Dear Mayor,

On behalf of the children in ward 18, they want to know WHY you are taking their park away for a community garden. The park in question is ERWIN KRICKHAHN PARK 121 Rankin Cresent. As a parent it's good to know where the children are. There are other parks in the neighbourhood but the children prefer to go to the park in question, but what we are doing is pushing the children onto the street. I was surprised by the garden as we didn't receive any formal notice. I don't even remember any meeting about the garden by our councillor Adam Giambrone. I know of some projects that were planned to do with the wall that was built to keep people from crossing over the train tracks on both sides of the Paton Rd, but i didn't realize they were planning of taking the park away for a garden. If you can respond to this email as soon as possible, so I can give the children a answer as to why, not to mention the residents(taxpayers) would like to know as well. Thank You

Sincerely;

Jack Fava

Hi Jack,

Thanks for your email.

The proposal for the new community garden at Erwin Krickahahn Park was first discussed with residents at a public consultation meeting on Tuesday May 29th at 7pm, held in the meeting room at 55 Rankin. Flyers about the meeting were hand delivered to the area bounded by Bloor, Symington, Wallace and the railway corridor. I've attached a copy of the flyer. There was also a follow up meeting on the evening of June 7th.

At these meetings, the residents who attended were supportive of the proposal and so the decision was made by the City to proceed with the project. People at these meetings did discuss the need to ensure that multiple uses of the park could continue, for the enjoyment of all the various park users in the community. That is why, for example, the decison was made to place the new garden in the northern third of the park, away from the playground at the other end and also leaving a large central grassy area for games, or picnics, or other uses like that. The City and FoodShare are also looking forward to working together to develop some youth programming for the garden and for the park in general.

I also spoke to Parks Supervisor Peter Leiss about this and he told me that some of the kids have been using this park to play cricket. He and the Parks Department have some serious safety concerns about this and they do not recommend that they do so. This park is very narrow and it is next to a roadway on one side and a railway on the other. As a result, there is an unacceptable risk that a child might get injured if they chased a ball into traffic or into the railway corridor. This is why the Parks department has never installed a cricket pitch or any other sports fields at this park. If some of the kids are finding that they need more space for their games, they may want to consider checking out Campbell Park, which is only two blocks away, is much larger, and has several sports fields.

If you have any more questions about this project, or have any suggestions you'd like us to look into on behalf of these kids, please let me know.

Yours truly,

Chris Gallop Constituency Assistant to: Adam Giambrone Toronto City Councillor Ward 18 Davenport Chair, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Toronto City Hall 100 Queen Street West, Suite C42 Toronto, ON, M5H 2N2 p: 416.392.7012 f: 416. 392.7957

Re: WHY IS THE PARK BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM CHILDREN, FOR A COMMUNITY GARDEN

Hey Chris,

I wanted to respond to your email after responding to mine.

I think someone has their facts wrong. I wanted to start off by speaking about your flyer. Many of us who live a stone's throw away from the park did not receive a flyer regarding the meeting or garden. Virginia Novak and myself went door-knocking yesterday and we spoke to many residents who live close to the park. I went out again on Sunday alone and spoke to many of the residents as I was putting the flyer in mail boxes and knocking on doors regarding the community meeting for wednesday at Wallace Emerson Community Centre, and I asked many of the residents if they knew anything about your flyer, the meeting or garden. Many said no and others said I don't speak English. The other thing is your flyer was in English and Portuguese and many residents who live on Rankin Crescent are Chinese and Vietnamese. Many, many other residents that live on Symington and Campbell also speak Italian like my mom, who's been a long time resident of ward 18, I believe that they have a right to know about the flyer, garden and meeting.

Let me finish off with this comment and I will tell you what i think happened here. I believe that your office had already decided on the garden way before any of you decided to inform the community. According to the staff at FoodShare they told me that only twelve people came to the meeting, i don't think that represents the community and plus we don't know if the people at the meeting were residents of this ward or just some of your posies. Many residents close to the park don't speak english or Portuguese so how can you get a meeting when the resident did not get properly informed because of the language issue to make a proper decision if they want a garden or not. Like i told the staff at food share we should stop the project do a proper community consultation and inform the residents. I can't believe you want to take the park away from the children, with all the problems on Lansdowne and Bloor which your office has ignored, which the children will have to injure during the school year been expolited to drugs, crime and prostitution, it's good to know that they are playing somewhere safe and close to home and you want to take that away. Please don't try to do what you done to those nice people of Lansdowne ave. about narrowing the road and by pulling the wool over their eye's, because it won't work here, just remember who you guy's work for, you work for us we don't work for you. So do the right thing and let the residents know what is going on.

I will be waiting for a respond on your decision.

Thank you,

Jack Fava

Re: WHY IS THE PARK BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM CHILDREN, FOR A COMMUNITY GARDEN

Jack,

Councillor Giambrone fully supports making our parks as engaging as possible for all parks users, in particular for our community's children. Erwin Krickhahn Park is an under-used park and the Councillor also believes it can support multiple uses like the new garden. There is still plenty of play space left for the kids, including the playground area.

He also believes the garden can be a great way to engage kids in learning about plants and nature. At the garden at Symington Park, we hear regularly from the gardeners that they take their kids with them to work on the plots and that it has gotten them interested in gardening and the natural world. We also hear from residents around that park that it is much safer now because there are always some gardeners there in the warm months to keep an eye on it and the neighbourhood kids who play there.

Community consultation has already been done for this project. We hand-delivered 500 flyers to the surrounding streets to let people know this garden was being considered and to invite them to the consultation meeting. Volunteers also went door to door on Rankin Crescent to let them know about the meeting. While it's true that some people can't understand English or Portuguese, those two languages are understood by the vast majority of residents. While it's true that only 13 residents attended, we can't force people to attend meetings and every single person who did chose to come supported this project. Over the past three months that we have been working on this project, not a single person has raised an objection with our office to the installation of this garden until now.

The garden is basically done at this point and ready for planting. There are only a few finishing touches left to go. A grand opening event is being planned for September 9th and it will go ahead as scheduled.

Councillor Giambrone is happy to work with you and other users of this park on ideas to make it even better for the kids and everyone else who uses it. If you have any concrete suggestions please let us know.

Yours truly,

Chris Gallop Constituency Assistant to: Adam Giambrone Toronto City Councillor Ward 18 Davenport Chair, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Toronto City Hall 100 Queen Street West, Suite C42 Toronto, ON, M5H 2N2 p: 416.392.7012 f: 416. 392.7957