London, Ontario is ticking over today
Greetings, fellow Londoners!
Our city is doing its thing all around us, as the following shares will demonstrate, and now it’s time to take a snapshot and share it. It’s Wednesday lunchtime and, as thousands of our employees churn our billions through a system that creates outcomes for us all, here’s your City Hall Notes column for the week, bringing you up to speed on all the issues.
My name’s Mike and, when I’m not being a semi-professional Scotsman1, I pay attention to the news very closely. I work in communications, which means I tell the truth for a living and often produce briefings like this, for folks that need them, to guide us all through These Times.
And I’m doing it here because this might make a difference. As you will see below (spoilers: the driving school bit), I have strong opinions about putting good information out into our community. By following along with understanding, you are showing leadership and making our community better. Thank you for doing that, and for signing up for London Ontario Online News.
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OK, and now I will talk about local government news.
Off we go.
Questions surround special constables proposal
By far the hottest issue in London on a hot, hot week has been this one. Do we need special constables on our streets? And why? What would they do? And… you get the idea.
In the council chamber on Monday, this was all the questions and many varied answers in an extremely wide-ranging conversation. At first, it seemed to be about public disorder, homelessness, the state of our city’s streets and all that - knowing this is a vote-winner - but it quickly devolved into a back-and-forth between councillors and staff, the conversation wandering around London’s public services like some ghostly bison. I checked out when they started talking about parking enforcement, which may or may not have been in scope.
So it’s small wonder that councillors - and others - are pushing back. With a lack of clarity comes doubt, so it’s time to ask some good questions.
Many of them are in Susan Toth’s comments as she guest-hosted our Monday podcast, Buckle Up, along with Matt Brown. That’s getting shared and discussed widely, and we send our thanks to Susan, who’s a partner in our sponsor, Spero Law, and a former chair of the police board locally. She knows her stuff.
Here it is again:
There was plenty of reporting about special constables this week, such as this from CBC’s Andrew Lupton and this from CTV’s Daryl Newcombe.
For the latest, though, the Free Press has picked up this story today with some comments from Councillor Anna Hopkins, who has concerns about voting on a proposal with no details.
That story reflects the questions and conflict, and when I was in the room I also noted a level of acceptance that it would go through in its current, very loose form. This is, of course, only an idea of a proposal of a concept of a sketch, and apparently not an actual plan, although some of the terminology started to slip around on a carpet of wet leaves. And the timing, as always, is crucial: this is a decision in early 2027, so after the election.
This isn’t policy - this was an election promise.
Decision delayed on Carfax office move
Next, we have another contentious debate at City Hall, and another need for clarity. From Tuesday’s Planning and Environment Committee meeting, this is successful local business Carfax seeking to move into Westmount Mall, which is now owned by Farhi and would be rented to them. The City, however, recommends that large-scale office developments stay downtown. (Carfax is at 100 Kellogg in the east end.)
Of course, we’ve discussed this at The Loon (it’s mentioned in that same Monday podcast), and for more background you can check out the London Free Press here and CTV News here, among others. The story is summed up well in the comments of Councillor Paul Van Meerbergen, and I’ll quote CTV here:
Paul Van Meerbergen argued that the committee’s focus should be on keeping 600 existing jobs, plus 200 in a planned expansion, within the city, “And we’re going to jeopardize that through some kind of slavish devotion to some kind of bureaucratic regulation or rigid rules? That just doesn’t cut it for the people of London!”
The result, at least this week, was a request by a consultant to defer the decision. That might well be the outcome at Full Council next Tuesday.
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Now, a word from our sponsors.
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Planning - all about those towers, of course
Tuesday saw a meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee, and you can find the agenda here. (NOOOOO etc.) That’s not as full as usual, but does include seven Public Participation Meetings related to developments. So far, two stories have emerged, each of them involving residential tower proposals.
Pushback against a 10-storey tower near Springbank Park: Freeps and CBC. That involves Councillor Anna Hopkins, who’s concerned about existing congestion. The planning committee gave this one a green light and it’s due to come up at Full Council again next week.
Quick CBC extract:
If approved by council and built, the structure would include 91 units at the corner of Commissioners Road and North Street, across from Springbank Park. At 10 storeys, it would be nearly twice the height of the neighbouring building.
Concerns about two towers on Wellington. We touched on this one before - stakeholders are worried about parking. Here’s a CBC story noting it would bring more than 1,000 apartments.
More cuts in education
This is an issue outside of City Hall but still held in our community, through our trustees, so I try to pick up what I can. Gathering guest writers now, y’know. Contact me.
In education, we’ve been following the troubling stories about cuts for some time. CTV London’s Reta Ismail reports:
And here’s a more regional view from CBC, this time about the shortage of EAs:
Hundreds of student drivers, four streets and one big problem
Monday’s Community and Protective Services Committee received an astonishing number of submissions about what must be the weirdest story of the summer. Of course, the dashing Daryl Newcombe has produced this report for CTV London, doing the job so well. In his shadow, I will provide the gist, partly for my own amusement.
So, some quirk of bureaucracy has made exactly four south London streets the only approved locations for certain manoeuvres during driving tests and, naturally, they have also become practice spots for driving schools. However, as London has grown so has this need, quite a lot really, and the effect on those four streets is an eye-opener, here in our thundering city of car culture.
Here’s a map showing the concentrated area being affected:
The submissions to Monday’s committee reflect the strength of feeling. The agenda here (as usual, just don’t go there - it’s a lot) records a petition of 89 signatures and 19 direct submissions to the committee. Those are letters that people wrote to City Hall.
Reading through them, it’s clear they’re all calling for change, and many residents tell perturbing stories of student drivers lining up three or four at a time to practise their turns in these four streets. To hear locals tell it, the disruption starts early in the morning and runs until nearly 11 at night, with kids unable to play outside and parked cars getting dented regularly, amid the many frustrations brought by extra traffic in side streets. There’s even a disturbing accusation of poor attitudes from driving schools who, when challenged, point out these are public streets, actually. Hmmm, I think they’re a public resource, and not necessarily one designed for commercial endeavours, but we don’t need to get into that.
Anyway, this is an amazing story and the residents’ champion, Councillor Elizabeth Peloza, will take it to Full Council on July 21. She’s already one of the strongest incumbents heading for re-election, and this will power her campaign even more strongly. Gotta love a “bureaucracy gone mad” story.
Opinion alert: take this one wider and you have a reflection of our times. London is growing rapidly and everybody needs a car, but public infrastructure isn’t keeping up, forcing many people into a reactive stance that adds stress and an entirely unnecessary sense of conflict. In this case, a councillor has acted to support residents, but it took a while and they’ve had to suffer to get here. Even in this heatwave, I get a chill when I think about a whole city of construction and traffic and dust and everything else, and all the unborn petitions out there, and what’s next to emerge from the melee in which we must all live.
Our best first step is to pay attention. Gain good information and use it to promote understanding. And quit fighting about it all.
Thanks for following the Loon.
Four more worth a look
A few more stories in the area of local government. Note that one is about the imminent end of the world and we just talk about this stuff routinely now.
AC for seniors
Here’s another from Monday’s CAPS meeting: Councillor Skylar Franke is seeking to get AC into the homes of more low-income seniors. This item sailed through on Monday and will show up again at Full Council on July 21. Here’s a backgrounder from before that meeting, from CTV.
Sunfest incident
By now, you may have heard about an incident at the end of Sunfest, which has led to charges against two young people. This column doesn’t tend to focus on policing and crime but any major event downtown, and particularly something involving disorder, puts us in the area of local government, in my opinion.
Here’s some reporting from CTV, including lots of images from the night, and CBC leads with the charges, which are important.
Affordable housing
Here’s a positive one. Housing is going up fast all over town, and coming through Planning quickly, too. Here’s one of many recent stories.
Climate change and heat-resistant roads
Here’s a great piece from CTV, which mentions Highway 402 and its recent closure due to the heat, which is apparently now confirmed.
A quote from that story:
The report estimates that over the next 75 years, Canada will have to pay roughly $15.1 billion per year on average to maintain, renew and reactively repair infrastructure but if Canada spends roughly $4.1 billion, proactively adapting infrastructure to make it climate-resilient, costs from climate change damage could be reduced to $2.5 billion per year.
Um… what does this mean for all the construction projects London has already suffered through? I’d feel reassured to know we don’t have to redo them all due to climate change, which is of course caused by human actions4 and…
Oh. Never mind.
Enough - wait, no, what’s this about pet waste?
And there’s our local government for now! We are still going at City Hall. Another of the City’s Standing Committees is meeting this afternoon (Wednesday - ICSC agenda here but don’t - even its name is boring) and there are more stories coming out of that.
We haven’t even touched on this Old South story:
The City plans a 12-month pilot to add pet waste to Green Bins for 1,900 households, starting Fall 2026, with data collection and feedback. It will expand Green Bin access to townhomes, offer additional bins for purchase at cost, and improve collection, repair, and service processes.
Yes, green bins with pet waste in them. People are going to have OPINIONS on this, especially when passing dog-walkers see it as a handy solution. OMG we hit the local news motherlode!
Oh my, and it is vital for us to stay calm and focus on good information in these times of misinformation and disinformation. Thanks again for supporting us at The Loon, because we want the city to be routinely fabulous and we think you can help.
Actually enough
Bye for now.
- Mike
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Another great round up. Thanks, Mike. And time to reach out to my Ward 9 Councillor and tell her that she needs to vote in favour of that development, and tell the NIMBYs to get stuffed.