We had a four-day week filled with eight days of fun, and I bet we’re all feeling it today. So here’s your quick and easy catchup - a scattering of what you should know to be an engaged citizen, in my opinion. I wouldn’t normally do this on a Saturday1, but we had a full week so off we go.
Looking back at the week
The big event at City Hall this week was probably all the controversy over the York Developments 30-storey tower application at Planning and Environment. You can find my post here, along with coverage of Community and Protective Services on Monday, and a list of local media reports.
Since that meeting…
This report includes a York Developments commitment to rehouse current residents if its tower goes ahead.
And Councillor David Ferreira continues to express frustration as he talks again about council donations here.
The lightning round
An excellent piece here, from Jack-of-the-Freeps, all about how the city is spending the money it gets from Assessment Growth. That’s a lot of money, by the way. Did you know there’s a happy spending spree2 every year among city departments? Somehow, it’s not mentioned when they’re announcing that % budget tax increase. Funny how that goes.
Nestle is leaving the ice cream business, affecting a local factory. Story is here.
You saw that Children’s Aid workers are on strike, right? Story here.
Steve Cordes has a new ep of his video blog, which is about community development and is thoughtful stuff.
In education, podcaster Craig Needles interviewed TVDSB Education Director Bill Tucker, who’s announced he will leave the role. There’s a lot to this issue, not least the lack of democracy in local education. Meanwhile, one of our forgotten trustees is concerned about senior-level promotions at an organization with a deficit.
Gameday London has more local sports news including a London Knights update over here.
Looking ahead
As I shared in my Executive Summaries post, we have some serious committee work happening on Dufferin this week. On Monday, we have the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee, while the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee is on Tuesday. With bot help, I have summaries there, teeing up next week’s chats on:
UNESCO City of Music - Councillor Sam Trosow is pushing this on his socials and tells me he plans to talk about it at SPPC on Tuesday.
Rec Centre fees - this proposal will switch $760,000 a year from city funding to user fees. (SPPC, Tues.)
And, one of my favourite things in the world is to watch a council talk about Lame Duck status. This is Monday at ICSC. We’ll see who really, really needs to talk about it. Fun.
And the Free Press already connected with Councillor Corinne Rahman to talk about traffic calming. That should be a vote-winner.
Time for a weekend
That’s a good catchup for now, and I hope you get something out of it. I’m giving some thought to monetizing this blog gently, and would love to hear feedback from any of you. Current thinking is the end-of-the-week roundup stays free to all, and my other pieces go behind a firewall. Thanks again for your pledges, which keep coming - I’ll probably do a pledge drive soon. You guys rock.
Milestoning for clarity
As I continue to do corporate comms as public interest journalism, I will keep sharing lots of information, and there has been no shortage of it up to now, phew. Nobody wants to store all that in their head, so please don’t try. Instead, I’m planning well-timed check-ins with ‘milestone’ content showing where we’ve all reached in various stories, issues and so on. Stick with me - it’ll be as clear as I can make it.
And here comes the curling!
I know people like hockey and such, and today I’m focused on the GBR-CAN3 curling match, which starts at 1 p.m. our time. EXCITEMENT BUILDS.
Yes it is. Calm down.
Please do not deport me if I cheer at the wrong moment.