The City of Guelph will have representation on the County of Wellington’s social services committee for the first time in seven years.
At its Dec. 19 meeting Guelph city council passed a resolution appointing Mayor Cam Guthrie as the city’s representative on the committee “in an ex-officio role, without voting privileges.”
In an interview on Jan. 10 Guthrie said restoring a relationship with the county was one of his focuses as mayor.
“It’s that old adage that you’re stronger when you’re together than divided,” he said. “The relationship between the city and the county has been somewhat fractured over the past and I … came into this position as mayor wanting to just … build bridges and build better partnerships.”
The resolution to appoint the mayor was passed unanimously a year after Guthrie originally brought a notice of motion to city council.
Guelph has not been directly represented on the committee since 2010, when city council decided to stop sending members to what was then a joint city-county committee consisting of four members from each council.
At the time, then-Guelph mayor Karen Farbridge complained the make-up routinely resulted in a stalemate on key issues, which were then decided by a vote of county council, the provincially-designated service manger for social services, social housing and child care services in Guelph-Wellington.
Though Farbridge stated there was no connection, at the time the city and the county were embroiled in arbitration over social services cost sharing. The two sides also argued over discretionary spending.
In 2010 the county won the arbitration case, thus avoiding a 7% county tax increase to make up a $4-million funding shortfall that would have come from the city’s proposal to move to a cost sharing agreement based on property assessment.
In the past, city and county councillors alternated as chairman of a joint social services committee, which operated under a user-pay agreement.
That means since the majority of the services were used in Guelph, the city paid the lion’s share of the costs.
Though the county had not been officially notified as of Jan. 9 of the decision by the city to rejoin the committee, both county Warden Dennis Lever and CAO Scott Wilson said Guthrie was expected and welcome at the Jan. 11 social services committee meeting (Guthrie confirmed he planned to attend).
“We knew the city had passed this resolution, and certainly the county would welcome their participation in this committee,” said Lever in an interview.
“A lot of the [issues the committee deals with] take place within the city, so I’m pleased to see Mayor Guthrie, or some representative from the city, attend our committee meetings.
“At the staff level, the county and the city, I believe, have worked well together.”
Suggesting notification “may have got caught up over the Christmas break,” Wilson said, “I haven’t seen anything official from the city … so I don’t know exactly what the terms of his appointment (are) or their interest is.”
While noting the county will need to amend its procedural bylaw “to accommodate whatever form the mayor’s participation takes,” Wilson said, “We’re expecting the mayor on Wednesday and certainly we’ll treat him like everyone else.”
He added, “The offer’s always been there for someone from the city to attend.”
When the city withdrew from the social services committee in 2010, Guelph councillors also voted to amend the city’s procedural bylaw to remove the land ambulance committee, also at the time a joint committee, as a standing committee of Guelph city council.
Lever said changes to the governance structure for ambulance service in the region are “not something I anticipate at this time.”
– With files from Jaime Myslik
