During the Multi-Year Budget process, City Council approved my push to go forward and start offering free public access WiFi in our recreation centres; arenas, pools, community centres, where it does not already exist (there is an inequality across the city where some facilities have it, some don’t).

My first year as your city councillor has flown by, but it has been a very exciting and productive first year.

During the 2018 Municipal Election Campaign, I contracted work to Blackridge Strategies for 2 items. Those items were a phone poll in Ward 2 to gage voter sentiments and a “get out the vote” phone message on Election Day as I did not have the capacity to execute these two items myself.  I chose Blackridge because they were local, not some firm out of Ottawa or Toronto.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with London Free Press columnist Chip Martin about the city’s next multi-year budget cycle.

Already the Ford Government in Ontario has downloaded or cut services that will add at least $4 million to the city’s budget costs. Staff have already told council just to stay on track next year we need to raise property taxes another 2.7%.  And of course we have a federal election looming this year that could result in more changes to affordability for Londoners. That concerns me a great deal. Seniors on CPP and OAS benefits aren’t able to keep pace with those kind of increases and stay in their homes. The rising costs of groceries, hydro bills, and everything else is making it harder and harder for people to make ends meet, and property taxes are the LEAST FAIR form of taxes possible.

The 2014-2018 Council (including the former Ward 2 Councillor), set aside $5 million to potentially fund the “Ribbon of the Thames” portion of the “Back to the River” project.

What has become known as the “bridge to nowhere”, a suspended lookout bridge and river facing amphitheater space, has already ballooned in cost from $2 million to $7 million, with additional costs for shoreline work, excavation, and flood mitigation measures coming in at another $3-4 million.

Staff pegs the cost of the “Ribbon of the Thames” at a minimum of $12.8 million dollars, with only $2 million in private donations from the London Community Foundation, leaving the project with at least a $5 million funding gap even if we spend all $5 million of the public dollars set aside.

And that’s without spending a penny on the removal of the decommissioned Springbank Bank that has gates and hydraulic systems currently sitting at the bottom of the river.

After almost 4 years of the previous council insisting that their BRT plan absolutely had to be an all or nothing decision, city staff clearly indicated to the new council that not only could the BRT plan be broken up into pieces and still be viable, but that other options besides the old BRT plan were available which could qualify for provincial and federal funding. Challenging Council at his state of the City Address, Mayor Ed Holder has done just that, breaking down the BRT plan into 5 separate projects, as well as directing staff to bring forward a list of other potential transportation related projects that would be eligible for federal and provincial matching funds.

Discussing in the first video how Argyle residents feel about always being left out when it comes to service and investment from city hall.

In the 2019 Budget deliberations an item of contention arose around removing $521,000 from the anticipated budget costs that was earmarked last year for a provincially legislated minimum wage hike. With the change in provincial government, that requirement was removed. It was the staff recommendation that we not proceed with a wage increase and remove that earmarked amount from the budget.

Many of our city owned recreational facilities already have internet connectivity onsite for staff use. But public access to wifi is an increasingly important “quality of experience” factor for users of libraries, recreation centres, gyms, etc, for both regular users and visitors alike, and can also be a safety enhancement.