Hello, fellow Londoners, and we’re right into it this time: THANK YOU.
This week, London Ontario Online News passed 500 subscribers, which was a massive moment and a major emotional boost for everyone at this local start-up. People are hearing about us through their networks and by encountering our work and community involvement - so this is the warmest of welcomes to anyone who is joining The Loon for the first time.
Thank you for every click, every share, every like, and please consider signing up for a paid subscription if you can make it work. This is local independent journalism, based on subscriptions, local ownership and community buy-in, and we think it’s a viable enterprise. Time will tell.
And this is London, Ontario, the small-town-big-city where, yes, we are getting an IKEA and, no, the construction between here and there isn’t finished yet. Just allow extra time to pick up your bookcases and, no no no you do not need another one of those things for the kitchen, so perhaps set a budget before you go1.
This, also, is the ROUNDUP, where every week I’ll give you a briefing on local news2, to help you to get through life in London. It’s a simple idea: I write a briefing for you, as London Leaders, and you dip in where it makes sense. Thus, the city has a growing section of well-informed citizens, engaging with its processes.
And voting, presumably. Let’s do that if we can.
Soundtrack of the week
For those joining, this is your weekly music embed. Click and it’ll play. Click on an external link and you’ll probably pause it, so two reads of the ROUNDUP make it work best.
This is a perfect pop song to brighten your day. It rings like a bell.
Please tell your network about this free weekly service.
So let’s run through this week’s good-to-knows, and of course we will start with…
Election 2026
It’s been a four-day week filled with a month of events3, or at least it’s felt that way to me. And, it’s been marvellously stimulating to watch election machines kick into gear, and to drop into the launch events for Josh Morgan and Kirsten Krose, as I shared on Wednesday.
That evening, I popped to Ward 12 for my first opportunity to see candidates debate each other. More on that below. I also managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the Susan Stevenson offices afterwards, zipping4 down Wellington to see the crowd. Yes, there was a crowd.
The Stevenson launch took place at her office above the bridal shop on Dundas Street. I had to watch the speech in the media coverage, of which there has been plenty; it was notable to see pretty much all of the local media show up for an evening event. That’s rare - and shows that Stevenson is generating website clicks.
I saw a few folks I know - and was happy to meet Ward 4’s Mario Jozic, a particularly active candidate - and also I’m relying on the observations of others for some attendees. The media reported they included former councillor Cheryl Miller, John Winston, formerly leader of Tourism London, London-Fanshawe Conservative MP Kurt Holman and, perhaps most controversially, former councillor Michael Van Holst, who expressed views about vaccines. There were a few other election candidates, too, such as TVDSB challenger Paul Gray, who has a controversial history in local politics, and, running downtown in Ward 13, Andrew Crook.
Stevenson fired up her followers with, among other statements, a pledge to introduce weekly garbage collection. This has been discussed many times - Councillor Dale Henderson suggested it in the early 2010s and was derided - and involves an increase in service costs, which is interesting for a mayoral candidate who is apparently quite far over there to the right.
There’s a lot of change in that Stevenson platform, which you can read in full here. And I’m unsure what this is, but it sounds stressful: “Public financial reviews of homelessness and bus rapid transit spending”.
Here’s some media coverage from CTV and the London Free Press.
Moar and moar election, sigh
I know, I know. Only 45 days to go. But this is important and everyone benefits if we all dip in and learn a bit.
You can find all the details of the 14 ward events from our fab partners at the Urban League of London. Click this for all the dates and times and such:
Look out for somebody from The Loon at each of these, and I’ll share links to the recordings on Rogers tv as they emerge. Also, a team from The Loon is providing the questions at the Rogers tv mayoral debate - coming soon to a telly near you. Yes, we’re part-time. We work hard.
We’re so happy to be able to partner with the Urban League as they run these busy events. They’re proving popular and valuable, it seems. We’ve already seen full houses, including a crowd of about 50 at the first event, the Ward 12 debate in Jalna Library.
Thanks to moderator Katie Wilhelm for the shoutout that night! I had to dash off, though, to catch some of the Stevenson party. We appreciate the recognition at all of these meetings and welcome anyone who found their way here from there. Thanks for joining in!
That’s just one event - there are more. Catch yours this September.
Podcast recording - The 14 Wards of London Ontario
Hey, I’m sure this won’t cause 500 people to turn up and do anything terrifying, but the amazing Cedric Richards and I are recording our final podcast in a series tomorrow and thought we’d mention it here in case anybody wants to say hi.
It’s number 14 of 14, and this time it’s downtown’s Ward 13. We’ll be in Ivey Park for a little while from around 12 noon tomorrow - that’s Saturday, September 12. We tend to huddle together and talk into an iPhone for slightly too long, and that’s the whole show, so don’t expect Vaudeville. But if you want to hang out, maybe chat local politics for the very limited period before I get nervous and leave, come see us.
I hope that’s not the best offer you get this weekend.
Here’s our series, almost complete:
East London
Ward 1 - Where The Wooden Things Are
Ward 2 - With More Than A Commercial Corridor
Ward 3 - With Fanshawe College, Fanshawe Lake, Fanshawe Park Road - NEW THIS WEEK
Ward 4 - All About Neighbourhoods Now
South London
Ward 12 - Which Seems To Work Pretty Well
Ward 14 - With All The Rural Areas Now
West London
Ward 8 - With A Bog and Many Beds
Ward 10 - NEW - With Reservoirs, Retail and Reptiles
North London
Ward 5 - With The Mall and So Much More
Ward 7 - With The Mayors
Central London
Ward 11 - With The Village
Ward 13 - Downtown. Recording downtown on Saturday, September 12.
Local government - Planning and more
Let’s round up some non-election local government news:
That eight-storey development on Sarnia Road went through on a 4-1 vote and will be subject to a final vote at Full Council on September 22. The Free Press’s Jack Moulton sat through Planning: LINK. So did the CBC’s Jack Sutton: LINK.
And, TIL about the Local Economic Response Team. Huh. Here’s Reta Ismail at CTV London: LINK The mayor convened the team to discuss tariff impacts and protecting jobs.
In Arts and culture, Diana Tamblyn’s column yesterday has a call to action. Have you asked your candidate about the arts? LINK
While we’re talking cultcher, as they call it in Glasgow, let’s celebrate 125 years of The Grand Theatre: LINK
And, today in “issues I cannot believe an incumbent would raise”, we have rat reporting made easier: LINK
And one more interesting story, as Councillors Shawn Lewis and Steve Lehman team up with an idea on construction. The idea is to run construction crews for longer hours, to get more done, among other measures. The story is here. Also you can hear them both talking to Craig Needles about it in a podcast episode here.
Not-quite-opinion alert: These two are the Deputy Mayor and the Planning Chair, of course, and have been for a while. I don’t know what to tell you. Um. Let’s move on.
Separate story, and this is good for Lewis, too, as he runs on his record: East Lions pool to reopen ahead of schedule.
And let’s have some other issues, phew phew
Transit and getting around
Centre bus lanes are GO! I understand why folks complain about change, and also wish to point out these wrong-way bus lanes are not the strangest aspect of a city with our garbage collection schedule. Anyway, here’s a story from Jack Sutton at CBC London. And it’s worth a second view of this interesting issue. Let’s go with Brian Bicknell at CTV London here.
Homelessness
…is up 23% in four years. LINK
Education
This is a weird sidebar issue, though it should be central to our lives, in my opinion. Education has local governance, with provincial control, and it’s important to pay some attention. Here are three stories to consider:
A regional piece from LFP about schools being built, due to demand. LINK
From CTV, the first of three new TVDSB elementary schools opens: LINK
And the CBC’s Kate Dubinski wrote about all the portables: LINK
The Lightning Round
Let’s end our festival of bullet points with three more local stories that might strike you.
IKEA Canada announces opening date for London location - it’s September 29: LINK
The cops went hunting over the long weekend and made some points and laid more than 2,100 charges : LINK
We talked about this in council coverage. ‘Monument to the fallen emerges in London’s Springbank Park’: LINK
Enough
Still with me? You have some stamina, and that’s what it takes to build a local media start-up, as we have of course discovered. We’re still here and still going, and still really grateful to everyone who’s giving us a pass to learn how to do this visibly, typos and all. Thanks for supporting the little news outlet that could, and look out for one more post from us this week, Steve’s Reflection, coming this afternoon.
Congrats on surviving the roughest four-day week of the year. I hope everyone’s back-to-school had minimal tears. I want to focus on achievements5 and stay positive, even as we recognize The Times and the effect they have on us all. What else can we do but keep going and try to help each other?
That’s London Ontario Online News. We’re here, living in London, and we want to make it better by spreading reliable information and by amplifying the voices of other local journalists. Your part is to be a leader, and follow along, and perhaps support if you can. We really are all in this together.
Wow, it’s been eventful and that’s not stopping soon. Let’s call it a Friday and have done with it. I hope your weekend is full of cake.
Thanks for following The Loon!
- Mike
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500 people? Bloody hell!
The Loon (London Ontario Online News) lineup
New content every day.
We’ve teamed up to send you a new feature every weekday:
Monday - Buckle Up - podcast with Matt Brown
SPONSORED BY HAMILTON ROAD BIATuesday - Ward Tours and City Issues 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
And on Fridays: the local news ROUNDUP.
Of course not. Get another spatula.
It’s got more local government than usual this time, but it is September of an election year.
My car’s muffler fell off at a stop sign in Woodfield in possibly the third most-expensive clang I’ve ever heard. Somehow, we continue.
ha haaa haaa haaaa the construction haaaa. I did not “zip” anywhere.
A nice, new muffler, for example.