Toronto Renters Forum

Bit of a follow-up... the debate of a handful of candidates at OCAD was recorded. Big file, 700 Mb, two hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGhjbzxLYU

Heh heh... there is a bit of a logic bomb happening with the display of the message about Mark Saunders and imagined cuts to city services to fund the $1,000  tax break.

In the list under "Announcements" it says there are "zero replies" to the Saunders message. Um, that's because Jo Average user *can't* directly reply to it!!!

Just saying.

The June 5 event has been cancelled. I wasn't a fan of the Willcocks Street location. Some sort of 'faculty club' and they can only accomodate 140 people? Doesn't sound too hot.

I guess this has been eclipsed by coverage of the security threat and the cancellation of Thursday's "debate", but several dissenting mayoral candidates and their supporters took to the sidewalk outside the Ted Rogers school of business WEDNESDAY night.

https://25problems.com/images/20230531_2102h-1024x.jpg
 

There was a rare mention on the radio, Sunday evening, of alternative housing and construction concepts - way different approaches to what you usually see and hear about in this neck of the woods. The item by CBC correspondent Megan Williams on the 6 p.m. news (“The World This Weekend”) was about an event in Italy - the Venice Architecture Biennale - and it actually mentioned calls for "intensification" and gentrification taxes!!!

Although I was able to grab the audio from the internet, I had a bit of difficulty tracking the rest of piece down... ok, here is the web page, and I'm still working on the transcript since the text and the audio report that was on the radio are not exactly the same thing.

I did post a short audio clip: https://25problems.com/audio/venice-outtake.mp3

The 6 p.m. radio program mentioned CBC's presence on Youtube, but (again) I wasn't able to locate the specific audio report. There was a related interview with Lesley Lokko though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KTNPh0EH4Q

I don't know about your experience in the last municipal election, but in the Don Mills area one or two candidates would mention the experience in other cities... and eyes would glaze over. Zero traction. And yet the number of homeless or precariously housed and otherwise distressed people continues to rise, and council saw a need to up the number of shelter spaces (like during a cold snap) as recently as this past week! Ergo SEVERAL MONTHS after the last outing.

Former candidate Jennifer Keesmat was on the radio the other day (CBC link) talking about her disappointment that the campaign has yet to gel, as time is kind of running out.

I think Churchill said once that while he liked the idea of democracy in general, the part where you have to deal with the stupid voters was rather a sticking point.

This is a long shot but there is a thing on where - after they put an end to the wasted green space that is the golf course! - as many as four condo towers are going up adjacent to the S-K building (formerly Minto) at 35 St. Dennis Drive.

The “public consultation” for this (four new towers bearing the address of 155 St. Dennis Dr.) is Wed. May 3rd

Contact planner Marian Prejel 416-392-9337. Lots of luck getting her notes about this, other than the mess that has been the A.I.C. (see https://25problems.com/app.php/aic3) to date... also with getting any real sense of how many folks participated in this sham and who they were. All notes are a part of the public record and are only for internal consumption - eg. the planning dept.!!! Citizens keep out!! Thanks for participating!


Btw, what happens here when a building flips? I tried searching "Minto" via the search box and it came up empty - https://25problems.com/images/minto-gap-torontorenters.jpg