Police force merger details to come By Lara O’Keefe
Volume 46 No. 16
November 1, 2016
TWO TORONTO Police divisions that service the East End are merging into one, but officials say that won’t result in a change to the number of officers on patrol. A community consultation hosted by the Toronto Police Service at Danforth Collegiate on October 26 considered plans to modernize the police force, plans which include the merger of 54 and 55 Divisions in an attempt to streamline services. Currently, the force includes 17 divisions. According to The Way Forward report, the interim report
the community consultations are centered around, the new plan “will include fewer divisions, with boundaries that better align with Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods and also with the planning and service boundaries of city departments, community-based organizations, and agencies.” The report outlines 24 recommendations and is broken into five separate categories which include focusing on safe communities, primary to priority response, access to services, sustainability and affordability, and culture change. Continued on Page 2
PHOTO: ANNA KILLEN
Pumpkin pick-me-up Yuma Murakami, 4, helps himself to a pumpkin at the 5th Annual Welbanks Great Pumpkin Giveaway. The October 22 event, held in front of Kew Beach Public School along Queen Street East, featured a truckload of pumpkins for the taking, face painting, Toronto Firefighers (with firetruck) and a bouncy castle. The event collects donations for the foodbank, celebrates the harvest season and supports the local community.
Close vote favours minimal changes to ward boundary By Anna Killen
IT WAS a close one, but Beach residents keen to keep their neighbourhood’s boundaries intact caught a win last week. A spirited discussion of Toronto’s ward boundaries at Mayor John Tory’s executive committee October 26 concluded in a 7-6 vote that the committee recommend that council adopt the 47 ward option, the option that would add three new wards to the city and make minimal changes to Ward 32’s (and other communities of interest’s) boundaries. The team of consultants in charge of conducting the ward boundary review recommended this option in a report and presentation submitted to the committee. The committee narrowly voted down a motion (6-7) to adopt the report’s 44 ward option, which would see the number of wards and councillors stay the same but would change the boundaries in several wards, including in the Beach where the proposed boundaries would essentially see Ward 32
split down the middle. A motion to move to 26 wards in order to be consistent with federal and provincial boundaries was also defeated. The committee was considering a new supplementary report to the final ward boundary review report that was published in May. When that report was tabled, recommending an option with 47 wards, the executive committee asked the team of consultants studying the ward boundaries to go back and consider an option that kept the number of councillors the same, as well as several other tweaked options. At the time, Mayor John Tory said that people were not in favour of “more politicians”, a stance he reinforced before his vote for the 44 ward option. He said the way council runs “is broken” and the city should fix that before fixating on adding more councillors. “We should have the courage to reform the way we run the city … and then say, in the context of that, how many people should it take to
run the city?” he said. A petition signed by over 600 Beach residents opposing the 44 ward option was presented to council, with petition representative Brian Graff saying he “had no trouble getting names.” Ward 32 councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, addressing media reports suggesting some Beach residents did not like the 44 ward option because they did not want to be a part of Scarborough, apologized to council and to Scarborough councillors and residents. “This kind of divisive attitude does not help us build one city and this is not the sentiment of most of my Beachers,” she said. McMahon voted in favour of the 47 ward option, noting she is not running again and has “no skin in the game” but believes in keeping neighbourhoods together and helping councillors in over-populated wards. The ward boundary review is meant to address the disparity between ward populations and lead to more effective representation
PHOTO: YOUTUBE
Ward 32 councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon speaks in favour of the 47 ward option at the October 26 executive committee meeting.
while addressing the city’s growing population. To the west of Ward 32, Ward 30 councillor Paula Fletcher was in favour of the 47 ward option. To the east, Ward 36 councillor Gary Crawford, who made a point to note that several streets in his riding have residents who would consider themselves Beachers, moved the motion to adopt the 26 ward option. Council will consider the report
and committee recommendation at its November 8 meeting. Meanwhile, a number of councillors and staff made note that, no matter what council decides, there is a high likelihood that the decision will be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, making the timeline tight to implement changes for the 2018 election. To read the report, visit www. drawthelines.ca.