Ward 18 Candidate Interviews

Ana Bailao, interviewed Sept.15 2010

-The first thing we need is a change of attitude towards parks. I see Dufferin Grove Park as a big community centre without walls. This is not only a park where people come for a walk. There’s so much activity and programs done here. This is a community centre, and that’s what we need to have in other parks in the area. We need our youth involved, we need our seniors involved, we need our artists involved... Read More >>

Kevin Beaulieu, interviewed Sept.15, 2010

-One of the problems with Parks and Recreation’s new policy of non-consultation is that it’s not capped in time. I can understand staff working against a deadline and the pressure that creates, and wanting to streamline things and make sure they get done, because otherwise the money won’t be there to pay for it. But that doesn’t mean you cut out consultation. It means you define things properly, you share with the community what the pressures are, you say, look, we have to arrive here together by whatever time. I think you have to trust people to go along with that. Read More >>

Doug Carroll, interviewed Sept.17 2010

-I want to talk about the park benches. Here’s a local park, and here’s a broken local park bench, and here’s a bunch of people that know how to fix park benches. They’re all standing around this bench, but this bench doesn’t belong to anybody here, it belongs to an organization called the City if Toronto, which a few years ago would have been one of our best friends. At the moment it’s a large hierarchical structure with a whole lot of rules that apply to stuff like allocating resources to get benches fixed. Read More >>

Frank De Jong, interviewed Sept.15, 2010

-We live on St.Helens Avenue and I go back and forth through MacGregor Park every day on my way to teach at my school. I was watching the Stimulus-Grant work being done for a couple of months as they dug all around it, thinking, that’s good, the basement will be sound and dry. And then they put up those window screens that made it look like a fortified castle! Brutal. Read More >>

Joe MacDonald, interviewed Sept.17, 2010

Parks and Recreation is massively underfunded and it’s massively understaffed.

JM: So you feel like $360 million is not enough.

Joe MacDonald: No, I don’t think it’s enough. I wouldn’t want to say, let’s make it a billion, but Parks is one of those divisions that’s last in line for just about everything and they’re kind of okay with it. An $180,000 project in the grand scheme of things is not even spit in the wind. But the $180,000 has real resonance locally. That’s a lot of coin at the local level. Read More >>

Hema Vyas, interviewed Sept.14, 2010

- If a public building, like MacGregor field house, has water leaking into the basement, the city has to take steps to preserve the building. It’s old, it’s of value, it’s being used. So the leaking has to be stopped. But the whole process was flawed from the very beginning. What is happening is that the City is going with a one-size-fits-all approach. But all the parks are different. People who use the parks tend to have good ideas of what needs to be done. So as councillor I’d want to talk to park users. We should have meetings in playgrounds. Community consultation is everybody’s buzzword, but how do you do it? Read More >>

Ken Wood, written interview, Oct. 6, 2010

Jutta Mason: So what would you do on Dec.1 if you get to City Hall as councillor, and we call you and say – “the floor at MacGregor Park field house wasn’t properly painted, the paint is too thin, we need a few more coats of paint there”?

Ken Wood: My job as City Councillor would be to listen to residents' concerns on ANY isssue and facilitate resolution in any way possible. First step would be to contact senior management in Parks and Rec/Works to see how quickly it could be rectified. I believe that the bureaucracy at City Hall is there to advise on policy when asked and to implement when directed. If action is not taken within a reasonable timeframe (less than a week), I would try to escalate. Failing that, I would use any means necessary which would include taking money out of Councillor Office budget and paying to get it done, hopefully with help from the local community. If it went that far, there would have to be some serious followup as to why, but get the job done first. Read More >>

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Content last modified on October 17, 2010, at 09:27 PM EST