Weds Dec 20: Holiday Hours Updates & City Budget Discussions

Plus: The CAMSafe security cameras database project has come to Grey and Bruce.

Corrections:

Sincere apologies for the errors in holiday dates and hours shared yesterday. Apparently, the “City of Owen Sound Holiday Schedule” resource I referenced was from 2021, and I overlooked the date. (And here I’d thought, how helpful that they’ve packaged this all up so nicely!)

It doesn’t look like the City has released a similar update for this year yet; we’ll share those details with you if they become available. So far, the notices we could find state:

• The TOM's special hours this holiday season: Closed to the public on Monday December 25th and Tuesday December 26th, open Wednesday December 27th to Saturday December 30th from 12-4pm and closed on Sunday December 31st.

• The Library will be closed Monday, December 25 and Tuesday, December 26, as well as Monday, January 1 (via the Library newsletter).

Hopefully, we’ll see more information released soon, given there are only 3 business days left before Christmas.

Before we move on to news, Jim Hutton has followed up on his City Services review research report with the following Letter to the Editor:

While Council has not yet formally acknowledged Hutton’s report, a few of his findings made their way into public question period at Monday night’s council meeting. Read Scott Dunn’s ‘Council challenged after mayor praises its successes at year's end’ in the Owen Sound Sun Times for more.

Whether or not Zero-Based Budgeting is the solution, one thing is for sure – we cannot move forward without a willingness to acknowledge and discuss the problems.

Celebrating wins has a time and place; I’m sure it’s great for staff and council morale, and the public needs to see that steps are being made in the right direction. But focusing only on the wins and pretending they’re all that’s going on in Owen Sound does all of us, and our future here, a disservice.

Perhaps the Mayor will internalize some of the feedback to his year-end review and bring us a more balanced, realistic report for 2024. We don’t expect our elected representatives to have all the answers, but we need to know they’re at least working on the right questions.

~ Miranda