Councillor McConnell spent a full hour talking at last night’s Corktown meeting. She is a member of the city’s Labour Relations Committee, and so is involved in strike negotiations (although, according to today’s Toronto Star, that “committee hasn’t met since before the strike began June 22”). Pam McConnell said “any solution must be affordable”, and then followed up by defending the 2009 cost of living increase to City Councillors (but not to non-union staff), as “a good system”. Pam’s personal website has daily updates on the strike, including alternative children’s programmes.
As an update to the June 23 meeting, Pam mentioned there is money available for the proposed dog park on the Power – Richmond – Adelaide “triangle” of land, although Build Toronto now controls this land, and needs to be convinced this land is not develop-able for any other purpose. Pam assured residents that the Shuter-Sumach park will not revert to “dogs prohibited”, and explained the Parks Dept process for applying for “leash free status”. She was unsure whether this park would qualify, due to minimum size requirements, or inadequate distance separating dogs from childrens’ area.
The meeting finished with the usual complaints about negative impacts of homeless persons, drug dealing and prostitution; too bad that Corktown or Trefann residents’ associations aren’t sufficiently large enough or well organized to actually hold the Councillor and police accountable to ensure city programs such as Parks Ambassador, regular police foot and bike patrols, Streets to Homes, actually lead to sustained noticable improvements in our area.
Meeting attendance was typical: 8 board members, 4 guest speakers, maybe 1 member (and 5 non-members). Like most Corktown meetings, this one lacked an efficient chairperson. The first speaker droned on for 40 minutes about the Sept 29 marathon, when 5 minutes would have sufficed: there will be a “cheering section” at Parliament & Front, available for local residents, to cheer for marathon runners.