Raise the Hammer

A couple of comments as I'm on the committee: The food programs were not stumped for by anyone we are aware of, but have always (this year and last) scored the most votes. The money is to be allocated to food iteslf (which is capital) vs. program spending. This is indeed a subject that resonates very well with voters.

The Main/King/Dundurn interesection is under the control of the MTO, who dictate what can be done to those intersections due to their proximity to a 400 series highway. In short, there's not much money being allocated, because there is very little the MTO will permit us to do. The goal is zebra crossings, and perhaps some other enhancements. KNA members are working closely with traffic planning to determine what the options are.

The jump to #24 is not as conspicuous as it looks. Everything between the two was either rolled into a larger dollar figure (such as Ward wide traffic calming), or accomodated in some other way. The allegation that Brian 'pulled rank' on the committee is frankly a little insulting to the hard work and process we all invested in this. The desire for 24 to be added came from the committee itself - we felt strongly that due to the safety issues in play on Locke and Hunter - combined with the way we were trying to integrated/accomodate numbers 20-23 - that the Locke/Hunter signal was a good idea. The price tag for this is the most recent one given by city staff - Brian is pushing back to see if he can get the number lower, possibly freeing up more money for future projects.

Your comment about money being spread thin, though, is very well taken. We are very concious about how many projects were put forward for consideration, and trying to balance issues such as fairness between neighborhoods, and the like was a real balancing act - that was partiall the cause of the high number of small dollar amounts. We are discussing whether or not (next year) to change the process in a way that would enable us to focus our efforts on either one area of concern, or perhaps re-offer the ideas that weren't successful this year. We are open to feedback on the process (esp. from Ward 1 residents), feel free to reach out to Brian's office with your feedback.