Amalgamated Toronto Provincial Review – Template for submission. Deadline is Aug. 7, 2015. Please write a letter today.

A previous post, that is connected with the current post, is entitled:

Municipal Legislation Review deadline is Aug. 7, 2015. Make your views known!

Information about the Municipal Legislation Review can be accessed here.

[Conclusion of opening text from Jaan Pill]

The following message is from David Godley:

I have been asked to prepare a template for anyone who wishes to submit to this review. Please feel free to post relevant sections on your blog, Jaan.

I personally support Community Boards like New York City that has advisory committees representing neighbourhoods with control over the grassroots agenda including small scale development.

Long Branch Council used to be able to do this with volunteers..

Google Community Boards NYC Wikipedia.

Here are some thoughts.

The Premier of Ontario fought strongly to prevent an amalgamated Toronto prior to her political career.

She wished to avoid the loss of local democracy. Here is her chance to restore good local government.

Counter-intuitively all amalgamations like Toronto’s cost more to run. they need an extra layer of management.

Minor matters all have to go to City Council and “gum up the works” leading to days long Council Meetings using up valuable political and staff time.

Even the Toronto Star seems to think amalgamation was a mistake despite supporting it originally.

Send to
premier@ontario.ca

municipalreview@ontario.ca
cc pmilczyn.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
cc tmcmeekin.mpp@liberal.ola.org
cc councillor_grimes@toronto.ca
cc mayor_tory@toronto.ca

David

Template (This can be modified to express your opinion and personalised with bolding, colour, typeface and inserting adjective/noun.

We congratulate the Province for initiating a review of the Toronto City Act.

Generally we find that our correspondence to the City is never acknowledged, our questions never answered and our voices never heard.

Any minor direction change from the norm requires tremendous co-ordinated effort however damaging the existing process is.

We feel insert adjective about local government in Toronto. The mood of the community is that of insert noun.

The current situation reflects the world wide issue of the powerful vs the powerless.
Community Boards as in New York would help to restore some balance.

Please let us know about how the citizens can be involved once the submissions have been analysed into issues and how the review will involve the public after August 7th.

We strongly urge public meetings and a thorough discussion showing that the Province is leading the way on civic engagement.

We expect a thorough review of the OMB this fall so that any reform can flow from Ontario’s citizenry rather than the development industry who currently have heavy sway over the developent process.

We look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Possible Adjectives!

abused, angry, alienated, annoyed, anxious, belittled, betrayed, frustrated, powerless, troubled, vexed, victimised etc

Possible Nouns!

anger, anguish, belligerence, alienation, despair, distrust, frustration, hope, hostility, rebelliousness, unfairness, vengefulness etc

Jul 8, 2015 from Alan Redway former East York mayor (mail@change.org)

— During the Summer when we are distracted by holidays, the Pan Am Games, the Parapan Am Games and Caribbean Carnival, the Province will be conducting a “public review” of the City of Toronto Act. If I had done something similar in East York I would have been tarred and feathered by the residents.

The City of Toronto made the announcement on July 2nd. To date I have not seen this reported in any of the media notwithstanding that the deadline for public submissions is August 7th.

This is not the form of provincial public review that was conducted every 10 years from 1953 to 1997 but apparently as in the name of an old movie: “This is as good as it gets”. There will be no public hearings only written submissions that must be made by mail or email with the name and complete postal address of the sender if it is to be considered.

Those of us who want to change the current form of Toronto governance whether by de-amalgamation, a new borough system or something else must make a written submission to that affect by:

Email to:
municipalreview@ontario.ca
cc. premier@ontario.ca

or by mail to:
Municipal Legislation Review
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Local Government Policy Branch
777 Bay Street, 13th Floor,
Toronto, Ontario
M5G2E5

[End of text from David Godley]