City votes to keep fluoride in our water

TORONTO - The city’s budget committee flushed a surprise motion Thursday to remove fluoride from Toronto’s water supply.

But the committee did approve a 9% increase in water rates and a garbage rate freeze.

The residential garbage rate freeze comes with a price, councillors voted to toss out pickup of extra recyclables that don’t fit in residents’ blue bins and to drop the number of community environment days from 44, one in each councillors’ ward, to just 11 across the city.

Currently, Toronto residents can leave overflow recyclables in clear plastic bags for free pickup when they put out their blue bins.

Budget chief Mike Del Grande tried unsuccessfully to get the committee to remove fluoride from the water - a move that would save around $2 million.

“I have difficulty with putting anything in anything that is not required to be there,” Del Grande said. “It’s not the 1940’s and 1930’s or whatever where people’s teeth were rotting, etc. There is toothpaste that has fluoride in them, there is all kinds of other things.”

Del Grande argued council, not the public health board, needs to have a debate on fluoride in the water supply.

“Why take fluoride into your body if you don’t have to? That’s my position,” he said.

After the committee voted down his motion, Del Grande said he won’t push the issue at executive committee.

Councillor Chin Lee voted against the two budgets and said he’s not sure whether he’ll support them at city council.

Councillor Gord Perks described the approved garbage budget as “a big whopping increase for tenants and no increase for homeowners.”

He argued with a “modest increase” in the garbage fees the city could still provide pickup of extra recyclables from single-family homes.

Councillor Mike Layton was baffled staff would suggest getting rid of overflow recycling pickup.

“You gotta be joking, seriously,” Layton told the committee.

Public Works chairman Denzil Minnan-Wong said residents can get a bigger bin if their blue bin is overflowing with recyclables.

“Or they’ll have to wait until the next go around,” he said.

City's aims to act on Occupy Toronto protesters

TORONTO - The City of Toronto appears ready to change its approach to Occupy Toronto beginning next week.

City manager Joe Pennachetti wasn't saying much about the almost month-long protest in St. James Park other than the fact the city will have more to say after the weekend.

"Starting next week we will have more discussions with those people at the site and we will be moving forward with appropriate steps relative to that site," he told reporters Thursday.

Pennachetti declined to elaborate what those "appropriate steps" would be but stressed the city is putting together a plan.

He wouldn't say how much notice he believes the city would be required to give the protesters to leave the park.

"We'll have a statement issued early next week, I'll leave it at that," Pennachetti said.

The city manager's comments come a day after Toronto Mayor Rob Ford broke his silence about whether or not the protest should be allowed to continue in the downtown park.

“They’ve had a peaceful protest but I think it’s time we asked them to leave,” Ford said Wednesday. “I think it’s time we asked the protesters to move on.”

St. James Park has been home to about 500 protesters since Oct. 15, a day of global protests against the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite.

Mississauga high school cancels Muslim prayers

TORONTO - A Mississauga high school was scrambling Monday to cancel a Muslim prayer session it was going to hold as part of a student dinner to mark Eid, the celebration ending Ramadan.

Flyers had been provided to students at Mississauga Secondary School announcing a night-time “Eid Dinner” to be held in its cafeteria this coming Thursday. Mughrab group prayers were to start at 5:05 p.m., according to the flyer.

Group prayers are not allowed at school events, confirmed Peel District School Board spokeswoman Carla Pereira, adding that the school’s senior administration knew about the upcoming dinner, but not about the planned prayers.

The evening had been requested by the school’s muslim student association and sponsored by a teacher at the school, said Pereira.

The Sun had been tipped off to the prayers in an email from a concerned parent.

On Monday, Judith Beriault, acting principal of the Mavis Rd. And Courtneypark Dr. W area school, abruptly scratched the prayer portion of the dinner – just hours after the Sun contacted the PDSB about the evening.

“The board has a process that all schools need to follow, and part of that process is group prayers are not part of a school event,” said Pereira, adding later in an email that “All celebrations of faith and culture need to be inclusive of all participants.”

All the school’s students, their respective families and school staff were invited to the dinner.

Eid celebrates the end of Ramadan, a month-long fasting ritual and considered the holiest of Islamic holidays. Eid traditionally comes with prayer, gift-giving (particularly to children) and time spent with family and friends.

Valley Park Middle School – a North York school under the the Toronto District School Board – came under fire last July for opening its cafeteria to allow Muslim religious leaders to conduct weekly prayer services for hundreds of the school’s Muslim students.

Critics of the prayer sessions said religious services should not be provided in publicly-funded schools. Some Opponents said the TDSB was bending to the wishes of religious leaders in the Muslim community.

“The school’s events reflect the needs of the community,” said the PDSB’s Pereira when first asked about MSS’s Eid dinner. And while the school has a large Muslim population as part of its student body, Pereira could not provide specific numbers on how many attend MSS.

Schools provide events “that are reflective of the community, (and) schools know the needs of their students based on what students as for individually and as groups through associations...,” said Pereira.

Water rates going up again

TORONTO - Water rates are poised to go up 9% for Toronto residents next year but there will be no garbage fee hike.

A report going to the city’s budget committee on Thursday recommends the water hike - part of a planned annual 9% increase every year until 2014 to help fix the city’s aging water infrastructure.

Public Works chairman Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong attributed the residential garbage rate freeze to city council’s decision to contract out more of Toronto’s trash collection.

CUPE Local 416 president Mark Ferguson, whose union represents the city’s garbage workers, said the city should be looking at a reduction in the garbage rate “if in fact the (contracting out) numbers are true.”

“I think we all realize those numbers are a fallacy,” Ferguson said.

“I think it is rather strange that the city would claim savings but not pass it on to taxpayers,” he added.

Pan Am dreams in T.O.

The West Don Lands may look barren as motorists zip by on the Gardiner Expressway, but it’s going to be a bustling mecca for 8,500 athletes and team officials by 2015.

Bits and pieces of what will eventually be the $1-billion Pan-Am Athletes’ Village are already beginning to sprout on the 80-acre, provincially-owned site. Bulldozers are excavating the area east of Cherry St. where the athletes will stay. Next on the list is a temporary dining hall, a parking lot for International Olympic Committee members and a transportation centre — near Cherry and Mill Sts. — where buses shuttling the athletes to and from the airport will park.

“The village fit very nicely into the plan,” said Meg Davis, vice-president of development for West Don Lands at Waterfront Toronto. “We’re able to take what was already going to be developed and advance that construction and have a community come online and be knit back into the fabric of the city much sooner than might have happened.”

Now that the Pan-Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, have wrapped up, the spotlight has shifted to Toronto which will host the sporting spectacle in 2015.

Will everything be ready?

“We’re right on track and right on budget,” says Ian Troop, CEO of the TO2015, the organizing committee of the Pan-Am games.

“We’ve got five major builds and they’re all moving forward through the procurement process,” adds Troop, whose organizaton is working with a $1.4-billion budget. “At this point, we’re right where we need to be and moving forward briskly on these.”

The five big builds include revamping Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton for soccer events, building a Pan Am Aquatics Centre and field house at University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus and a 12,500-seat stadium at York University. A pool and field house will be constructed in Unionville and there are also plans for a velodrome to host cycling events — location to be determined.

“We expect to have all of them starting construction in the middle part of 2012 to be finished by 2014, which will be for test events and it will be a full year ahead of the games,” Troop explains.

The construction, though, has progressed quickest along the waterfront.

The 6.5-acre Athletes’ Village is part of the second phase of the whole West Don Lands revitalization, developed by TO2015, Waterfront Toronto and Infrastructure Ontario.

Included in the West Don Lands revitalization is an 18-acre Don River Park adjacent to Front St., which should be finished by the end of this year.

Right now, a completed wooden pavilion stands at the top of the hill and serves as the centrepiece for the park. In it are washrooms, solar panels, an office for the city’s parks department and shelter for users of the park.

The area east of the pavilion towards the Don River is expected to be completed mid-2012 because more construction is required for flood-protection, Davis says.

“From the park over to Cherry St. is the centrepiece of the West Don Lands,” she adds. “It will house the Front St. extension, which will have cafes, a large boulevard and small parkettes. That will be used for the Athletes’ Village for Pan-Am, that will be permanent construction for residential and affordable housing, as well as community centre, student housing and other local community requirements.”

A 25-metre pool, gym, fitness centre and indoor track is included in the village plan.

The Pan-Am Village needs to be completed by late 2014 in order for games organizers to set up necessary amenities. In September 2015, after the games wrap up, the buildings will start to be occupied by purchasers and affordable housing providers.

Interested people who want a sneak peak of the construction zone can even log on at www.waterfrontoronto.ca/webcameras to see the time-lapse since 2009.

Troop said there’s a “strong team” made up of representatives from Ontario’s transportation ministry, Metrolinx and local municipal groups who are in charge of making sure traffic congestion doesn’t get too irritating.

An Air Rail Link, which will transport 5,000 passengers daily to and from the Pearson airport, is going to be ready in time for the game, according to a Metrolinx statement.

Transportation and shelter are big concerns for Curt Harnett, the Assistant Chef de Mission for the IOC and who will oversee the athletes at the 2015 games.

“Moving so many athletes around is going to be a significant challenge,” he says. “The layout for Toronto’s games is a little more widespread, so the dealing with transportation needs to be that much more of a focus for the organizers. Then there’s also the Athletes’ Village ... when I showed up to my first Pan-Am Games in Venezuela, we didn’t have windows in our rooms and the beds hadn’t been put together so it was all hands on deck. Games have advanced since 1983. It’s those elements Toronto 2015 will be looking at.”

There has also been some contentious issues finding the right venues. Since the committee rejected Hamilton’s $5-million bid to build a velodrome, Vaughan and Milton have thrown their hats in the ring.

“We only have a couple venues and sports left to settle — the velodrome being the principal one,” Troop says. “So 33 out of 36 sports isn’t a bad, batting average.”

However, former Canadian IOC member Paul Henderson criticizes organizers, pointing out that the first five years of the endeavour amount to a massive construction project and that the hype comes during the last few months.

“TO2015 has missed the first two years with no construction contracts signed and none will be finalized for months,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Disaster waiting to happen. Construction business is not like building a Ford car. Just in time delivery if the parts does not work. What makes a games financially successful is that the facilities are in place a year before, which is what Calgary (and) Vancouver have proved.”

The games are expected to bring in more than 10,000 athletes and 250,000 tourists to Toronto, the Greater Horseshoe area and the 905.

Andrew Weir of Tourism Toronto recently came back from the Pan-Am Games in Guatalajara saying there wasn’t a concentrated hub of activity in the Mexican effort — which parallels Toronto’s situation. However, he notes several key differences.

“The Athletes’ Village (in Toronto) is closer to downtown and some of the major events including the opening and closing ceremonies will be downtown,” he says. “It’s about the visitor experience — providing it to make it easy to get around. It’s about someone from Oshawa seeing an event in Hamilton or someone from Barrie to Toronto. While we want to draw all these Latin-American countries, this is a great opportunity of the 12 million in Ontario.”

Troop is convinced the community will embrace the 2015 Games wholeheartedly.

“It’s very rarely you welcome the world to your home. I know Toronto and Southern Ontario is going step up.”

 http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/06/building-pan-am-dreams-in-to

Toronto residents will need permit to repave driveway

TORONTO - Get ready for a kick in the asphalt.
Repaving your driveway is about to cost an extra $129 no matter where you live in Toronto.
Councillors on the public works committee approved a laundry list of changes to the municipal code's streets and sidewalks section, including making it mandatory for Toronto residents to get a permit from the city before repaving their driveway. Right now, only residents in North York and the former city of Toronto have to buy a permit.
Councillor Mark Grimes tried unsuccessfully to get councillors on the committee to take out the change.
"I think that's ridiculous," Grimes said of the permit.
Allan Smithies, the city's project lead for the streets bylaw, said the change was one of many that ensures the street and sidewalk rules are the same right across the city.
"Under the proposed bylaw, every resident who wants to repave a driveway ... will have to get a permit from the city and the permit will cost $129.45," Smithies said.
Council still has to approve the change.

City moves to move homeless

TORONTO - Councillor David Shiner sent a message to city staff Thursday to move the homeless off Toronto’s streets.

Shiner led the public works committee in voting to put a ban on camping, dwelling or lodging on city streets into a bylaw that streamlined the city’s Use of Streets and Sidewalks policy.

Councillors on the public works committee approved a laundry list of changes to the municipal code’s streets and sidewalks section.

Staff had originally recommended the ban be deleted based on public consultation.

But Shiner convinced the committee to put it back in with the provision that the ban would be subject to the application of the city’s existing Streets to Homes program.

Following the vote, Shiner said he “absolutely” wants to see the city deal with homelessness on its streets.

“I don’t believe people should be allowed to sleep on our streets,” Shiner told reporters following the meeting.

“We currently don’t permit them and that was going to be removed from the bylaw and I believe that we shouldn’t permit people to sleep on our streets and use them as their places of dwelling.”

Shiner said he hopes the change approved by the committee sends a message to city staff.

“It’s in the bylaw and it is something we want enforced,” Shiner said.

He added he wants the city to do everything it can to relocate someone to a proper home.

“But there comes a point in time when public streets are public streets and they aren’t for the right of one person to use as they want,” Shiner said.

Councillor Gord Perks accused Shiner of trying to look like he was doing something about a problem.

“Net result, things stay exactly as they are,” Perks said.

Perks fought to successfully to ensure the ban has city staff deal with homeless people through the Streets to Home program.

“Councillor Shiner attempted to pass a ‘scoop law’ that would, without reference to any kind of program to provide support to people who are homeless, simply give city staff the right to scoop them off the street,” he said.

Shiner disagreed with Perks’ characterization.

“It’s not a scoop law, it’s a proper thing to do in my opinion,” Shiner said.

City staff said despite Shiner’s change, “it is business as usual.”

Allan Smithies, the city’s project lead for the streets bylaw, said the change makes a statement “that it is not a good idea to camp, dwell or lodge on a city street.”

“We’re not going out there using the iron fist of the state to start scooping up homeless people, that was never the intent of the clause in any way shape or form,” Smithies said.

Old campaign poster sparks complaint

Fuggedaboutit?

An old Rocco Rossi mayoral campaign poster has sparked a human rights complaint at Toronto City Hall.

The Rossi poster, which draws on the mob movie Goodfellas, hangs on the side of a fridge in a common lounge area in the City Hall press gallery where several media outlets, including the Toronto Sun, have offices.

Based on a complaint to the city’s human rights office, City of Toronto officials asked the press gallery to remove the poster this week, calling the poster “offensive.”

In an e-mail to press gallery president Dave Nickle, Irina Fofanova from the city’s real estate services outlined the complaint was based on the fact the poster was facing out into the City Hall hallway, “clearly visible to anyone who walks by.”

“The complainant indicates that the poster is degrading and derogatory to people of Italian descent,” Fofanova wrote. “Although Rossi used these poster(s) to promote himself, it doesn’t mean they can’t be offensive to people because of negative stereotypes based on place of origin or ethnic origin, two protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights code and the City’s Human Rights and Anti-harassment Policy, thereby creating a poisoned work environment. The City should not condone these posters in the workplace.”

Nickle called the poster a piece of election memorabilia.

“Having spoken to members of the gallery, we’re not convinced this is actually offensive,” Nickle said. “It’s a play on an old movie.”

For now, Nickle said the press gallery will try to keep the door closed.

He said he is still waiting for a better explanation from the city to justify the request to take the poster down.

“If I can be convinced and if this is, in fact, a racist and stereotypical image, we’ll obey the ruling of the city,” Nickle said.

City spokesman Wynna Brown said the real estate services division received a complaint about the poster from an individual who was offended by it and contacted the press gallery to “see if they would consider taking it down.”

Rossi, who dropped out of the mayor’s race before last fall’s election, unveiled the poster in September 2010 as part of a bid to revive his campaign.

Packages cause fright at costume shop

TORONTO - Toronto Police are searching every inch of a party store in Etobicoke where seven “suspicious devices” have been found in recent days.
Amazing Party and Costume, on Oxford St. near the Gardiner Expressway and Islington Ave., was forced to close its doors over the weekend after staff found two packages containing explosive material.
Officers from the forensic and organized crime units were called in to thoroughly search the premises.
“A total of seven suspicious devices have been found so far,” Const. Tony Vella said Tuesday night. “And we’re still investigating.”
He said it was too soon to say how many of the devices contained explosives or what the motivation might be behind the apparent attack on the store.
Local Toronto Councillor Mark Grimes released a statement earlier in the day about the ongoing situation in his ward.
“The Amazing Party Store has long been a landmark store in our community, where local residents have shopped for their holiday supplies,” Grimes stated.
He called the seven suspicious packages in the last five days “regrettable and shocking,” particularly since many children and parents pass through the store during Halloween.
“We recognize that many local businesses have been closed and suffered lost revenue due to this investigation, and thank them for their cooperation during this difficult time,” Grimes stated.
Fogh Marine is one of those businesses.
“It is awful. It has been brutal. Thank God it is the end of the season for us,” said Peter Epstien, manager of Fogh.
“I have never heard of anything like this. Who would want to bomb a Halloween store?”
Brian Bosanac has made three attempts to get to the marine store.
“I need parts for my boat so this has been really inconvenient,” Bosanac said.
Nick Gasparik works across the street from the party supply store at Local Equipment Supplies, which is in the entertainment business.
“It is kind of weird like you are waiting for something to happen. Now we can’t get our trucks out (because of the police tape),” Gasparik said.

Levy: Tough decisions needed for city not deferral

TORONTO - The city’s Chief Financial Officer Cam Weldon could not have been clearer at executive committee Tuesday.

He warned councillors they face “substantial fiscal challenges” not just with the operating budget -- but as far as funding the city’s 10-year capital plan is concerned.

He told the group the city’s debt is projected to reach $4.3-billion by 2014.

Weldon said they’ve already approached the council-approved debt ceiling that mandates principal and interest charges not to exceed 15% of the yearly tax levy.

He told the commmittee the capital plan includes no funding (debt or otherwise) for some $2.3-billion in TTC capital assets to which the previous council had made commitments -- a figure that has since been whittled down to $750-million.

Weldon made it clear they do not have even the $750-million (and can raise no further debt).

He also told the committee they need $1-billion in the first five years of the capital plan, which they don’t have.

He added that they don’t have money either for infrastructure desparately needed by the city’s long-term care homes and the Lawrence Heights Revitalization Plan -- or to deal “with emerging issues” such as repairs to the Gardiner Expy.

That’s why it is time to cash in the city’s 43% stake in Enwave and a 10% stake in Torotno Hydro, Weldon said.

That move, plus the sale of as yet-unnamed city real estate holdings, is expected to raise $600-million by 2014 and lower the cost on the operating budget to service the debt by $65-million a year.

“We don’t have an option,” he said. “We need to put the money into TTC infrastructure.”

If he said it once, Weldon -- who is not known for hyperbole -- repeated at least a half dozen times that they “need the money now.”

Otherwise, he said he’ll be asking council to make some “difficult decisions” as to what capital projects -- certain roads or community centres -- should be taken out of the city’s capital plan.

A phalanx of leftist obstructionists -- Adam Vaughan, Shelley Carroll, Mary Fragedakis, Janet Davis, Joe Mihevc and the ever insufferable Gord Perks -- plus their pathetic union/special interest hangers-on heard Weldon’s every word.

But he might as well been talking to a wall, or braying to the moon, for all the good it did -- with these leftists, a.k.a, The Protect Union Jobs at All Costs crowd.

Perks, badgering Weldon as if he was a hostile witness, claimed the city’s credit rating agencies haven’t downgraded the city (not yet) and that the debt ceiling won’t reach beyond 15% for at least three years.

Evidentally the David Miller clone has not been keeping up on what’s happening in Greece.

Former budget chief Shelley Carroll, who greatly helped get the city into this mess, served up one of her semi-coherent lectures full of those big words she uses to try to make herself sound intelligent -- in which she contended that the city was not at its “debt wall.”

She also wondered if the city’s finance officials had considered lengthening the debt horizon from 10 years to 30 as she did when she was budget chief -- as if this was a stroke of financial genius.

Even certain members of Mayor Rob Ford’s inner circle — most particularly Jaye Robinson and Michael Thompson — couldn’t bring themselves to make a hard decision about selling off a measley 10% of the city’s 100% ownership of Toronto Hydro.

Robinson, acting more like the city bureaucrat she once was than a politician entrusted with hard decisions, claimed she needed more time to “consult with residents” and determine whether the 10% sale was in their best interests.

“It’s a big one,” she said of the sale, as if someone asked her to cut off her right arm.

In the end they agreed on the Enwave sell-off but deferred consideration of Toronto Hydro until January, making Weldon’s job and that of budget chief Mike Del Grande’s all the more difficult.

“It seems to me deferral is the easy way out,” Del Grande told the committee.

No kidding.

Maybe the city needs to go bankrupt before they listen.