Relationshipping
Relationships are peculiar things. One side may feel things are going great, while the other stews in discontent. Each smiles as they pass the other. One oblivious, the other not quite so unhappy as to make it a thing—to risk the conflagration that would follow. Both have learned that ‘talking about it’ doesn’t produce lasting […]
Fire
Let’s talk about fire. According to the fire chief, our municipality is juggling machetes. Only vastly more and steady funding will save us from being cut to bits. End of discussion. Questions about new trucks are met by accusations Council doesn’t respect its firefighters. Questions about soaring training budgets are countered with allegations the County […]
Hapless
Larry dreamed of muscle cars. Posters of Mustangs, Corvette Stingrays and Thunderbirds adorned his bedroom wall as a youth. But the Pontiac GTO stole his heart—the car Reggie Dunlop drove in the movie Slapshot. So it was that in his 44th year, Larry had a good run of business and rewarded himself by hiring an […]
Trending badly
How should we think about County budgets? Should we bother with them at all? Will it make a difference? If so, how do we wade through 67 pages of an operations budget and a 276-page capital budget? Without a finance background or accounting training? Or amphetamines? As a letter writer observed last week, Shire Hall […]
Me first
The headline was familiar. “County to demolish old DukeDome for affordable housing.” Clicking on the link produced no more information—an empty regurgitation of the headline’s assertion. Though it read as imminent, the headline might have been written many times over the past 14 years. And was. Plans were drawn up to tear down the Wellington […]
Without a net
Much of what Shire Hall has planned for this place for the next 10 to 25 years is predicated on growth— more houses and more people. These plans rely on many more people coming to live here to fund big infrastructure spending— roads, bridges, waterworks and such. Shire Hall is increasingly walking a very high […]
I am a POOCH
Dave Gray was an unlikely revolutionary. Born and raised on a rain-sodden farm on the west coast of Scotland at war and enduring the gruelling hardship that followed, Dave was, nonetheless, a gentle character. He also had a passionate streak that ran to his core. The seventeen-year-old arrived in Toronto with his parents and three […]
Crossing Danforth
One kilometre of the Danforth in Toronto serves more than 150 properties— businesses and residences. Thousands of people pay for the upkeep of each kilometre. On Danforth Road in Hillier, however, each kilometre serves five properties on average—fewer than a dozen folks to pay for each kilometre of the road. It was a mistake to […]
Voyager
Marjorie Wiltse was a time traveller. She moved easily through time and space with nothing more than an old photograph, a newspaper clipping or an artefact from her vast collection. When burrowing through her binders of images, decades fell away from the nonagenarian—effortlessly. Joyfully. Wholly. She was transported to another place, another time. We look […]
Collectors
The County has a hoarding problem. Or, more precisely, County Council has a hoarding problem. It’s not knickknacks or keepsakes crowding out our shared living spaces; instead, it is land and buildings. Like piles of old newspapers no one has looked at or thought about for years, Council clings to scattered bits of property. Many […]