Municipal Politics - Page 17

MolsonExport · #**321** Posted **Dec 18, 2023, 1:42 PM**

Is it a law that the budget for the police force always rises at a rate much higher than inflation? Maybe they need it to produce those awful preaching radio ads.

jammer139 · #**322** Posted **Jan 9, 2024, 1:04 PM**

Local municipalities sue each other in Strathroy over services.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...sewer-services

jammer139 · #**323** Posted **Jan 10, 2024, 5:50 PM**

City Hall to explore ways to add EV charging to new buildings.

Even better would be for the Ontario Building Code to include this going forward. Way cheaper to account for EV charging at the design and construction stages of high rises and SFH and townhouses.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...-new-buildings

jammer139 · #**324** Posted **Jan 11, 2024, 2:05 PM**

Raises for Deputy Mayor and Budget Chief proposed.

Maybe its time to revisit the debate in making city councillors full-time jobs again. I would have no issue with making the jobs full-time and redrawing the ward map to reduce the number of councillors to either 8 or 10 from the current 14.

https://london.ctvnews.ca/mayor-morg...hair-1.6720760

Djeffery · #**325** Posted **Jan 11, 2024, 11:26 PM**

I always chuckle when councillors without a job be full time councillors and then talk about how busy they are and the job needs to be full time (and paid as such), but the others with jobs seem to go along just fine. I recall Bernie McDonald and Fred Tranquilli were the ward 3 twins, both marketing themselves as full time, Bernie being retired from GM Diesel and Fred being fired from CFPL-TV, so both had time to be full time councillors.

The best councillors I remember over the years all had main careers, David Winninger, Ted Wernham, Sandy Levin, Gord Hume, Russ Monteith, to name a few. If the city wants to make the positions full time, I see a drop in talent as there is no way their will be political will to pay these positions enough to get top talent to put their careers on hold for possibly only 4 years of being on council.

jammer139 · #**326** Posted **Jan 25, 2024, 3:31 PM**

Mayor Morgan State of the City address highlights.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/londo...ress-1.7094272

Of note the proposal for a program to assist office to residential conversions and re-purpose of the former Elmwood Place LTC home for housing. Doing RFP's for City owned parking lots to be redeveloped into high rises with public parking in the podiums.

ssiguy · #**327** Posted **Jan 25, 2024, 8:48 PM**

The Mayor seems to be interested in doing some good priority things. Some say the new "strong mayors" policy brought in by Ford is undemocratic and while I can see the argument, the reality is that the Mayor is elected and should have more power at City Hall to set stronger priorities, decrease the bureaucracy of City Hall, and override local councilors who are often so afraid of their local constituents that nothing ever gets done.

The conversion of offices to housing should work well, especially in an office market like London's. Occupancy rates are not that high in class A buildings but very high in lower level ones which London has a disproportionate number of. These older buildings are much more suited to conversions than modern ones because they tend to be much shorter and, even more importantly, have a much smaller footprint. The last point is key as that means that they can be converted with much more window /lighting which is a requirement not only for the unit as a whole but also for every bedroom needed, require fewer elevators, and expanding/improving the plumbing system is far cheaper and faster.

Calgary has been at the forefront of the movement but it is not the taller office buildings that are being converted but rather the older and smaller footprint ones as they are the only ones that can realistically, both physically and financially, be done and London has, proportionately, FAR older class buildings than Calgary.

jammer139 · #**328** Posted **Jan 26, 2024, 3:19 PM**

LFP article on how the four developers came together to work on the Elmwood Place renovation for affordable supportive housing with Indwell.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...ortive-housing

jammer139 · #**329** Posted **Jan 28, 2024, 11:37 PM**

LFP article with comments from local office building owners about conversions.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...exploring-idea

ssiguy · #**330** Posted **Jan 29, 2024, 9:10 PM**

As I stated earlier, conversions are a great idea and especially for London which has a disproportionately high number of older stock buildings which tend to have smaller footprints, more windows access, and are shorter. These are the kind of buildings that are most ideal for conversions. They are faster to convert and require less infrastructure upgrades.

jammer139 · #**331** Posted **Jan 30, 2024, 7:39 PM**

Another article on office to residential conversions with a good photo of York's new building on King St.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/londo...sion-1.7098287

jammer139 · #**332** Posted **Jan 31, 2024, 7:11 PM**

Mayor Morgan proposes 8.8% property tax increase.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...x-hike-in-2024

jammer139 · #**333** Posted **Feb 6, 2024, 5:43 PM**

Municipalities now being sued for over $5M in this dispute.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...r-water-battle

jammer139 · #**334** Posted **Feb 9, 2024, 10:20 PM**

LPS opens a community engagement office in Masonville Mall on a 6 month pilot.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...asonville-mall

"The office will be staffed on weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. and also will be used to host engagement sessions on topics such as crime prevention and recruitment outside of those hours, police said."

K85 · #**335** Posted **Feb 10, 2024, 3:13 AM**

They'll fucking help you on their fucking hours, with their giant assed budget whether you like it or not

jammer139 · #**336** Posted **Feb 13, 2024, 11:52 PM**

council votes to lift bedroom caps.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...p-on-dwellings

jammer139 · #**337** Posted **Feb 16, 2024, 2:15 PM**

City to set aside $10M to fund the office conversion program.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...ce-conversions

MolsonExport · #**338** Posted **Feb 16, 2024, 2:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jammer139

Mayor Morgan proposes 8.8% property tax increase.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...x-hike-in-2024

such bs. How many of you got a 8.8% raise last year? Mine has been half of inflation for 4 years running now.

haljackey · #**339** Posted **Feb 16, 2024, 3:22 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

such bs. How many of you got a 8.8% raise last year? Mine has been half of inflation for 4 years running now.

What's also sad is that we're on the lower side of property taxes too. Some other cities are projecting double digit increases as well.

The latest jump got the LTC some, but not all of their requested funding, and the Libraries got a chunk to keep operating at roughly status quo.

These big jumps just tell you how chronically underfunded stuff was in the past... we're paying the price now. Example- remember Joe Fontana's tax freezes? Ya we are feeling that.

There's still time for consultation and things until about the end of the month. Some funding for homelessness- something I think we all agree on needs to be heavily addressed, got shot down as takes away from the police budget. It would need separate funding, so with that and some other things, perhaps politicians will aim for the increase to be in the single digits (9.9% or less).

I guess we'll see what happens. London is growing like a weed and we need that growth for more properties to tax. If this growth slows, it might make taxes go up even more.

MolsonExport · #**340** Posted **Feb 16, 2024, 4:29 PM**

The police always get their asks.