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Newsstand: November 25, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
Thursday’s child Newsstand has far to go: a Toronto Humane Society board member has a house packed with over fifty felines, the Toronto Public Library asks for the first budget increase under the reign of Ford, and Julian Fantino is in the news twice.
One of the members elected to the board of the Toronto Humane Society in the time since last year’s scrutiny of its operations has had fifty-one cats rescued from a house that she owns but does not live in. Ferne Sinkins called the OSPCA to investigate her own property after getting the shaft from the cat sitter–cum-tenant who occupied her Victorian house in Hamilton. Sinkins and the man who was living in her house, sixty-nine-year-old Robert Gould, disagree about how the number of cats in the house had exploded so dramatically, with each blaming the other for the feline accumulation. Gould was living in the house rent-free. We won’t pussyfoot around the issue: now that the cat’s out of the bag, Sinkins has taken a leave of absence from her role on the THS board. Here’s hoping that all those cats are alright and that they’ve rescued the whole kitten caboodle.
And so it begins: the Toronto Public Library (still our reigning Hero) is the first of Toronto’s major agencies, boards, and commissions to pass a budget request since Rob Ford’s war on gravy…or his war on trains, or whatever it is. TPL’s projections include an increase of 3.3%, or $5.51 million, over last year. According to a staff report, this is a lean budget with unavoidable increases due to inflation and contractual raises in wages and benefits. To ask for less, the library would have to make cuts to services, not buy books, and reduce library hours. Ford’s campaign promised belt-tightening that would not impact city services. Later today, the Toronto Zoo will be tackling its own budget for next year, where expenses on the table include a paddock for pandas. We can see the headlines now: Rob Ford says homeless pandas conduct the gravy train, declares war on cuteness.
Speaking of budgets, the OPP have agreed to hand over reports that Liberals hope will reveal freewheeling spending on the part of Julian Fantino during the G8 and G20 summits. The OPP originally insisted that they would reveal the documents to the House of Commons committee requesting them on December 1, days after a by-election in Vaughn where Fantino is running as a Conservative candidate in a long-time Liberal riding. The Conservatives are allegedly keeping Fantino away from the public so that he doesn’t do or say anything to diminish his lead in the polls. Now that’s faith in your candidate, folks.
Speaking of our man Fantino, Eye Weekly has published the second in their multi-part investigative series on police corruption. Cool beans. You should go read it. Right now.
The Ontario Lotto and Gaming corporation has unveiled a higher-tech data system to help prevent lotto fraud. Data Analysis and Retrieval Technology—or DART—will create a profile for every lottery ticket sold in Ontario, tracking the time and place of purchase. It will also keep track of tickets purchased within five minutes before and after winning tickets, to help prevent fraud on the part of retailers. The system is also aware of repeat numbers being played at the same location, keeping tabs on regulars who play the same numbers. We don’t totally understand, but that’s okay, it seems cool, right?
Police identified the city’s latest homicide victim just as another killing has made him the second-to-latest. The teenager killed Monday in the city’s north end has been identified as William Nathanson. The nineteen-year-old was out on bail for wounding a man at the time of the shooting, but police do not believe the two incidents are connected. Last night, a forty-five-year-old man was shot behind a Scarborough apartment building. Police are on the lookout for a silver Dodge Charger with two or three occupants. The name of the victim has not been released. Toronto has seen fifty-six homicides this year.
This article originally mistakenly called the Toronto Humane Society the Toronto Human Society, the result of a typo. (It happens to the best of us.)