Summer may be coming to an end, but the start of school also signals the start of extracurricular activities including swimming lessons. Anyone trying to book swimming lessons right now knows that available spots are often filled in minutes, leaving many kids and families on long waiting lists. It is abundantly clear that we need more…
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Big changes are coming in the way your garbage gets collected! At our City Council meeting next week, we’ll be looking to give final approval for a shift towards a new automated garbage collection system. In the near future, your garbage bin will be swapped with a City-supplied standardized garbage cart that can be picked up and…
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As we gear up for the shift from summer into fall, and the return to school, that means here at City Hall we will be moving into budget season. This year’s budget process is going to be different following the introduction of strong mayor powers in cities like Kingston. Starting with the 2024 budget, it…
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We know there’s a critical need for more housing in Kingston. That’s why City Council has already approved the construction of several thousand new housing units. The challenge is high inflation, high interest rates and labour shortages in building trades all threatening to slow housing construction at the exact moment we need to accelerate it.…
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It’s time Kingston—City Council has set its new goals for this term and now we’re ready to put a plan in place. At a special meeting this Tuesday, I’ll be sitting down with City Council to approve a bold and ambitious plan geared toward specific and concrete actions to move our community forward. This plan will help…
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Earlier this year, I joined several mayors and mental health organizations from across the province to push the provincial government for more funding to address the ongoing health and homelessness crisis. Kingston like other communities across Ontario is experiencing an overwhelming surge in the number of vulnerable and unhoused residents. After some continuous advocacy from Kingston City Council and countless others, I am encouraged to see a significant increase in homelessness funding for municipalities in last month’s…
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Here in Kingston, we are fortunate to have one of the best and most beautiful downtowns anywhere in the country. Keeping the downtown strong and vibrant requires finding new ways to bring more people into the downtown to sustain our local shops and small businesses. A great example is the proposal for a new downtown conference centre. At…
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Each night this week, City Council is meeting to discuss the 2023 budget. It’s an important budget with new spending for affordable housing, supports for homelessness, and investments in roads, parks, and city facilities. It’s also an important budget given the rise in inflation and interest rates we’ve seen over the last year. During the…
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When I first became mayor a number of years ago, the big economic development challenge at the time was how to attract new businesses to Kingston. Things have changed dramatically since then, with an expanding electric vehicle industry and several other rapidly growing sectors. We now have a host of different companies wanting to either…
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According to last week’s CMHC report, the rental vacancy rate in Kingston has fallen to 1.2%. That’s the second lowest vacancy rate in the province. In fact, in Canada as a whole, the rental vacancy rate is at it lowest point in more than 20 years. Here in Kingston we can see first hand the…
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