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Russell Hampton
National Awards Services Inc.
ClubRunner
Stories
Wednesday June 14, 2017
Attendance: 15, including Vern Barney (visiting Rotarian from the Wilowdale Rotary Club), his lovely wife, Carol, and our guest speaker.
 
Chair: President Basil (after temporary fill-in by incoming President, Mike Mushet)
 
Anthem: Peter Masson
 
Grace: Mike Mushet
 
Announcements:
President Basil had several announcements including:
- We still need a Club member to step up and take the lead on our auction fundraiser. The trial auction on eBay is scheduled for the week of August 8th to 15th, 2017 with 25 items to be auctioned. The last committee meeting had members from all of the Rotary clubs other than North Scarborough. The next meeting will take place on Wed. July 5th, 2017 at 7:00 pm at 625 Church Street, Suite 400, Toronto.
 
- Pres. Basil attended the 110 Black Hawk Squadron Royal Canadian Air Cadets 43rd Annual Review last Sunday. It was amazing to see these young men and women in action. We are indeed getting a great bang for our buck in supporting these young cadets and seeing them being transformed into disciplined and respectful members of our society.
 
- We have been invited to attend the Etobicoke Rotary Club’s Toronto Ribfest on Friday, June 30th, 2017 at 5:00 pm for the Citizenship Reaffirmation Ceremony. Any club with five or more members attending to take the reaffirmation pledge with the other participants will be recognized from the stage and on the screen along with the other community groups that are supporting this function.
 
- Peter Masson announced that our club will be participating in the Welcome to Canada Ceremony for New Canadians on July 1st, 2017 by serving refreshments to those in attendance. Come and join in on July 1st at 11:00 am.
 
- Mike Mushet announced that Arthur Retnakaran has accepted the position of Community Services Director for the upcoming Rotary year.
 
- Arthur announced that he was donating $500 in his wife’s memory as well as his marbelous draw winnings of $450 to Habitat for Humanity. Apparently, Gerd had agreed to match Arthur’s donation, and Mike Mushet also pledged $100 to this very worthwhile cause.
 
The Marbelous Draw was conducted by Arthur and was won, and  lost, by Kevin Manuel.
 
Sgt-at-Arms Gerd levied fines and Happy Bucks, initially extracting $20 from Barry Smith for serving on the desk and as scribe. Apparently, such services are subject to heavy fines. LOL!
Kevin Manuel was also fined for filling in on the desk.
Gerd then quized the members as to the noteworthiness of the recently departed Anita Pallenberg. Only Gord Brown was able to avoid a fine by identifying Anita as an actress from the 60's who mothered three children by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Gerd also added that Anita was a model and actress who appeared in well known movies such as Barbarella.
 
The following Happy Bucks were collected:
- Peter Masson was pleased that our very own Jacqueline Smith would be talking about Rotary at the Welcome to Canada Ceremony on July 1st!
- Basil was initially angry when a smart car crashed into his vehicle, but then realized that it had caused minimal damage and that the crash gave him the opportunity to meet a new friend from Iran.
- Kevin Manuel donated his $5 consolation prize as well as another $5 for a potential new auction warehouse.
- Gerd was happy that he did not suffer a flat tire during his Yukon trip... but he did get a flat tire after he returned.
 
Program:
 
James Burchell introduced Toronto Councilor, Chin Lee.
Councilor Lee has been a Scarborough councilor since 2006 and has been residing in his ward since 1985. He is an advocate for building strong communities through partnerships between government and organizations such as Rotary.
 
Councilor Lee indicated that he appreciates all of the services that our Rotary Club has been contributing both locally and globally.
Councilor Lee explained that he first became involved at the Scarborough community level in 1985 and devoted ten years to changing the property tax system to make it fairer for Scarborough property owners. Eventually, this initiative was rewarded with the change of Toronto property tax assessment to a market value assessment model, which resulted in annual property tax savings for many Scarborough residents of many hundreds of dollars.
Councilor Lee applauded our Club’s initiative to upgrade the image of Scarborough. In 2014, the councilor and James attended an organizational meeting for the Scarborough Community Renewal Campaign, spearheaded by our very own Dave Hardy. Since then, Councilor Lee and James have been working as partners to promote this movement to change the poor image of Scarborough in the surrounding communities. Councilor Lee is also supportive of initiatives to bring more business investment into Scarborough. He wants to be a hub that connects people and forms partnerships that will benefit the Scarborough community.
Councilor Lee congratulated our Club for 65 years of successful community service in the Scarborough area. He appreciates our help, because councilors can only do so much, and depend on groups such as ours to make a real difference in our community. There is still more work required. With respect to health care, Scarborough’s hospitals have now been merged into one, which may result in further challenges.
Councilor Lee mentioned a future Bridletowne Community Hub which is to be built on the field of the former Timothy Eaton high school with the help of YMCA funding. He feels that this will be a valuable community asset.
The councilor made reference to the City’s multi-tenanted housing initiative, which is in actuality a plan to legalize rooming houses in the North Scarborough area. He is opposed to this initiative, but it was approved by the Mayor’s Executive Committee, not by council itself. He attended a community meeting last night in the North Scarborough area and discovered that 99% of residents in attendance were opposed to this proposal. The mayor is attempting to house the 170,000 people on the wait list for affordable housing, but perhaps at the risk of destroying our single family residential communities.
Another challenge for our community will be the conversion of the Go train to all day service. There are five level crossings in Councilor Lee’s ward alone, which will create traffic and safety issues.
Councilor Lee requested that we let him know how he can help with our future endeavours, because he is ready to support all of the valuable work that we perform in the North Scarborough community.
In fielding a question from Peter Masson as to whether there were net benefits from amalgamation, Councilor Lee indicated that any proposed savings in duplicate administration fees were wiped out by the fact that salaries for Scarborough staff, and staff of the other amalgamated cities, had to be increased to the higher level of salaries in the old City of Toronto. City of Scarborough employee salaries were 20% lower than those of City of Toronto employees prior to amalgamation. In addition, Scarborough was very efficient prior to amalgamation, contributing 55% of taxes to the school board, 25% to Metro Toronto and operating the City of Scarborough on the balance of 20% of tax revenue.
 
 
Dhanni thanked Councilor Lee for a very informative presentation.
 
The meeting was terminated
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