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Dear Neighbour,
Many of you may have given up on the NDG Borough Council and the Centre City administration, believing that nothing ever happens in NDG and that you do not get fair return for your tax dollar. You hear the lies about federal and provincial funding that will never come through for our Benny Farm Sports and Recreation Complex. You read the unlikely stories about the Cinema V project going ahead (as if we need a new theatre in NDG when the Loyola Campus Oscar Peterson Hall is already available).
However this, as ever, is a message of hope since I believe, like most of you, that real political power for the community resides within the community and is defined by the degree to which each and every one of us chooses to be informed and involved.
Currently, the most important issue in NDG is the forthcoming sports and recreation complex to be built on the Benny Farm site. Our local NDG real-estate agent and part-time borough mayor, has chosen, along with his colleagues to sit on his hands, do nothing. Standing up to ‘Big Mayor‘ Gerald Tremblay would carry the risk of losing lucrative positions on council and so, instead of acting, they talk about seeking non-existent funding from other levels of government. This creates the exit strategy of ‘somebody else to blame' when (predictably) the money does not come through.
In addition, the elected people at the borough level have announced that our new NDG Sports and Recreation Complex will not be built on the land set aside, purchased and zoned for it (on the Benny Farm site at Monkland and Benny) but instead in the park across the road. The only reason for this proposal is to create local opposition to the project so as to have angry locals to blame when and if the project is abandoned.
Our sports and recreation complex will probably require a few years yet before it gets built but it will be worth the wait and the effort. However, the only source of ‘new' money to build and fund it that we are going to get for our sports and recreation complex is City Hall downtown (our powerless provincial and federal liberal representatives are unable or unwilling to do anything for us) and we will only get that money if we choose to exercise our power as a community and demand it. We pay our high taxes to get services and we have already contributed generously to the funding of sports and recreation complexes everywhere else in the city while we do not have them ourselves. Meanwhile, every year, we continue to share in supporting their annual operating costs while getting nothing ourselves.
Many thousands of you have already participated in the Benny Farm Sports and Recreation Complex campaign thus far and it is thanks to you that we have brought the project this far. But don't be distracted. I invite you to get more involved so that, together, we can continue to get things done.
If you would like to discuss matters further please phone me at 514-483-2561.
Best regards,
Jeremy Searle
P.S. As City Councillor, for Loyola District and President of the Borough Council, I created the sports and recreation complex concept and project in 2001 and, with your continuing participation, I intend to see it brought to reality. Deadbeats in office need not be an obstacle.
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