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Newsstand: July 5, 2011
It’s Tuesday, and it would have been the 201st birthday of circus owner P.T. Barnum. With that, some appropriately circusy-type news: Giorgio Mammoliti wants to stop funding all parades, marches, art, and fun, and maybe even Caribana; the SIU closes a reopened case; and a man with a plan for Yonge Street.
Another day, another SIU investigation into G20 violence is closed with no charges laid. This was the second time the SIU had opened the file about Joseph Thomson, who alleges police broke his nose when he tried to interfere with a friend’s arrest. After interviewing 31 more witnesses in the reopened investigation, including 22 RCMP officers, the SIU once again concluded that the use of force was justified. Thomson’s lawyer thinks otherwise.
Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) is at it again with the Pride and the funding and the Palestinians, but this time he’s going even farther into crazytown. The councillor, self-described as Mayor Ford’s quarterback, videotaped some pro-Palestine/anti-Israel–type chants and posters at Saturday’s Dyke March and now he’s trying to use that footage to stop any and all public money going to “any political messaging at all,” including arts grants. Not only does Mammoliti want to hold off a $130,000 grant already promised to Pride organizers, he also sort of wants $200,000 worth of service donations, like policing, reimbursed. AND Mammoliti wants all funding to parades and marches halted until a new, squeaky clean, guaranteed-not-to-offend policy can be put in place, which may jeopardize Caribana this year.
Interim Pride organizer Glen Brown doesn’t think one councillor can be that unreasonable, and suspects Mammoliti is blocking for the mayor with these totally craycray proposals. Brown says all the hoopla just distracts from the fact the mayor didn’t show up on Sunday, and everyone noticed.
Meantime, Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North) stands by the mayor’s decision not to take part in any Pride events, saying he ain’t a homophobe, he’s my brother.
A new vision for an old Yonge street calls for less cars and more heritage and coffee. The suggestions come from a privately funded report that Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) will unveil on Wednesday, examining the section of Yonge between Dundas and Gerrard streets. Ken Greenberg, one of the report’s co-authors, wants to transform the strip of head shops and acrylic platform shoe stores into a pedestrian paradise and provide “an opportunity for life to spill out onto the street” on a stretch where foot traffic outnumbers vehicles by more than two to one. So come everyone, just walk in the street and make Ken Greenberg’s dreams come true.
Today marks P.T. Barnum’s 201st birthday, not his 101st, as we initially stated. We regret the error.