The Guelph Civic League, which was a prominent critic of the first version of the city’s public nuisance bylaw, still has concerns about the new version being recommended to council by city staff.
The civic league says parts of the first version “appeared to be an attempt to prevent” future incidents like the Occupy Guelph encampment in the fall of 2011, and the occupation of a construction site in the new Hanlon Creek Business Park by protesters in the summer of 2009.
Having this effect, it says, were sections restricting protests to 24 hours, making tents and temporary structures on city property illegal, and restricting any blockage of sidewalks and pathways – unless a city-issued permit is obtained.
In a news release Friday, the civic league also said it had been concerned that the bylaw language related to city-issued permits was too unclear in the first version – including the cost of permits, who makes decisions on conditions, who can revoke them and why, how long the decision takes, and the cost of insurance that the city might say is required.
In the new version of the bylaw, “the city has rightly removed explicit references to protests and rallies, and removed the section regarding distributing handbills,” the release said. “But the bylaw still has restrictions on tents, temporary structures, and blockage of sidewalks and pathways – all things that could be associated with” the Occupy and Hanlon Creek protests in Guelph.
As well, city staff have cleared up bylaw language related to city-issued permits “only in very minor ways” in the new version, the release said.
The civic league is also concerned that city staff don’t intend to hold any more community input sessions, but rather plan to take their new report straight to the city’s operations, transit and emergency services committee on March 18.
“While some improvements have been made to this latest draft of the nuisance bylaw, the Guelph Civic League was clearly hoping for more in terms of a robust consultation process and dealing with unnecessary, vague and controversial aspects of the bylaw,” the release said.
As a result, the civic league will be asking city councillors for further changes at the committee level, it said.