November City Council Recap
This month's City Council session was especially significant for me, as two initiatives I've worked on for a long time came to fruition.
“I initially thought things were going to kind of go quiet, because it was such a change in my day-to-day life, which is usually just packed with committee and council and briefings, meetings with stakeholders and public meetings in the evening,” said Beaches-East York Coun. Brad Bradford. “But that hasn’t borne out to be the case. We’re working and living in a crisis now.”
Bradford, and his fellow east-end city councillor, Toronto-Danforth’s Paula Fletcher, have both been running off their feet — working from their homes and holding meetings on telephone and Zoom like so many other working Torontonians who have been forced by COVID-19 to take that work home. Fletcher is moving between her kitchen table — and her wing-backed “command chair” at home — and the East York Civic Centre, where she attends to log on to the City of Toronto servers.It’s a lot of work.
“I’m working from the time I get up in the morning until 10 o’clock at night,” said Fletcher. But she added that, like the families at the civic centre, it’s important to make time for herself. “I do find that I’m eating at home — that’s new, I’m cooking my own food, and I am every day making sure that I get at least a half an hour walk with my nordic walking sticks — social distancing all the way,” she said. “I believe that even though we’re functioning normally, there’s an anxiety layer that exists for everyone. Normally I lift weights every week, do yoga every week. I can’t do any of those things so my pole walking keeps me moving.” Bradford is doing his work almost entirely from his home. “It’s just the kitchen table for me,” he said. “My partner is working from home as well, and we have a relatively tight space and both of us are on conference calls all day. That requires one person to be upstairs and one person to be downstairs. Which is probably something that everybody is dealing with right now.” Bradford has been working with small businesses — particularly Business Improvement Areas — and is on frequent calls with businesses that can go well into the evening. “Typically it’s a seven-day-a-week job and the hours are long,” he said. “But working from home effectively means that you’re always working.”This month's City Council session was especially significant for me, as two initiatives I've worked on for a long time came to fruition.
Danforth Pizza House celebrating 60th anniversary today with special guests.
City Council to consider a report recommending the approval of a renovictions by-law.