Printer friendly version | help

About Us and the Park (Main)

For some history of the park, see the History section.

See also Park Events, People, The Friends of Dufferin Grove Park Annual Reports,
Neighbourhood e-list Discussions, Dufferin Grove Is In Trouble

On this page:

About Us | Latest News

About us: who are the friends of Dufferin Grove Park?

posted January 31, 2005, updated August 19, 2008

How the Park Works

Dufferin Grove Park is operated by the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division. It is not operated by the friends of the park, nor by volunteers.

The friends of Dufferin Grove Park are not an organization. There is no executive, no annual meetings, no formal status. There is no written agreement anywhere between the friends and the city.

So how does it work then? And who are the "friends of Dufferin Grove Park"?

The friends in this case are all those people - more every year - who are friendly to that 14.2 -acre city-owned common space which is bordered by the Dufferin Mall, St.Mary's Catholic High School, and the mixture of affluent and subsidized housing that borders the park to the east and the south. Most park friends express their friendship only though their joy at what goes on in the park. At the other extreme, for the past 15 years, Jutta Mason has made friendship for the park her almost-full-time hobby. In between, there are many people who give things (time, plants, music, theatre, toys in the sandpit, conversation, sports skills, etc., etc.) as they feel moved to do that. There is no schedule to how these things are given, no five-year plan - it's (sorry) organic.

The City does have a formula for advisory councils, which includes a range of possibilities ranging from formal election of local representatives to an informal yearly meeting canvassing park users about what they want for their parks. In 2001, the Economic Development and Parks Committee put out terms of reference for any style of advisory councils. Advisors are to "provide comments, insights, and advice to assist staff in the performance of their responsibilities." They can "provide and, with City staff, manage funding designed to enhance existing City activities...Prepare and make public accurate financial records derived from fundraising activities."

posted March 1st, 2010

---

Dufferin Grove is in trouble

Working in public space, with the people who use it, is the job of Parks and Recreation Division. But at Dufferin Grove Park, the recreation supervisor who matched local initiatives with the needed support was moved away from contact with citizens completely, on February 19. We believe this is meant to send a warning to his colleagues across the city: don’t collaborate with local projects unless specifically directed from downtown. The current administration's top-down approach, mostly speaking with very little listening, is a very bad thing for our parks and community centres. It should be the other way around.

February 1: News that Brenda Patterson, GM of parks and rec, has directed that all recreation supervisors will be moved out of their current wards to elsewhere. newsletter

February 17 and 18: A community e-mail campaign to ask for help from the ombudsman. Community Comments. A Facebook group quickly got over a thousand members. Dufferin Grove Park Needs Your Help!

February 18: Ombudsman's response: "We note that PFR management is entitled and has the responsibility to redeploy their supervisors as it sees fit." read more >>

February 19: The Ward 18 recreation supervisor Tino DeCastro is removed and reasssigned to a job with no citizen contact. He supported the Dufferin Grove project in the day-to-day. The new Ward 18 supervisor is Dave Hains, whose previous work is also brought to a halt.

February 19: Brenda Patterson, GM of Parks and Rec, sends a form letter saying all supervisors have to be moved around to ensure "core competencies, training and skills development, performance, and succession management." read more >>

February 20: media on the subject: Catherine Porter in the Star

February 22: more media. The Torontoist quotes general manager Brenda Patterson: "The change in supervisors is in no way intended to change those programs." Several bloggers suggest the real problem is the friends, not the city. Are park friends engaged in illegal activities? FAQ's

February 23: meeting with Recreation manager Kelvin Seow: what staff activities count as "conflict of interest"? Background

February 25: more media Eye Weekly Quotes Recreation director Malcolm Bromley: "moving supervisors around isn’t in the interest of spreading the Dufferin Grove model." The Star: Bromley again, saying "his aim was to build more programs, not destroy existing ones. But he also said programs need to be regularized."

February 26: Ombudsman Fiona Crean's legal counsel, Marie Chen, agrees to meet to discuss the mandate of the ombudsman in a situation like this one. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday March 2.

March 1: response from Councillor Janet Davis, chair of the Recreation Committee, to letters sent in: "from time to time it is necessary to make changes as staff....are moved around in order to provide excellent service to residents throughout the City."read more >>

Letters to and from the Ombudsman, read more >>

Letters to and from Brenda Patterson General Manager Parks, Forestry and Recreation, read more >>.

Letters to the Councillors: read more >>

"Conflict of interest" follow-up: read more >>

Response to Costanza Allevato’s question, “what happens at Dufferin Grove Park?” – intermittent census of activities on Sunday May 16, 10 and 11 am, 12 noon, 1, 3, 6, 8, and 10 pm :

Recreation Staff Responsibilities

In the Media

posted on April 08, 2010

Finding their Grove

Thorncliffe goes Duffer in Grove — can the city handle a local -control epidemic?

By: Andrew Cash
Published: April 7, 2010
Source: Now Toronto

Some marketing taglines would be laughable if they weren’t so insulting: “You’re richer than you think” comes to mind.

But here’s one that’s spot on: “Today’s Thorncliffe Is Tomorrow’s Canada.” The slogan is used by community activists to describe the horseshoe of postwar utilitarian low-and high-rise buildings backing on to the Don Valley in East York.

Thorncliffe Park isn’t really a place you stumble upon – you have to intend to get there, and these days people really do. Originally built for 10,000, the area is a magnet for immigrants, mostly from India and Pakistan, and latterly Afghanistan, and that has swelled the numbers in this 1-kilometre square to about 30,000 people.

Read more >>

posted on March 04, 2010

Trouble in the Grove

By: Andrew Cash
Published: March 3, 2010
Source: NOW Magazine, Volume: 29, Number: 27

Future of community-based park experiment hangs in the balance On a brilliantly sunny saturday afternoon, on my way into the Dufferin Grove clubhouse, I stop to watch some little kids pushing chairs around the park’s ice rink as they learn to skate.

I’m overwhelmed by an odd feeling. This place reminds me of a time before every public encounter had to be run through a risk assessment and given a lawyer’s approval before it could begin, when mutual respect and trust were the currency that kept communal spaces thriving. That’s the promise of Dufferin Grove. And the challenge.

Read more >>

posted on February 25, 2010

Porter: City crackdown hits park pizza nights

By: Catherine Porter
Published: February 25, 2010
Source: The Star

Down the path north into Christie Pits Park, you stumble upon a little gnome's house.

It has wooden sides, a shingled, peaked roof, a little chimney and a window shuttered in black metal and locked tight with a padlock. It's a community bake oven.

It was built 10 years ago by park staff and volunteers. The staff did the building; the volunteers brought the architectural drawings, construction supplies and refreshments. It was an ideal collaboration – community fundraising and spirit, city land and sweat. A win for everyone. That spirit is captured by the words on the commemorative plaque that celebrates the parks worker who built the oven. It reads: "This bake oven is dedicated in loving memory of Luis Antonio Andrade."

Read more >>

This Star article had 91 comments posted before they shut down the postings.

General mailout from Councillor Janet Davis, Thursday, March 04, 2010 12:12 PM

posted on March 08, 2010

The defriending of Dufferin Grove Park

Toronto’s most people-powered park is still struggling to make nice with the city 

By: Chris Bilton
Published: February 24, 2010
Source: www.eyeweekly.com

Pretty soon, someone is going to have to start an activist group called Parks Are For People — after all, there’s already a group called Streets Are For People. Admittedly, this sounds like a bizarre idea, considering that parks are, by definition, for people. After nearly a decade of Torontopian discourse — where public spaces are seen as both symbolic and vital to city living — you might assume that parks would be the most obvious places for cooperation between the city as an institution and its citizens. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Dufferin Grove Park, where the city parks and recreation department’s move towards a stricter, more centralized bureaucracy is threatening to destroy a long-established tradition of citizen participation.

Read more >>

posted on February 23, 2010

City's Moves May Threaten Dufferin Grove Park

By: Suzannah Showler
Published: February 22, 2010
Source: torontoist.com

Dufferin Grove Park is home to a bonfire pit, wood-burning ovens where residents can bake pizza and bread, an adobe courtyard, a weekly farmers' market, dozens of year-round art festivals, two skating rinks, a cheap and healthy cafe, and regular pay-what-you-can community meals.

It’s a chaotic, eclectic, and fairly idyllic public space, but what makes Dufferin Grove Park truly unique is not what they do but how they do it.

Members of the community are more-than-usually involved in working to maintain the park, while city staff are more-than-usually integrated into the community. According to community leader Jutta Mason, this simpatico relationship is about to change, and with it all of the features of the park that neighbourhood residents have come to cherish.

Read more >>

posted on February 20, 2010

Porter: Bureaucratic meddling puts park's magic at risk

By: Catherine Porter
Published: Feb 20 2010
Source: The Star

A battle is brewing at Dufferin Grove Park. It's not the first thing you notice stepping into the rink house near Dufferin and Bloor Sts. There are too many other distractions: The teenage girls balancing on figure skates buying freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies from the Zamboni Café; the pregnant woman in the back kitchen cooking potato and kale enchiladas for Friday's community supper; the boys playing checkers near the wood-burning stove. It's a lot to take in, when you are used to the wet, hollow bunkers slumped beside most city rinks.

Read more >>

Comments on this article.

---

Neighbourhood e-list discussions

The neighbourhoods near Dufferin Grove Park have a number of neighbourhood e-lists where discussions can take place. Most of the items posted there are practical questions or answers about home repair, apartments for rent, and so on. These are posted here (lots of good recommendations). But there are also discussions dealing with broader issues.

Broader issues:

Georgetown Rail corridor

J. W. wrote:

I'm not hearing any suggestions here...I'm a homeowner and can't just pick up and move.

The plan as I hear it is to run 500 diesel trains through here everyday. This would effectively turn west Toronto into a noisy toxic wasteland. There is no justification for this (other than to support urban sprawl?), and as residents of Toronto we will not accept this destruction of our health, homes, and wealth.

I wouldnt be surprised if this plan doubles the smog level in Toronto. The mayor should be thinking of the lost tax revenue too, as people choose to commute to the city.

The allen expressway was stopped. This project must/will be stopped.

where do we begin? Read more >>

A suggestion to Fuzzy Boundries

SUGGESTION: I think the best and fair thing to do is to give a ballot card to all the residences, one ballot to each family in the catchment area and ask them to pick one name out of lets say, the top five, out of their top 25 names, which is listed in their website. And also have a second question in the same ballot and ask the residents,what they would suggest as a neighbourhood or alternate name for their community. The ballots boxes should be placed in different locations in the community and then at the last Fuzzy Boundaries community meeting in January 2010, count the ballots. read more >>

Read more >>

Park Events

Twelfth Night: January 5 2010

Photos were taken by Teresa Vanneste

Working notes, from Jane Wells: Last week, on January 5th, a small group gathered at Dufferin Grove Park to observe old Twelfth Night, the evening before Epiphany, or Twelfth Day, or Old Christmas Day. Called many things, it is the finale of the Christmas celebration, almost certainly drawing on pre-Christian ritual to recognize the dark cold of winter, remind us of the distant spring, and make some charm for a good harvest to ease the winter next. In putting together this workshop of Twelfth Night, I drew on accounts from various regional British traditions, many apparently medieval, but not exclusively.

• We gathered behind the big oven, where noise-makers were handed out and a few jobs assigned.
• We were then greeted by Old Meg, a crone with a lantern. Played by Bruce Beaton (cross-dressing and disguise were a big part of medieval Twelfth Night parties), Old Meg was the name for the 13th and largest fire of the evening, which also sometimes had a straw figure, the old meg, in the centre of it. Creepy, but interesting!
• She led us to the two cherry trees, where declamations were made, caraway toast was hung from the branches, and cider poured down each trunk. This ‘wassailing of the fruit tree’ was traditionally done to apple trees, and in rural areas of the southern UK was the main event of a Twelfth Night.

Read more >>

Speakers' Series

2009

The Monday Night Run/Walk Club

Beverley Coburn - Friday Night Supper Speaker’s Series, May 8, 2009

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”
This is a quote by HIPPOCRATES, a Greek Physician born 460 BC and the Father of Western Medicine.

The Monday Night Run/Walk Club meets every Monday evening at 6:30 p.m. for an easy-paced trek through our neighbourhood. Running is one of my passions - and walking is the oldest exercise prescribed by doctors – such as Hippocrates.

Technically, the difference between WALKING and RUNNING is that when you’re WALKING, you always have one foot on the ground and when you’re RUNNING at some point both feet are off the ground. JOGGING is slow RUNNING and SPRINTING is fast RUNNING. Humans are the only primates and mammals who have perfected the ability to WALK on two feet. Read more >>

Click on poster to enlarge it.

CHANGES TO THE PLAYGROUND

On Friday May 15, from 6 to 8, City Councillor Adam Giambrone is the special guest at Friday Night Supper. The supper will be in an unusual location: at the playground. Adam will be available to take part in any and all conversations about upcoming playground changes. See the poster. For lots of background information about playgrounds, in Toronto and elsewhere, click here.

Read more >>

News 2010

From the September 2010 Newsletter:

Sunday Sept 5th, 3-5 pm: Annual MORRIS DANCERS’ gathering

Toronto Morris dancers will once again finish their annual Labour Day weekend dancing (which they do in public squares all over the city) by picnicking at Dufferin Grove Park. Morris dancing dates back to farm labourers’ resistance to early industrial conditions in Great Britain in the eighteenth century. The dancers often wear bells strapped to their legs; some are in blackface (this refers to a miners’ disguise, not an attempt to change race); some dance with swords. It’s very energetic, and exhilarating to watch. Groups from other parts of Ontario, NY State, sometimes even Britain, have been coming to this park for years on the Sunday of Labour Day weekend, after they give their free dance performances in other public outdoor spaces. At Dufferin Grove these groups dance for one another to show off their latest dances, and they eat masses of fresh park bread and herb butter and samosas, and make pizza at the bake oven.

Everyone is welcome to come and watch the dances.

Sept 12th 1 – 5 pm. Abrigo Twentieth Anniversary celebration: Fall Fair

From the organizers: “Abrigo Centre is a charitable, not for profit organization located inside Dufferin Mall. We serve over 4000 individuals annually in Toronto. We provide a variety of services including family counselling, youth outreach, counselling and support for survivors of woman abuse, community development and employment services. For more information check out www.abrigo.ca.”

From 1 pm to 5 pm. We will have face painting, children’s activities and entertainment.  We have local artists coming to showcase their talents with singing, dancing and playing. We will be offering food such as hotdogs, popcorn, cotton candy, sno kones, pizza and charging a nominal fee to reduce the expense.”

FAQs: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PARK

1. Dufferin Grove Park is run ''by volunteers, right?

Wrong. The park is run by City of Toronto Parks, Forestry, and Recreation staff. Litter-picking and grass maintenance are done by Parks workers. Repairs, like broken waterpipes and loose basketball backboards, are carried out by Tech Services workers. Broken and dangling tree branches are sawed off by Forestry workers. Almost everything else is done by Recreation'' workers, all of them part-time city staff. There’s far too much work to do in a lively public space like Dufferin Grove, to ask people to do it for free. That’s one thing taxes are for – to pay people to do the work that benefits our public spaces.

Most parks, unless they have a wading pool or an outdoor rink, don’t have any part-time Recreation workers. With the help of former Recreation supervisor Tino DeCastro, Ward 18 parks developed somewhat differently. He encouraged his staff to work very closely with park users. The result was that a number of Ward 18 parks have become “community centres without walls.” Having recreation “program staff” in such parks costs more in wages than having unstaffed parks. But community centres in buildings are far more expensive. And the fact that parks have no walls, except for little buildings like the rink clubhouse, means that everybody gets to see what’s going on. So more people get good ideas about fun things to do in parks, from watching other park users. Those activities create a social space where neighbours can meet, and maybe make friends. It can come full circle -- some of those friends may even include the park’s program staff, who can help make things happen.

Helping to remove blocks to neighbourhood initiatives in parks, and supporting the resulting community centres without walls, is lots of work. But it’s good work, often with exciting results, and that’s one reason why – despite very low part-time city wages – such interesting people come to work at Dufferin Grove and at the other Ward 18 parks. The energy and good humour and inventiveness of the park program staff leads many park users to think they’re seeing public-spirited volunteers. But actually they’re seeing public-spirited city staff.

2. So where does CELOS come in?

CELOS stands for “The Centre for Local Research into Public Space.” It started at Dufferin Grove in 2000, but has made friends all over the city by now. Its mandate is to find out what works in public spaces and pass the stories along. That includes making sure the stories are not fairy tales, such as “Dufferin Grove Park is run by volunteers.” Doing research on what works includes practical research. So CELOS is involved in running the food programs at Ward 18 parks. Now that we know that good food works well in parks, it’s time for CELOS to hand over more of the backup to city staff. On September 20, Dufferin Grove program staff and CELOS are meeting with general manager Brenda Patterson to discuss the details.

3. What happened to Tino DeCastro?

Tino was one of the many recreation supervisors who was moved to a different location as part of a general management staffing policy. Tino was also removed from most direct contact with park/community centre users, to dealing with building-caretaker issues. He’s still there, and has helped to solve some long-term building maintenance problems. With support from his manager, Tino has continued to make himself useful to Ward 18 parks as well. He’ll be at the September 20 meeting with the general manager, contributing his long experience in collaborating with park users and in fostering the talents of front-line staff.

5. Is the park in trouble?

It’s hard to know. The current management style is focused on more policies and less local control. This is partly due to management’s anxiety about parks and public space in general – the Parks, Forestry and Recreation budget is unsustainable, mostly but not only due to the wages-and-salaries arrangements. CELOS research suggests that fewer one-size-fits-all policies and more local control would help, citywide. The issues are complicated, and we’re trying to apply the “governing the commons” work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom see (celos.ca/Elinor Ostrom) to work out solutions. Whether there is support for new ways of thinking depends partly on the results of the municipal election.

From the June 2010 Newsletter:

THE CELOS WEBSITES

The dufferinpark.ca website is run by CELOS (pronounced “see-loss”), the Centre for Local Research into Public Space. This is a small group that began in Dufferin Grove Park and subsequently broadened its inquiries to address other park issues citywide. CELOS has two other websites: cityrinks.ca, for all 49 of the city’s outdoor compressor-cooled ice rinks, and celos.ca, for documenting CELOS research. In late May, a new feature, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, was added to the CELOS website – a database of legislation, regulations, policies and guidelines showing how the law hinders or helps citizens to shape our public spaces. Lots of good stuff.

Monday June 21, National Aboriginal Day:

INDIGENOUS STORYTELLING CELEBRATION (Dufferin Grove Park)

Program produced by RED BEAR. From organizer Jim Adams: “the second (and hopefully annual) storytelling event celebrating National Aboriginal Awareness Day.”

6:30 – 7:30 am: Sunrise Ceremony. A traditional elder and singer(s) will conduct a sunrise ceremony to open the event and more importantly to honour those who have gone before. A sacred fire will be lit and all in attendance will have the opportunity to partake in the ceremony through a smudging/purification circle. The elder in attendance will have a teaching to share with all who attend and anyone who carries a drum is welcome to join in the drumming and singing.

7:30 – 9:30 am: Traditional Breakfast. Cedar tea, bannock bread and venison.
7:30 – 8:30: Breakfast Stories. Nature based stories told by gifted Red Bear storyteller Jim Adams.
10:00 – 11:30: Storytelling from the Western Door / Northern Door: Cree storyteller and singer Melvin John will transform the urban setting into a shifting landscape of vast prairie expanse and dense northern forest where moose and buffalo trade places with coyote and bear as the stories of our past are brought to life again.
10:00 to 4:00 pm.: Drum Making/Shaker Making/ Moccasin Making/ Bannock Baking/ Cedar Tea/Maple Syrup.
11:30 am – 12:45 pm: Delicacies from the cooking pots of many nations. Particular attention will be made to observe the traditions and ceremonies associated with the preparing of each dish. Stories about the food and its cultural and historical impact on First Nations’ people will be shared with the diners.
1:30 – 3:00 pm: Storytelling from the Eastern Door / Southern Door. Red Bear storyteller Jim Adams will share stories from the eastern and southern directions. Mandan, Creek and Mohawk stories will capture the imagination of the listeners and take them on a journey to a time when all the inhabitants of Turtle Island could speak the same language and shared a common goal. Red Bear dancers Julia and Terrill will add visual colour to the stories being shared by storyteller Jim Adams.
4:30 pm. Closing Ceremony: The visiting elder will close off the day with a traditional prayer and blessing.

Jane Jacobs walk/"policy-expo"/park reunion at Dufferin Grove:

See the full map of the tour >>

SATURDAY MAY 1 is a special day at Dufferin Grove, a celebrate-the-park sequel to the recent park troubles that got us into the news again.

The many letters that park users wrote to the ombudsman, and to others, did not get Tino back (Tino DeCastro, the recreation supervisor who helped make so many things work well). But they did get the attention of City Hall. And since May 1 is a citywide "Jane Jacobs walk" day, it seemed like a good time to follow up, with a walk in the park: Jane's Walk at Dufferin Grove

There are two walks, 11 to 1 and 4 to 6. Plus there's pizza-making at the oven from 12 to 2, and a campfire with good farmers' market food from 5 to 7. As well, Isabel Peres, the park's first campfire cook, has agreed to come back and cook Guatemalan dobladas at the campfire beginning in late morning. (Isabel is in the little 1994 park movie) that's linked on the dufferinpark.ca website.

So May 1 is a good day to have a picnic or toss a frisbee, enjoy the various park show-and-tell stations, and catch up on the news (lots). Even some city managers will be there, wanting to chat about how to work with (instead of against) park users. Help them out with your advice. Invite old friends, look behind the scenes of what makes a park lively, rewrite disabling city policies, play your guitar. Be a happy and well-fed straggler at the campfire when the sun gets low -- remember May 1.

---

Jane Jacobs walk Gallery

From the April 2010 Newsletter:

Friday April 9, 7.30 pm at the park clubhouse: the second open staff meeting, after Friday Night Supper.

Subject: permits and special events

The first open Dufferin Grove program-staff meeting was on Friday March 19, about policies affecting park programs (see pages 3-4). Dufferin Grove programs are run by part-time recreation staff. During their second meeting they’ll be trying to figure out the current city rules about events and activities that are initiated by park users. Under what conditions can Dufferin Grove staff help out with an event or activity put on by people in the neighbourhood? When is it necessary for park users to apply for a permit centrally? When does the city’s insurance cover the activities of people in the park? When are extra permit and insurance costs likely to discourage simple, local initiatives?

The part-time staff will be going through a list of regular events or park programs that may be affected by new or proposed policies: the bake-oven events, theatre and puppetry and other performance events, the food at the wading pool and the zamboni cafe, women’s drop-in ball hockey on the rink pad, community soccer times, campfires, and community events. Park users are welcome to sit in, find out more about the issues, ask questions, and perhaps help work on remedies to follow up after the meeting.

WHERE’S TINO?

Dufferin Grove’s recreation supervisor, Tino DeCastro, was removed from Ward 18 in February and reassigned to supervising caretakers. His new task is to fix a problem that was unintentionally created during the last Parks, Forestry and Recreation re-structuring in 2005. At that time, the community recreation centres’ caretakers were all put under central supervision. They could no longer take direction from the recreation supervisors at the buildings where they worked. If the supervisor wanted to ask the building caretaker to clean up a spill in the hallway, she or he would have to call the central caretaking supervisor, who would pass the message back over to the local caretaker.

That hasn’t worked well, so Tino has been assigned to help restore more direct communication between the individual caretakers and the other staff in the same buildings. Changing the rules again is, however, apparently quite time-consuming. Tino says he’s on the road almost all the time, troubleshooting.

So the last Parks, Forestry and Recreation reorganization needs fixing, undoing, reworking. The story goes back to 2003. That year, a radical restructuring plan was devised for the entire division, based on “function” instead of location. The idea was that each of the various functions would be centralized. So for example local recreation staff would no longer supervise the wading pool staff in their areas – the wading pools would be supervised by a central manager in charge of aquatics, who had special aquatics-only supervisors under him. Other programs, citywide, would be run by a central “active living” supervisor, or a central “arts and crafts” supervisor, and so on.

There was no public discussion, because the plan was still confidential by the time of the November municipal election of 2003. Even councillors hadn’t been told. But there seem to have been some staff, at all levels, who thought this new structure was unworkable. One day a few weeks after the election, an unmarked brown envelope appeared on the counter in the Dufferin Grove kitchen, containing the new organizational chart and outlining the details. When we counted, Dufferin Grove Park was to go from having two supervisors mainly responsible for what goes on there, to having 13 different supervisors that might have to be consulted, depending on the activity or whatever problem needed fixing. The description was so alarming that CELOS put the word out everywhere. Later, the mayor put the plan on hold.

There followed many months of far-flung stakeholder consultations. But then, in 2005, an almost-identical plan was put in place. Five years later, that plan is now being altered. Or perhaps, a new, radical plan is now in the works, restructuring again.\\ Oh dear.

A “COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK”

The hundreds of community letters about recent park troubles (posted on dufferinpark.ca) got the attention of Parks, Forestry and Recreation general manager Brenda Patterson and Recreation director Malcolm Bromley. On March 16, North York’s recreation manager Costanza Allevato came to the park to talk about a new task she’s been assigned: to create a “community engagement framework.” She brought two recreation staff with her, to help with this project: Helen Kennedy, who works at the Lawrence Heights community centre, and Chris Kennedy (not related) who until recently was a citywide community development worker.

At that first meeting, Costanza got an earful about the importance of making better use of front-line program staff to support neighbourhood efforts in parks everywhere. She also heard about the unintended effect of one-size-fits-all permit policies. The associated paperwork and fees shut down small-scale events set up by neighbours. Costanza was asked: “can such small local initiatives be seen as partnerships instead of permits? Would that word-change allow the program staff to support the gifts of local park users rather than charge them for their contributions?”

After the meeting, Costanza forwarded a draft version of a “partnership policy” developed by a ‘program standards officer’ downtown. The policy has three pages of questions like “what is your group’s mission statement?... what skills will be developed?.... what cultural group is this for?” etc., and it seems to be written with agencies in mind. It’s hard to imagine how it could be made to fit with loose groups of citizens at Dufferin Grove or elsewhere, who want to make some music or set up a drop-in women’s ball-hockey game for the summer. Also, all requests for “partnerships” would have to go through one central officer – an unworkable bottleneck. Back to the drawing board, with another meeting in mid-April.

NEW BABIES

Dufferin Grove is a place with a lot of babies and little kids, that’s obvious. Two more have recently been added to the mix: little Elisabeth, the new daughter of part-time recreation staff (and CUPE Local 79 unit officer) Amy Withers, and little Alice, the new daughter of part-time recreation staff (and Spanish translator) Anna Bekerman and part-time recreation staff (and SUNY graduate philosophy student) Greg Kirk. More staff babies and more park user babies are on the way. Is there something about the little kids of Dufferin Grove Park that’s infectious?

THE CELOS WEBSITES

The dufferinpark.ca website is run by CELOS (pronounced “see-loss”), the Centre for Local Research into Public Space. This is a very small group that began in Dufferin Grove Park and subsequently broadened its inquiries to address other issues in the whole city. CELOS has two other websites: cityrinks.ca, for all 49 of the city’s outdoor compressor-cooled ice rinks, and celos.ca, for documenting celos research. Soon a new feature will be added to the celos website – a database of legislation, regulations, policies and guidelines showing how the law hinders or helps citizens to shape our public spaces. Watch for it in May – it’s got good stuff.

Read More News 2009>>

---

---

hosted by parkcommons.ca | powered by pmwiki-2.2.0-beta65. Content last modified on March 30, 2010, at 11:22 PM EST