Ideas & News

Equitable, Liveable & Sustainable - A City for All
  • Municipalities are constantly being portrayed as the biggest stumbling block in solving the housing crisis. The issue than ma

  • Last night at our Budget Meeting we heard from the ABCs – the City’s associations, boards and commissions –

  • Last night (Monday, October 16) at council – we agreed to remove the Watson Statue from City Hall front lawn.   The rem

  • The federal government recently announced that they would be removing GST on purpose built rentals to help address the housin

  • There is regular call by some of my colleagues to “find significant savings” in our city budget.  This sounds gre

  • Last night at Council (August 14), we hopefully had our final motions about the 2023 property taxes and now we’ll be ab

  • I’m sure many of you have read in the St. Catharines Standard or listened to 610 CKTB, that on Monday, July 24, there i

  • Very excited that City of St. Catharines, Niagara Region, and Niagara Regional Housing (NRH) announced the development plans

  • Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of speaking at the City of St. Catharines Pride Flag Raising.  As the City’s first

  • On Monday night (May 15th), Council approved two CIP (Community Improvement Plan) incentive applications for one for 88 James

  • Who doesn’t love to talk budgets?  It’s exciting stuff. I’ll admit when I sit down to look at budgeting and

  • Parking and parking spaces are almost always a hot topic.  Or should I say contraversial one. Whether you’re talking ab

  • Last week I got the chance to talk with Steph Vivier and Ruth Unrau on the Power Hour on 610 CKTB, about the importance of ma

  • This past Monday (April 3), Council considered a planning application that was requesting the expansion of a building (adding

  • Thank you to my collegue Kevin Townsend for his motion on Monday to establish a citizen lead task force to review remuneratio

  • Today was my third City of St. Catharines adventure day. I had the opportunity to do a walk along with the team at the the Dr

  • Last week I attended Gil Penalosa‘s Cities for Everyone webinar Arrested Mobility with Charles T. Brown. Charles took u

  • When we talk about parks, transit, sidewalks and roads, buildings – we use the words equity and equality.  I’ve o

  • Thank you #TEAMSTC for arranging my day of shadowing the team at Guest Services at the Kiwanis Aquatics Centre. I had an amaz

  • On December 5, 2022 the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks and MTE presented to council regarding 282 and 28

  • October is #smallbusinessmonth, and this week is #smallbusinessweek. In Canada, we have more than 1.2 million small businesse

  • As you know, climate change has been identified as the number 1 crisis facing humanity, and in April of 2019 the City of St.

  • There has been a lot of talk during this campaign and as we emerged from the pandemic about getting people to leave their car

  • We can all agree that St. Catharines needs more housing units. Where we tend to get a bit stuck is how we are going to get th

  • Climate change is the largest threat to our health and wellness. And as a city, we are obligated to ensure St. Catharines res

  • Thank you Ruth Unrau for chatting with me about how we can work with neighbourhood residents to make neighbourhood parks that

  • I had the opportunity to check out the opening launch for Warbler Place Urban Village in Welland.  And can I just say WOW! On

  • I may be stating the obvious but cities change, populations grow and how we lived 30 years ago is different than how we live

  • Recently I was given the opportunity to experience what it is like to navigate our city sidewalks in a wheelchair.  The oppor

  • We have a housing crisis.  There are few, if any, who would disagree with this fact.  The question of how we increase the amo

  • At our council meeting on July 18th, we approved a Brownfield Tax Increment Finance (BTIF) under the Community Improvement Pl

  • When it comes to adding safe and dedicated bike lanes and alternate (not cars) forms of transportation how many times have yo

  • Public meetings and open houses about developments and variances are difficult meetings for many reasons.  Most often they ar

  • On July 4, 2022, council unanimously passed the Vacant Building Registry By-law that will address the many issues the city ha

  • When city councils are asked to make decisions about planning and development – it is very easy to only think about tod

  • “Cities are still the places that bring us together and provide space where people can meet, think up far-reaching idea

  • When you think about public spaces and parks they all have common features – easy to get to, easy to navigate, constant

  • Mark Rose, chief executive of Avison Young predicts that: “The beginning of the full return to office is two years from