Mayor Cam Guthrie assured the city's business community that Guelph City Council was not as divided as many think.
Guthrie made the comments to the Guelph Chamber of Commerce during his annual State of the City speech.
"Many of you have seen the headlines about our divided council," he told a packed room over breakfast at the Delta Hotel.
"There's no doubt that the elected members of City Council bring different ideologies and viewpoints to the table. There's no doubt that in some key areas there is disagreement about the best way to accomplish our goals for the city, such as setting tax rates during budget season," Guthrie said.
"But let's keep that in perspective. Most of the time, council is not divided. In fact, most of the time we're unanimous."
The Mayor then read off a number of issues that came before council and were passed by unanimous votes: updating the Community Energy Initiative, repairing city sidewalks, adding bike lanes to Woodlawn Road, consolidating city reserves and better reporting on budget variances.
"And I could go on and on and on," he said. "So the business of the city is getting done and getting done well."
He did qualify the remarks by admitting that council "all know that we have some work to do in coming together as a team for the good of Guelph."
"I'm sure you'd all agree our city does not have time for 'gotcha' moments or political games," Guthrie said.
The mayor did a performance evaluation of himself for the business people in attendance, covering expectations, successes, focus areas and future goals.
Those future goals included touching on the Toronto-to-Waterloo Region corridor as having the potential to be Canada's Silicon Valley.
To achieve that, he said, the corridor needs an efficient commuter rail service.
"If we can solve the fundamental transportation issue and connect people and start-ups along the corridor, we will create thousands of jobs and immense economic prosperity," Guthrie said.
He and other mayors along that corridor have been advocating all-day, two-way GO train service, something he said the province is gradually moving towards.
"They are doing the necessary behind the scenes work, such as purchasing the land and upgrading track infrastructure, to make it a reality."
Other key points included:
- Guthrie with Loblaws representatives on Thursday and still hopes they will eventually build a store in Guelph's east end.
- the city is focused on "getting to yes" when it comes to development.
- the city needs to "stop talking so much about what we're doing and start talking more about what we're accomplishing."
- Guelph issued $500 million in building permits last year: a record for the city.
- more improvements to Guelph Holdings Inc. are in the pipeline.
- the city is opening up Baker Street redevelopment to possible private sector plans instead of "clinging to a narrow vision of what should be there."