The South Bayview Bulldog

President-elect Donald Trump has picked bitter critic Nikki Haley, the South Carolina Governor, to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

https://twitter.com/pappscicle/status/801439998763499520

A fire-alarm fire is covering downtown Montreal with black smoke Wednesday. It is located in a vacant building at 3464 Parc Ave. in the Plateau neighborhood. “The building is considered dangerous, we have 120 firefighters working,” said Martin Farmer, Montreal fire department’s chief of operations, adding firefighters will not enter the premises for now. Some families have been taken in by the Red Cross but no one has been hurt, police say.

The 1926 oil-on-canvas Lawren Harris painting “Mountain Forms” goes to auction tonight (Wednesday, November 23, 2016) and expectation are high for a record price. Earlier, Heffel – Lot # 118

Highly infectious Norwalk flu is reported at Thornhill.Woods Public School at 341 Thornhill Wood in Thornhill. Parents are being urged to keep children with any symptoms at home. Some of the symptoms of Norwalk include diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, cramps, muscle aches, fatigue and fever. Symptoms usually dissipate after 24 to 48 hours. The scientific name for this flu is norovirus. The annual flu shot is no protection for norovirus.. Vaccine and treatment research of this bug have been limited because of a lack of understanding of norovirus within humans, but recent discoveries in mice have identified that certain biological factors can slow down or kill the virus. “Up until now vaccines have exclusively been using virus-like particles, but some new developments may make it possible to generate a live attenuated vaccine, which is pretty exciting,” ” say Megan Baldridge, a physician familiar with norovirus. “Having animal models and cell culture models to grow the virus and study how it acts a little more closely will help us better understand the virus and also think more about vaccination strategies.”

The Annual General Meeting of the Leaside Property Owners Association Tuesday night heard Engineer Gene Chartier discuss traffic calming studies and plans for Leaside. Mr. Chartier is vice president of Paradigm Transportation Solutions Limited, the firm hired to complete a traffic study of the community. About 100 people, some standing, filled a room at the Trace Manes Park field house for the meeting. Following LPOA business, the meeting was turned over to Chartier. It was noted that plans to calm traffic and reduce speeds are in a wait-and-see period because of the confusion created by the LRT construction.

GATEWAY TO LEASIDE

Nonetheless, the planners have a number of ideas for the time when a clearer traffic picture is available. Mr. Chartier named the “entranceway” concept for the whole of Leaside. Drivers would find signs and “geometric features” like raised crosswalks and “curb radius reductions” to make a statement. He said drivers tend to respond at least for a time to the sense that they are crossing a boundary. (This idea may have tickled some ardent Leaside folk). Such things as speed  bumps, enhanced crosswalk markings like graphic “ladder rungs”  painted on the pavement and the raised crosswalk are on the table. Chartier also mentioned a seasonal feature called “speed cushions” which appear to run the length of the road in some places to narrow the pavement and thus slow vehicles. Speed cushions come out in winter.

ELECTRONIC ENFORCEMENT

Electronic enforcement has become the order of the day for City Hall where it is seen as a way to intimidate drivers without employing an expensive policeman to do so. Red light cameras — which issue a ticket photographically — would be suitable at Laird-Wicksteed/McRae and Millwood and McRae beside Trace Manes Park and playground. Engineer Chartier said education of all roads users — drivers, cyclists and pedestrians was needed.  He said these concepts will be uploaded in graphic slide form to the LPOA website in coming days.

SUNNYBROOK PLAZA

Those who had hoped this meeting might reveal details of the still secret arrangements worked out for the redevelopment of Sunnybrook Plaza were disappointed. Jon Burnside (Ward 26) said it may be December before such information is made public. This process will not please everyone but there is no doubt the City’s hands are not as free as might be wished because of the prospect of a hearing at the Ontario Municipal Board. RioCan, Sunnybrook’s owner, must feel the odds at OMB favour its first scheme to build towers 13 and 19 storeys. The meeting also heard a roundtable discussion of the City’s Committee of Adjustment.

The Atom A Leaside Flames are pumped for the PlayStation Platinum Cup this weekend https://t.co/jy6P2RYSEe pic.twitter.com/5YnU0UYPOE

— GTHL Hockey (@GTHLHockey) November 22, 2016

Go get ’em guys. We’ll be watching.

Tamara Levine

A funeral service will be held for Tamara Levine who died unexpectedly at the age of 37 on Friday, November 18, 2016.  The service will take place at the Mount Pleasant Visitation Centre, 375 Mount Pleasant Road on Friday, November 25th at 1:30 p.m.. An obituary on the site of the Humphrey Funeral Home says: “Left to mourn are her parents, Carol Cowan (Allan Kaplan), Michael Levine (Donna Orenstein), as well as her quadruplet siblings, Alexis, Peter, Katherine (deceased), older sister, Elizabeth, younger brother, Josh, and a large extended family. Tamara was a brilliant creative force who cared deeply about everyone around her, family, friends and those less fortunate. She travelled the world extensively and worked tirelessly, professionally and voluntarily to make it a better place.”  A 2003 profile of Tamara’s father notes that Peter, Alexis and Tamara were born as quadruplets with one of the babies, Katherine, dying at five-and-a-half months after heart surgery. The obituary says donations may be made to the Levine Quadruplet Endowment (which funds the Levine Family Lectureship in Women and Mental Health), Women’s College Hospital Foundation, www.wchf.ca. Condolences, photographs and memories may be forwarded through the Humphrey site.

Wind Mobile will take the name Freedom Mobile, the company says. It has been newly acquired by Shaw Communications. Freedom Mobile said existing accounts, which number more than a million, will be seamlessly transitioned to the new brand.

Glenn Thibeault

The trial of Liberal backroom operators Pat Sorbara Gerry Lougheed in Sudbury heard a jolting remark from a Crown Lawyer today when he said Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault “sought certain benefits” to run in a provincial byelection. The remark stunned the court. Later reporters peppered Crown Vern Brewer with questions. He suggested that Thibeault was not charged because: “The section makes it an offence to offer, not necessarily to receive (a bribe).” The “benefits” were not described. Sorbara and Lougheed are charged with offering such a bribe. .Mr. Thibeault’s lawyer was enraged by the interpretation of events and said the Crown was sullying Thibeault’s reputation. The comments were wrong he said.  The charges against Sorbara and Gerry Lougheed stem from allegations the pair offered a would-be candidate a job or appointment to get him to step aside in a 2015 byelection in Sudbury for Thibeault, the premier’s preferred candidate Thibeault, was then the New Democrat MP for Sudbury.

There will be arts & crafts, games, a cake walk, raffles, karaoke, SANTA and more! See you at Maurice Cody Public School, Saturday, November 26, 2016 between 10 a.m. and  3 p.m.

You can now use your mobile phone to pay and/or remotely top-up your Green P fees when parked on South Bayview!  More

Mayor John Tory has said that it’s time to again examine privatized garbage collection east of Yonge Street. He made such privatization a plank in his election campaign in 2014 but soon after the vote said he had reasons not to proceed. The media has played all this with a straight face  — as it should — but the reasons offered for not proceeding in the first place seem feeble. The story goes that a delay was called because the city was about to start negotiating a new contract with its unionized outside workers. A deal was signed earlier this year and the mayor now says that contract gives the city updated numbers to work with and see if the private sector can deliver a comparable service, but at a lower cost.

HUH?

Rob Ford concluded that west side privatization saved ten or eleven million dollars a year when CUPE employees were making less than they are today. That saving has never been effectively refuted. There seems no question that privatization will save the City money — and it would have done so two years ago. Cynical ratepayers will recall that Mr. Ford also pledged to privatize the east side collection. But he argued that it could only be done after the 2014 election. Is there a pattern emerging here? Mr. Tory should be concerned that taxpayers may reasonably decide they are being manipulated for the purposes of his re-election.