re crying
Frankly, I always felt the Grinch was right to avoid his neighbours. They were weird.