Dirty Tricks and Tulips

Two days ago I found out, from the police, that the reason why I got a formal "trespass order" on Feb.12 was that Jordan (the rink guard who claimed I had beaten him with my cane etc.) asked the police to permanently ban me from the Dufferin Grove building (the ex-clubhouse). Adam, Jordan's supervisor, backed him up. So the police came to my house and put me on notice.

An impressive example of dirty tricks. Jordan was a leader of the group of confused young rink guards who made a fair bit of a mess this winter, in the social space that used to be the park clubhouse.

At the beginning of my strange story, Parks and Rec management said my trespass order had nothing to do with the city, it was the decision of police. Then the managers said that there has to be a "firewall" between police and staff or city councillors, so that neither senior management nor the councillor could ask police about the trespass order. Councillor Bravo accepted that claim. Eventually it emerged that the corporation of the City of Toronto, being the property owner, is legally the actual issuer of trespass orders, and police just deliver such orders and enforce them.

I suspect that this instance of Parks and Rec senior management misinformation was not intentional. There’s confusion right up to the top. And the police seem to be just about as confused. As you'll see in the snakes and ladders "timeline" that I've posted below, police did what Jordan and Adam asked, apparently without checking with anyone else. They did this on the theory (I wrote this down) that any city employee is authorized to act as an agent of the corporation of the City of Toronto.

Including Jordan -- right after he and one of his buddies ganged up on me in the street. And then he contacted Parks and Rec’s “workplace harassment” office, and it went on from there.

What happened to me makes me a canary in the coalmine for parks and rec's current (much bigger) problems. The canary is supposed to keel over, but I'm not quite there yet, plus I can enjoy the funny bits. And I got lots of kindness from park friends. One recent kindness was the appearance of a beautiful pot of deep pink tulips on my porch, and a note saying “as a veteran Ontario government civil servant – none of this comes as an absolute surprise….The flowers are a small token to bring you some cheer.” Well, they sure did. After three days on our dinner table, they’re still so nice that I was able to spread that cheer today, by passing the tulips along: to the porch of a one-time Dufferin Grove park worker, who helped start the sandpit playground, the family pizza days, the rink café – the social spaces that the park needs again now.

Tulips can travel. Can good sense travel back into the park?

Follow-up correspondence with the superintendent of Fourteen Division, Toronto Police Service

Snakes and ladders timeline

read more (timeline)