July 30, 2009, 4 e-mail

M. G. wrote:

Now that the strike is coming to an end I would like to invite everyone to the park to discuss what's next for Friends of Christie Pits Park.

I am so impressed with everyone who calls themselves a Friend. You have shown the City that we are a unified group who share a real concern about our community. I also feel that of all things, garbage, has brought our community together (and I thought pizza was all we needed).

Please join me to meet and greet all the great people in our community. Please bring your kids and a picnic blanket and enjoy the park.

Meet and Greet Wednesday July 29th Christie Pits Park Pavillion 7p.m. Snacks to be provided (please bring your own drink)

Agenda items to include; How to keep parks off the list for future strikes, Summer Picnic Party Sunday August 16th, AGM September.

See you in the park,

M. G. wrote:

I will be at the press conference at 5:45pm today (Thursday) to support Friends of Moss Park and Friends of Campbell Park.

I hope some of you will be available to come down to Moss Park to assure the clean up of all temporary dump sites will be done quickly and efficiently.

Let's get our parks back before the summer is completely ruined.

L. Y. wrote:

I live in Leaside, but I've been very interested and grateful for the good work that many in the Christie Pits, Moss Park and Campbell Park area have been doing.

I really have to wonder whether the strike ended because the city and unions did not want to bother defending themselves against the lawsuit which another group member linked to, below. The lawsuit would have required city and union lawyers to show up in Ontario Superior Court tomorrow. I am assuming that city and union lawyers will report to the court that they are complying with the demand of the suit to restore city services tomorrow and thus there is no basis starting, oh how conveniently, tomorrow, for a lawsuit.

I had sent an earlier email asking whether anyone is interested in petitioning the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin to review the city's decisions and whether they contravene our charter rights, as well as holding speakers forums to keep the issue of empowering citizens especially in cases of municipal strikes at the forefront running up to the next municipal, provincial and federal elections. But I didn't send the message properly, so I throw that question out there now. My husband is law prof Alan Young, and he's carried on a few constitutional challenges over the years. Which has taught me that lawsuits are expensive and no fun, and it's better to invigorate the democratic process and bug the right politicians in the right way.

L. Y.

P.S. I also wanted to point out a study that the city seems to ignore entitled “The role of airborne fungal spores from garbage dumps in respiratory diseases”. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17451304 I really can't believe that the city, for a routine labour disruptions, has put pregnant women at higher risk of swine flu then exposed women of childbearing age to airborne pollutants from rotting garbage which may make respiratory illnesses worse. Had the garbage strike gone on or if Friends of Christie Pits is interested in keeping the issue alive till the next election, I'm sure it would be interesting for the Centre for Disease Control, which the Canadian gov't quotes from time to time, to comment on what dying bacteria does for lungs of asthmatics and those with respiratory illnesses. CDC material on asthma here though it doesn't mention garbage. http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/

M. G. wrote:

Thank you to everyone who came to the meeting on Wednesday night. It was short notice and only a few members were able to come.

It was very clear most people are concerned about two main things 1) ensure the safe and efficient clean up of the temporary dump site and 2) ensuring this never happens again to any park in the future.

FCPP would like to balance some of the social activism with resuming some of our community building activities including picnics in the park and pizza nights.

I would personally like to thank our members for their strong dedication to supporting our park and community. I would like to thank Boris Steipe for his ongoing efforts to remove the garbage from the park. I would also like to thank Himy Syed for his non-stop online postings and buzz.

The Friends of Christie Pits Park have made quite a name for ourselves and I would like to continue to build on our good name. In September we will be having our AGM and would love to include more members to our Steering Committee. Please consider joining our group and building to our already fantastic community.

Hope to see you in the park soon.....with all of the services running....