From: John Cary
Sent: January 14, 2016
To: Councillor Grimes; Cc: Kim Edgar
Subject: Request for Seat on MLRM Relocation Working Group.
Dear Mark,
The Mimico Residents Association Board of Directors requests that you invite Kyra Trainor or myself to join the Working Group that is searching for a suitable site for the relocation of the ML Ready Mix cement batching operation from its residential area on Judson Street. We feel that our involvement, engagement and advocacy for community improvement in Mimico will be a steady asset in the Group’s discussion and will add important transparency to the process.
We feel that our involvement will relieve some of the pressure that the Judson residents feel, as they believe that their concerns are not appropriately understood.
Yours truly,
John Cary
President, Mimico Residents Association.
Reply: February 4, 2016
From: John Livey, Deputy City Manager
Dear Mr. Cary,
Thank you for your email of January 14, 2016 to Councillor Grimes requesting to participate in a Working Group that deals with M L Ready Mix Concrete, a cement batching company located at 29 Judson Street.
The Working Group is made up of a dedicated internal team of City staff including Legal. While we appreciate your interest in having an executive member of the Mimico Residents Association participate in the Working Group, our meetings involve discussions about our litigation strategy and methods of seeking compliance from ML Ready Mix Concrete and it would not be appropriate to have the community participate directly. The participation of the local community in the Working Group would change the dynamics of the internal staff discussions and it could even hurt our chances of success should the other side discover that a local resident is participating directly.
The input and feedback from the local community provides valuable information to help inform the City’s actions and we recognize the importance of regular communication between City staff and the local residents. Moving forward, the Working Group will commit to provide regular monthly updates to the community via the Councillor’s office and organize quarterly meetings of a subset of the Working Group with the Executive Director or designate of the Mimico Residents Association together with any other association to encourage open communication.
If you require further information on this matter, please contact John Alderdice at 416-392-1004 or email: jalderd@toronto.ca.
Sincerely,
John Livey,
Deputy City Manager
Sent: Feb 8, 2016
Dear Mr. Alderdice,
Our letter to Councillor Mark Grimes about this matter was passed on to Mr. John Livey who then explained the role and responsibility of the Working Group and asked me to contact you directly.
We now understand the situation and appreciate the clarification. We are confident that you will honour the commitments that Mr. Livey made in his response. As well, Mr. Livey’s encouragement to forge better open community communication is well-noted and appreciated.
These commitments are to:
- Provide regular monthly updates of the Working Group proceedings to the Councillor. Implicit in this is that the Councillor will in turn provide that information to the MRA.
- Establish a subset of the Working Group chaired by the City that will include an executive member or designate of the MRA and others such as the local BIA.
- Quarterly meetings of the subset.
We would like to know when the subset will be in place. We hope that a meeting of the subset will be held in the first quarter of this year.
We look forward to being kept abreast of this very difficult and challenging interface between the location of an industrial plant and its disturbingly close proximity to residential homes.
John Cary
President, Mimico Residents Association.