Out of 27 perspective candidates for Ward 6 city councillor it came down between Katherine Hauser and Rebecca Adam, and after a show of hands vote ended in a tie, Hauser got the gig in a literal luck of the draw. It was her name that came out of that big orange box, and it’s now up to Hauser to make as big an impact she can before council rises one year from now for the next municipal election. What does she do now?

Now normally we interrogate city councillors on Open Sources Guelph, but we thought that with the tremendous pressures for Councillor Hauser to get the job and then hit the ground running, we would ease her into the world of Guelph politics with a more relaxing Politicast segment than the 22-minute egg-timer on OSG. True, there was the August recess that allowed her to get acclimated, but city council business is a fast moving object.

Hauser is, of course, not unfamiliar with the job of representing Ward 6. Her last gig in politics was serving on the Upper Grand District School Board as the trustee representing Guelph’s Ward 6 and Puslinch. In her statement of qualifications, she said she wants to “advocate for Ward 6 with empathy, insight, and the same integrity” she’s brought to all her roles, and today she will be tested again on this podcast.

Katherine Hauser will join on this week’s edition of the podcast to talk about the reasons why she wanted to make the jump to city council, how she feels about the process that brought her to council, and how she’s been building relationships with the six members of council that didn’t vote for her. She will also talk about the learning curve, what she thinks she can accomplish in the next year, and why she’s already thinking about next year's election. 

So let's get to know the newest member of city council on this week's Guelph Politicast!

You can reach out to her by email at katherine.hauser [at] guelph.ca and you can follow her on Instagram. You can stay up to date with all the latest agendas and developments with city council at the City of Guelph website under the “city government” tab, or by following meeting previews and recaps at Guelph Politico.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, TuneIn and Spotify .

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.