July 26, 2006
If I Had A Billion Dollars, Bye Patsy, City Takes Over Parkdale Building
The City is receving about $980 million dollars from Toronto Hydro. There was some fierce debate about how the money will be used but in the end the City will earmark the money for waterfront redevelopment and the York U subway. Sadly fancy ketchups or green dresses were nowhere on council's radar. Pictured here are the very happy Toronto Hydro mascots.
Despite the promise of a billion dollars the city still needs more money. Council wants to explore using alternate sources of funding (ie. the private sector, non-profits, bake sales) to fund public infrastructure such as housing, parks and roads. We're very wary of this considering the bad record of public private partnerships the world over, but hey what do we know.
Torontoist wants a moment of silence for Patsy. The 40-year old elephant was put down yesterday at the Toronto Zoo, she had been suffering from very painful arthritis. Patsy was born in Mozambique but has lived in Toronto for the last 32 years and was regarded as the matriach of the zoo's elephants, many of whom mourned her death yesterday.
Residents in and around the club district are telling their noisy neighbours that you're either with us or against us, sort of. Area residents want to find solutions that will keep noise levels down and allow clubs to avoid the fate of the Docks.
A flying tire causes a bad accident on the DVP. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.
After an eight year court battle, a member of the Tamil Tigers has been deported from Canada. Toronto police considered the man a gang leader and a "trained assassin."
The city is expropriating a burnt-out rooming house in Parkdale and hopefully turning it into affordable housing. The owner wants to rehabilitate the building but it's been burnt out for close to eight years and local councillor Sylvia Watson is growing impatient.
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Of course Sylvia Watson is getting impatient - that provincial by-election's only around the corner!
As for the billion dollars - it would be nice to see an acceleration of stuff like the replacement of city water pipes so we don't have a repeat of the Sheppard sinkhole. The backlog of infrastructure is pretty huge right now.
The billion comes up every budget but it does mean forgoing the income the debt brings in, never mind what effect having to pay out $1bn will have on Toronto Hydro.
If Sylvia Watson is elected in the upcoming Provincial election as the Parkdale/High Park Liberal, undoubtedly our Western Beaches Waterfront will be developed to the detriment of the residents who currently use it as their vacation spot. She boasts that she will further develop the waterfront at her provincial website at http://www.sylviawatson.com. Most recently, while Councillor of Ward 14 (Parkdale/High Park) she has pushed through the construction of yet another parking lot for the use of the Palais Royale!!!... and has ignored the concerns of the constituents who elected her to bulldoze on with "backroom deal" that will eliminate even more parkland. Several concerned citizens attended the Policy & Finance meeting in June to discover that their own Councillor was to ignore a petition signed by more than 2,000 residents. City Council voted as per Sylvia's instructions and the parking lot is to be constructed very soon. Undoubtedly, 30 years down the road, we'll be trying to figure out how to get some greenspace back at our waterfront... much like we're currently doing at Harbourfront to the tune of millions of dollars. Sylvia Watson, like politicians before her, does not think of the future... she cares only about paving her way to another elected seat. Be very careful how you vote if you care about the Western Beaches Waterfront (Sunnyside, Marilyn Bell Park, etc.). Get involved... stop Sylvia Watson's bulldozer. And... write a letter to Mayor Miller. Perhaps eventually he will listen before this becomes another very expensive election issue.