Ward 19 Meeting

Last night I attended a round-table meeting with Councilor Mike Layton and several active community members from Ward 19.  Part of Councilor Layton’s plan for his first term is to be more open and available to the community, and he will continue to hold these meetings, and bigger town hall meetings, on a regular basis. The next town hall meeting will be scheduled sometime in June. We’ll post advance notice about the where and when.

In last night’s meeting, Mike covered a lot of topics. He gave us an update on the budget dealings at city hall, and some of our esteemed mayor’s other plans. As news readers know, transit is a hot topic in Toronto these days, and that will likely be the focus of Mike’s next community meeting.

Besides his own updates, Mike allowed the 15 or so attendees to discuss their concerns and issues. There were representatives from parks, business improvement groups, resident’s associations and Live Green Toronto.

No one directly from Ossington was there (besides me), but there was a rep from the Do West BIA, the Friends of Trinity Bellwoods Park, and the Trinity Bellwoods Community Association, so definitely local interest groups. We consider Trinity Bellwoods our local park, and we’re not the only ones. Every year more people use the park, and I learned they do not have a great budget, evidenced by the one part-time parks employee who does all the maintenance all summer long. So remember that next time you stop there for a picnic with friends, and clean up after yourself, please.

Other issues include the very long-term work that’s been done with the streetcars on Dundas. This construction is going to start up again very soon, and as of this Monday, April 4, we will once again see buses replacing the streetcars both east and west bound in our portion of Dundas.

One of the purposes of this meeting was to connect like-minded groups and allow them to network, share information and help each other with shared experience. So, the parks people connected, and the BIA people shared info. Good idea, and I think it worked.

Finally, Mike pointed out that it is very likely council will soon revoke the harmonized bylaws. He expects it to happen in two weeks. This means a lot of work for council to start over with zoning rules, but, on the positive side, the laws could hopefully make a lot more sense!

For your chance to learn more about council and what’s going on in the community, and to have your say, definitely stay posted for the June town hall meeting. We’ll let you know.