Shows
Peterborough CurrentsAn Update From CurrentsPeterborough Currents is going through some big changes. A key piece of our funding has dried up, which has necessitated some tough conversations about what lies ahead for our community-powered local news outlet. At the same time, we're transitioning to become a non-profit organization governed by a volunteer board of directors. It's a lot! In this episode, karol orzechowski interviews Currents publisher-editor Will Pearson about everything that's going on at Currents. karol is the board chair of the Peterborough Association for Local News, the brand new non-profit that will be assuming ownership of Peterborough Currents in...2025-05-081h 28
Peterborough CurrentsA Guide to Peterborough's 2025 BudgetWelcome to Peterborough Currents' podcast coverage of the city's 2025 budget process! In this episode, Brett Throop and Will Pearson discuss what's behind next year's proposed tax increase and how the city might solve its budget troubles without resorting to tax hikes. We also discuss a couple of key topics we've reported on, including the city's capital shortfall and discretionary benefits for social assistance recipients.TIMESTAMPS(0:00) Community rallies against cuts to arts and community grants(6:38) Why are citizens facing a big tax hike for the second year in a row?(17:26) Councillors met for two days to...2024-12-031h 26Peterborough CurrentsLessons Learned from City's Latest Homelessness InitiativesIn 2023, the City of Peterborough implemented two new initiatives to respond to homelessness in the city and to offer low-barrier services for people whose needs were not being met by the existing shelter system at the time.Those two initiatives were the modular housing community on Wolfe Street, where 50 sleeping cabins replaced a tent encampment, and the Trinity Community Centre, which was funded to provide overnight shelter for six months of the year and a daytime drop-in program year-round.In February 2024, four people who were instrumental in designing and delivering these two initiatives participated in...2024-03-2640 minPeterborough Currents2024 Budget Podcast Episode FivePeterborough has a budget! Councillors gave it their final approval at the city council meeting on December 11, 2023. During the council meeting, councillors made a couple of last-minute changes to lower the tax increase to 7%, including dipping ever further into the city's reserves and voting to raise transit fares by $0.25 per ride.Sebastian, Abbigale, and Will discuss what the implications of these decisions might be. Then, they reflect on the budget process as a whole.Thank you so much for listening to this podcast series. We can't wait for the 2025 budget!!MUSIC: Th...2023-12-1617 minPeterborough CurrentsNo sidewalks? Blame the city budget.Episode four of our series on the 2024 municipal budget, which we're producing in partnership with Arthur Newspaper. In this episode, we dive into the capital budget.We start this episode on Sherbrooke Street near the city's western limit, where there's stretch of road that is nasty to navigate as a pedestrian. Folks who walk along this part of Sherbrooke wish the city would build a sidewalk to make their commutes easier and safer.But it doesn't look like they'll get their sidewalk any time soon. That's because the city is struggling to keep up with...2023-12-0733 minPeterborough CurrentsFive Stories From The 2024 Budget TalksCity councillors went through the 2024 draft budget page by page and line by line last week. By the end of the process, they'd whittled the proposed property tax increase down from 9.59 percent to 7.38 percent. But they accomplished that by shifting some of the tax burden away from residential property owners and on to business property owners — they didn't make any major cuts to the 2024 spending proposed by city staff.The budget process reveals so much about the city and how it works. In this episode of our podcast series on the 2024 municipal budget, we're covering five stories tha...2023-11-2836 minPeterborough Currents2024 Budget Podcast: Episode TwoIn this episode of our podcast series covering Peterborough's 2024 municipal budget deliberations, we discuss the November 14 and November 15 finance committee meetings, where citizens and community groups addressed city council about the draft budget.What happened? A variety of community groups pleaded with councillors to reverse a proposed cut to their municipal grants. The proposed 3.6% cut to community service grants would save the median household $0.67 on their tax bill next year. Meanwhile, Chief of Police Stuart Betts made the case for a 15.3% police budget increase that would cost the same household about $106 in additional taxes next year.2023-11-2035 minPeterborough CurrentsIt's City Budget Season!Peterborough city staff presented councillors with a draft of the 2024 municipal budget on November 6. The budget proposes hiking property taxes by 9.6 percent next year to continue delivering municipal services.What's behind the increase? Inflation is one cause. Another is a big budget ask from the Peterborough Police — they're asking for $4.6 million more in 2024 than they received in 2023.But the budget isn't set in stone. Councillors will debate it over the next month before giving it final approval. Peterborough Currents has teamed up with Arthur Newspaper to bring you a podcast series covering the municipal budget del...2023-11-1318 minPeterborough CurrentsThe Legacy of PCVSA conversation about growing up and fighting for what you believe in featuring two generations of young people from Peterborough.Ella Cunningham and Eloise Harvey are two local teenagers who are members of the cast of Give 'Em Hell, a new play about the efforts waged by students to save PCVS during the school's final year. Collin Chepeka and Sara Farley are both PCVS alumni — they were students at the highschool during its last year and they participated in the protests.Together, Ella, Eloise, Collin and Sara discuss growing up, finding a place to belong, an...2023-09-1338 min
Peterborough CurrentsCity council votes to approve the 2021 municipal budget
On Monday, Peterborough’s city council sat for the last meeting of 2020 and voted to approve the budget documents drafted by city staff with amendments. Peterborough Currents has been covering these deliberations for the past month and in this episode, co-publishers Ayesha Barmania and Will Pearson go over the highlights of this meeting so you can hear what happened.
Episode transcript
Ayesha 0:00
Hey – Ayesha here, before we get into the podcast, I wanted to let you know about something that we’re trying at Peterborough Currents. As we look ahead into 2021, things are still...2020-12-1720 min