CCRA President Bob Baron: April 2002 I am pleased to tell you the sense of community is alive and well in the Centennial area. We've had some very difficult issues to deal with during the past month and I am happy to say that your response and support has been terrific. There was a huge turnout for the Public Meeting to discuss the widening of Port Union and all the other "alternatives". There were some upset residents and if any politician or employee of the city had any doubts about how the residents felt about extending Meadowvale, Centennial or East Avenue, the message was loud and clear that we definitely do not want any of these streets put through to Kingston Road. The consultants who the city hired to present these alternatives, could not give us any reasonable explanation of the benefits this total disruption of our neighbourhood would provide. They were questioned about how much more traffic this area could generate in the future (given that it is fairly stable and there is not much more development that can be done). They indicated a potential 327 additional homes could be added to the area which would result in an increase to the morning and evening rush hours of 220 vehicles spread over two hours during each and divided between Port Union (northbound-morning, southbound- evening) and Lawrence (westbound-morning, eastbound-evening). To put this in perspective, the southbound traffic on Port Union in the morning is 1,300 vehicles per hour and 800 northbound. These numbers are reversed in the evening. We've tried to get the city to look at simply making modifications to Port Union such as turn lanes, etc. but they seem determined to spend millions widening it, when thousands might do the job. I find this surprising, given all the press about how there is no money in the city's budget for so many worthy projects and initiatives. The application for 54 Darcy McGee Crescent for converting a garage into a family room was successfully opposed. There was a public meeting on March 11th that was well-attended and the residents discussed the issues influencing their concerns. A number of us went to the Committee of Adjustment hearing, stated these concerns and convinced the Committee that the requested variance was not in the community's best interest. The latest on Manson is that the number of test holes drilled was less than one per ten acres. If this is what the MOE considers a reasonable test for the supposed remediation of these lands, then it's a good thing the provincial conservatives are re-organising themselves. This is a bad joke and an insult to the efforts of all the people who have fought so hard over the last several years to get the MOE to do their job. What the heck is going on, Mr. Gilchrist? Regarding the Port Union Waterfront, we have received a reply from one of the board members we wrote to, agreeing that the funds that have already been approved on the basis of the plans and assessments done, should be released to get the development underway. He is to bring this forward at the next board meeting. You may have read that the Province enacted the creation of a registry of sexual offenders (which now number 3,241) about a year ago to assist the various police forces throughout the province in dealing with sex-related crimes, especially against children. The legislation was called Christopher's Law, after Christopher Stevenson who was raped and murdered by a convicted pedophile who had previously assaulted 9 children. Christopher's father, Jim, had lobbied for this for seven years. The federal Solicitor-General Lawrence McAulay just recently made a stunning announcement, stating "We want a national system, right across the country, available to all police forces with sex offenders registered. That's what will happen." The government will introduce this legislation this fall. The Brumwell Street re-zoning application is not going to the OMB as I mistakenly reported last month. It is still being discussed between the developer, the City and the community.