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Volume 43 No. 15
October 21, 2014
Balmy Beach off to McCormick Cup final Mark MacSween lands a try on the way to Balmy Beach Rugby Club’s 60-14 victory over the Brantford Harlequins in the McCormick Cup semifinal on Saturday, Oct. 18. Asked how it feels to be going to the final game this Saturday, Oct. 25, MacSween said, “It’s awesome. To do it with your best friends is wicked.” Catch the final game at 2 p.m. at Fletcher’s Field in Markham, where the Beach 1s will face the Toronto Scottish for the provincial title. PHOTO: ANDREW HUDSON
Duking it out on campaign trail INSIDE By Andrew Hudson
SPORTING A bright green T-shirt marked ‘mmm good!,’ councillor Mary Margaret-McMahon calls out as her bicycle bumps over cracked and potholed pavement by Main Street Library. “You see how bad the road is? I bumped up the road resurfacing on Main,” she says. “We’d heard complaints, but it was also because we bike there.” Before she was elected councillor in 2010, McMahon’s political roots lay in a new farmer’s market, an anti-pesticide petition, and family history – her father, Ron Emo, is a former mayor of Collingwood. And in her rookie campaign for Ward 32, McMahon matched her green streak with a blue one, promising fiscal responsibility. She also promised to get Beach residents more involved in city planning, and to bring term limits to city hall.
But in four years, McMahon has hit her share of rough patches at city hall. Council voted down her term-limits motion, despite its endorsement by the Toronto Star. And while McMahon did champion a citizen-led Visioning Study that resulted in new building guidelines for Queen Street East, that $200,000 effort and a resulting 10-day legal battle failed to stop the Ontario Municipal Board from approving two six-storey condos at Queen and Woodbine last winter. Last week, after cycling down to Queen Street to watch McMahon and her team canvass “Mount Neville” (or Neville Park Boulevard, where some houses have 50-plus steps to the door), Beach Metro News caught up with former councillor Sandra Bussin’s campaign in the hallways and elevators of the Main Square apartment towers. Here in the north end of the ward along Danforth Avenue, Bussin’s first door question isn’t about condos, but swimming – she asks a ninthfloor resident if she ever goes down to Main
Square Recreation Centre, a pool and gym that Bussin championed as councillor. After going over her plans to eliminate all fees and forms for low-income families to use the facility, Bussin had the woman’s support. “Part of the job is to get new projects, new money for the community,” said Bussin, taking a break to answer questions. She listed a Beaches Library renovation, the recreation centres at Fairmount Park and Main Square, and the Ashbridges Bay skateboard park among the projects she secured in her 13 years as councillor. Since then, she said, “I haven’t seen anything major.” As for the Queen Street condos, Bussin said McMahon is “somebody who’s learning the ropes, dealing with a significant issue that’s now precedent-setting.” Cont’d. on Page 31
Part three of our election guide ...See Pages 16-18
PLUS
Police Beat.....................4 Community Calendar.....10 BMN’s Neighbourhood...11 The Main Menu.............20 Deja Views....................21 Bottoms Up...................21 Pet of the Month...........22 Beach Memories...........24 Write on Health............25 Money, Life & Law.........25
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