Andy Gort, president of the South Eglinton Ratepayer and Residents Association, has mailed a post-election letter congratulating Josh Matlow and Jaye Robinson on their victories in Wards 12 and 15. He notes the end of the four Committees which previously dealt with local matters. They were Etobicoke and York, North York, Scarborough and Toronto and East York.
After much drama and concerns whether the City Clerk would be ready to organize an election on October 22, the election did finally take place without incident.
Congratulations to Josh Matlow for being re-elected as councillor in Ward 12, Toronto-St. Paul’s, and Jaye Robinson as councillor in Ward 15, Don Valley West. We also thank incumbent councillors Jon Burnside and Joe Mihevc for their past services and for running excellent campaigns.
SERRA’s boundaries have not changed. The new 25 ward structure for City Council has resulted in our having Josh Matlow (Ward 12) represent the SERRA area west of Mt. Pleasant, and Jaye Robinson (Ward 15) represent the SERRA area east of Mt. Pleasant. We are looking forward to working with both councillors.
We also congratulate Shelley Laskin for her re-election as school trustee in Ward 8, Eglinton-Lawrence and St Paul’s (SERRA area west of Mt. Pleasant Rd) and newly elected school trustee Rachel Chernos Lin in Ward 11, Don Valley West (SERRA area east of Mt Pleasant Rd).
During the election we met with each of the four incumbent councillor candidates to introduce SERRA board members and to review with them our priorities for our midtown area: overdevelopment, the lack of school and transit capacity, deficiencies in park and open space, neighbourhood traffic congestion, construction safety and noise issues and the need to protect our Davisville Village heritage.
All candidates were quite aware of the stress midtown is under and showed a keen interest in helping to bring improvements to our area.
The revised city ward boundaries will only take effect in early December, when the new City Council meets for the first time. We are expecting a major rethink of how council will conduct business, since there won’t be sufficient council members to staff the various sub-councils. These sub-councils have tended to be quite efficient at conducting business (development applications, parking and traffic regulations, construction and demolition matters, etc.). Another issue will be how councillors will manage constituent issues with each of the revised wards now representing 100,000-plus people.
With all the issues facing our city and our busy neighbourhood, we look forward to working with our newly elected officials.
Andy Gort,
President, SERRA
