Hi Neighbour!
Thank you to all who came out or volunteered to support this past weekend’s North York Diwali Fest celebration. We were lucky to have such beautiful weather. Many residents I spoke to were grateful for this celebration to fill Mel Lastman Square.
We look forward to our NEXT Spaghetti Town Hall NEXT WEEK for Willowdale West on Tuesday, October 29. Click Here to RSVP. Come out and meet your neighbours and discuss ideas and challenges.
Folks in West Lansing - please CLICK HERE to fill out the Gwendolen Park Survey that is DUE November 1.
We are so excited to see a great response for our CALL OUT for a Yonge Street Beautification Team. Click Here to sign up. We will have our first meeting in December.
Crime Update in Willowdale
On Monday, October 21, 2024, around 11:45 PM, 32 Division responded to reports of a shooting near Yonge Street and Centre Avenue. They found a male victim with a gunshot wound, who was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Initial investigations suggest the shooting might not have occurred at that location, as no shell casings were found nearby; the victim may have been dropped off at the scene. No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.
The Toronto Star provides a regular update on car thefts in North York. Click Here to see the latest update.
North York Budget Consultation for the City of Toronto Budget 2025 ReCap
We had a full house attendance at the North York Budget Consultation at Memorial Hall. It was great to see children in attendance too. After all, this is their city and whatever we fund or do not fund, will create the city they inherit. I am glad to see so many people engaged in our city’s budgeting process. It is important for diverse voices across our community to be heard!
The big buckets that were discussed as goals for this budget were:
Affordable housing, parks maintenance, and reliable transit were some common themes. There were also some participants who felt the police budget should be reduced or kept the same. This is quite different from the message we are hearing from The Toronto Police Association.
Click Here to find out about other consultations happening in other locations including virtual options.
Click Here to take the survey. There are many languages available including Farsi, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and more!
Whose policy is this? Bike Lanes on Sheppard and more!
We have received several complaints about traffic on Sheppard relating to the installation of bike lanes. In some of these comments, blame is assigned to myself and our current mayor. An expensive piece of infrastructure, like a bike lane, does not appear overnight. Most of the time, changes like this take years from policy to fruition. I understand that people need an outlet for their frustration and easy-to-find visible targets. However, large infrastructure decisions were likely not passed in the last 2 years, but prior to my tenure.
The same can be said for many of the complex challenges we face, with an extensive State of Good Repair Backlog, housing shortage, and inadequate fiscal framework - these things did not happen overnight. The impact of any policy, good or bad, can take years to become a part of our lived experience.
So, while it may feel good to point fingers and blame others, it is far more constructive for us to work together and be proactive to ensure today’s policies are a blessing and not a curse for the future.
Back to the bike lanes on Sheppard. The good news is that we are not losing any lanes (we will lose turning lanes for some of the intersections, but not all). The challenge with assessing the effectiveness of any bike lane is that it takes time to build a grid that can maximize the usefulness of the lane. One day, people will be able to bike to Ethennonnhawahstihnen Community Centre and eventually Fairview Mall in a protected bike lane. With increased density slated to come through the ReNew Sheppard Secondary Plan Review, having protected bike lanes to bring visitors along Sheppard to and from our neighbourhood will strengthen economic activity and reduce reliance on cars in these new areas of density where many condo dwellers will not have access to a parking spot.
We are in a growing pain where the present context of many house dwellers with reliance on cars in our community is coming up against the construction of a future where we hope to increase new ways of traversing our community.
I am not anti-bike lanes, nor am I a bike lane advocate. As someone who in a former life (and a different country) was bike-dependent, and is now a car-dependent mom, I understand the joys and challenges of both ways of living. I think the city needs to continue to improve consultation and strengthen pathways for communities to participate in design processes to optimize the benefits and minimize the challenges from the installation of bike lanes.
I know we do not want every person who moves into our neighbourhood in the upcoming new condos to be car-dependent because that would multiply the madness and gridlock. I strongly believe in the importance of continuing to build more higher-order transit, as this will increase our ability to get around. That is why I will continue to fight for Cummer Station.
911 and other police complaints
We heard recently that a few of our residents have had to wait a long time when calling 911. This can be especially frightening given the dangerous situation people might be facing. Here are a few thoughts on this matter:
1. We all play a part. In the Auditor General Report on 9-1-1 Operations, they found that from January 2018 to July 2021, 57% of calls were non-emergency calls. This includes pocket dials, requests for information, abandoned calls and non-emergency situations. This takes up a lot of our limited human resource capacity. Strengthening how we educate people around us to ensure people call the right number is key, especially now, as we have added a fourth emergency service, the Toronto Community Crisis Service for mental health crises that are non-life-threatening. If you encounter such a situation you can call 2-1-1. This service is now city-wide.
CLICK HERE to visit the TPS online reporting portal where you can file reports on:
Parking Complaint
Driving Complaint
Fraud under $5K
Damage to vehicle under $5K
Damage to property under $5K
Local neighbourhood traffic issue or concern
Graffiti and Vandalism
Hate motivated graffiti
Theft of gas from a gas station
Bicycle theft under $5K
Theft under $5K
Theft from vehicle under $5K
Using the portal to report issues can alleviate 911 staffing capacity issues.
2. Add a 9-1-1 Levy. Ontario and Manitoba are the only provinces without a 9-1-1 Levy. This is charged through telecommunication companies to cover a part of the administrative costs. Nova Scotians pay $0.43 per phone line per month, while residents in Saskatchewan pay $2.14 per phone line per month. Winnipeg has requested that the Province of Manitoba allow them to add this charge. The request is currently under review. Given the urgency of the matter and the financial pressures we face as a city, adding this levy can help us improve things faster. Some municipalities have aligned implementing a levy with the rollout of NG911 (Next Generation 911), which has been federally mandated. The new generation network will add new capabilities, including sending text or videos to dispatchers in the future. A $1/month levy could garner $33 million.
3. Stability and Clarity in Hiring. You may be surprised to find out that in recent years the Toronto Police Service (TPS) has not had a multi-year hiring plan. This is changing and TPS is now working on a multi-year hiring plan that can bring stability and predictability to both hiring and budgeting. We know this contentious issue comes up every budget season.
4. Review progress on Auditor General recommendations from 2022 and see how we can support implementation of any outstanding issues through the 2025 budget process.
It is frightening and stressful to think there are delays both for 9-1-1 Response and TPS Priority 1 Response (which has decreased from over 22 min to 17.4 min this year). Rome was not built in a day, nor did we arrive at this critical juncture in a moment. In the same way, the solution will come from the alignment of multiple decisions that include funding considerations, technology implementation, staffing, and more.
If you have complaints about this service level or have encountered some situations you would like to report, the province recently established the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency (LECA) which is now responsible for receiving, managing and overseeing public complaints about the misconduct of all municipal, regional, and provincial (OPP) police officers. Click Here to file a complaint.
Hope everyone is enjoying the warm autumn weather! We look forward to next weekend when we will gain an hour thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time.
.png)
