Why is this taking so long?
You elect fifteen people. The work itself is done by city staff you didn't elect, boards and committees you rarely see, and sometimes a different government entirely. When something stalls, it's usually stuck at one specific stage, not lost in the whole machine. Knowing which stage tells you who to actually push.
Who actually does the work
Council sets direction, fifteen votes on the things that are theirs to decide. Delivering it falls to the City Manager, seven Deputy City Managers, and the staff under them, none of them elected. Separate boards run police, transit and other services on their own budgets. A councillor can direct staff to look into something; a councillor cannot personally make it happen.
SEE WHO SITS WHERE →The path something takes
Six stages, in order. Most delay lives in one of them.
Idea
- HOLDS IT
- Any councillor, city staff, or a resident who raises it.
- CAN STALL
- Nothing obliges anyone to act on it. It has to compete for a spot on an agenda that staff and a committee chair control.
Staff report
- HOLDS IT
- The city department responsible. Council votes on the options a report lays out; without a report, there's nothing to vote on.
- CAN STALL
- Staff capacity, competing priorities, or waiting on a study, a consultant, or another government's answer first.
PUSH HEREA records request can surface a report's status, or the correspondence behind a delay.
Committee
- HOLDS IT
- One of council's four standing committees, which hears the item first and recommends a direction.
- CAN STALL
- The committee can refer it back for more information, or simply not agree, which sends it back into the queue.
PUSH HERERegister as a delegation and speak for up to five minutes before the vote.
Council
- HOLDS IT
- All fifteen members, voting as a whole. This is the vote that actually decides.
- CAN STALL
- Council can accept, amend, defer, or reject the committee's recommendation outright.
PUSH HERESee how each member has voted on the issues that mattered most this term.
Money
- HOLDS IT
- The multi-year budget. London currently plans and votes its budget four years at a time.
- CAN STALL
- An approved plan with no money attached is a plan on paper. Anything not funded in the current cycle usually waits for the next one.
PUSH HERESee the levers on taxes and spending, and what the next budget cycle looks like.
Outside gates
- HOLDS IT
- A different government or tribunal entirely: the province for health, addiction treatment and rent rules; the Ontario Land Tribunal for planning appeals.
- CAN STALL
- London can approve something and still be waiting on a decision nobody in London was elected to make.
PUSH HERECheck whose call it actually is before the wait gets blamed on City Hall.
Where this actually happened: the homelessness hubs
London's plan to open five community homelessness hubs is the clearest recent example of a stall with a named cause, because the City's own auditor said so in writing.
The City's Hubs Implementation Plan set an objective of five hubs operating by May 2024.
MNP, Housing and Homelessness Value for Money Audit, Aug 28 2025 ↗Two: YOU's Community Youth Hub and Atlohsa's Wiigiwaaminaan Lodge. Both are full, with waitlists.
MNP, Housing and Homelessness Value for Money Audit, Aug 28 2025 ↗Received by the Audit Committee Sept 10 2025, on a 2-1 vote; Councillor Stevenson voted against, saying it wasn't a true value-for-money analysis.
City of London Audit Committee, September 10, 2025 ↗The bottleneck, in the auditor's own words
“challenges related to location, acquisition/availability of land, zoning limitations, and operating funding have impacted the timeline”
MNP, Housing and Homelessness Value for Money Audit, Aug 28 2025 ↗
Land and zoning are the Staff report and Outside gates stages above; operating funding is the Money stage. None of the three is council simply refusing. All three are still council's to fix: land can be bought or designated, zoning can be pre-cleared, and operating funding is a budget decision, not an act of nature.
Slow for a reason, or just stalled?
Both happen. They look the same from the outside. They aren't the same thing.
- Planning changes carry legal notice and appeal periods, so neighbours get a say before a decision is final.
- A four-year budget cycle means new spending competes for a spot in the next cycle, not the next meeting.
- Delegations, written communication and committee review add real time, the same steps a resident just used to change the Bluegrass Drive decision.
- A report that goes out for more information and never comes back.
- A committee or working group that quietly stops meeting.
London's own Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group, created to hunt for city-wide savings, met three times in 2024, spent $15,000 on review training, and voted to meet again in 2025. As of August 21, 2026, it has not met since.
City of London, SORWG meeting record, Sept 4 2024 ↗Ask your candidates
- Pick something stalled in this ward. Which stage is it actually stuck at, and what would you do at that stage?
- Where a delay is the law protecting people, would you shorten it, and what would that trade away?
Knowing where something is stuck tells you who to push. Vote October 26.
Sources City of London, standing committees ↗city release, 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget adopted ↗