If you or yours is between 16 and 29 and attending post-secondary schooling in the fall, you may be eligible for a scholarship from the For Youth Initiative. Hustle, though—the deadline is July 29.
Weston Minor Hockey is back for its 75th year. Registration is now open.
12 Division police are looking for two men accused in two separate and unrelated assaults.
Liban Mohamud, 39, is alleged to have assaulted two women inside a home near Weston and Coulter on Wednesday, July 14. The police say that he refused to let two women leave a home and assaulted them.
He is “5’10, with a medium build, short receding hair, goatee, and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a dark coloured hooded sweater, black jeans, and a black Toronto Blue Jays cap.”
The police are also looking for Evon Reid, 36. The police say that he assaulted three people after an argument inside a home in the Eglinton and Weston area on Tuesday, July 20.
Shakespeare in Action is bringing a number of really great events to the Little Avenue Memorial Park on the August 1 long weekend. It sounds like it will be really fantastic.
Musicians from the Weston Silver Band (100 years old this year!) will be playing on Thursday, July 29 starting at 7 p.m..
On Friday and Saturday,
The Weston Weekend of Music and Theatre program will include two danceworks choreographed by Neshama Nashman, one of which, a setting of J. S. Bach’s “Erbarme Dich” from St. Matthew Passion, was premiered last month to great acclaim by Ballett am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Germany. The Rebanks Fellows performing in this event are: Jillian Bonner, mezzo-soprano; Michael Bridge, accordion; River Guard, tenor; Jessy Je Young Kim, violin.
Finally, on Sunday, August 1 at 3 p.m., Wajdi Mouawad will reprise his role in the very excellent one-man play Alphonse.
Alphonse is lost and walking along a country road, weaving an intricate web of stories, while everyone is searching for him: parents, friends, teachers, the police. What they find is the thing we often give up in order to grow up.
Tickets are free, but donations are accepted.
There will be a number of COVID clinics at the Community Place Hub (1765 Weston Road) over the coming days.
One will be on the first day of Eid al-Adha—Tuesday, July 20.
On July 24 and 31, Harvey’s will be giving out free beef or veggie vouchers redeemable at the Harvey’s RV that will be just up the street at the UP Express lot.
City Council also voted for two very interesting motions to reduce flooding, which has been a particular problem in parts of our riding.
One motion asks city staff to study a stormwater tax—which, if you think about it, is a rain tax. But it’s a super idea!
The trouble is that large, paved surfaces push much rainwater into the sewers. Right now, water users are charged for stormwater management, even though the water you use has nothing at all to do with how big your parking lot is. The motion introduced by Mike Layton will ask city staff to study taxing hard surface areas like parking lots. Councillor Frances Nunziata voted in favour. The motion narrowly carried.
A second motion, proposed by Nunziata, asks city staff to study naturalizing the Black Creek Channel.
The Black Creek was ‘channelized’ in the middle of the 20th century—meaning the river was replaced with a concrete channel instead of a natural environment.
The TRCA says that “while providing some riverine flood remediation benefits, [channels] do not fully protect the area from riverine flooding.”
Nunziata’s motion asks staff to consider “alternative design options for the Rockcliffe Riverine Flood Mitigation Project… and report on its findings.”
This week, Frances Nunziata and City Council voted to implement a vacant home tax in Toronto.
Homes empty for more than 6 months in a calendar year would be subject to a 1% tax on the value of the home—$10,000 a year on a $1 million house, for example. The tax would start in January, 2023, based on occupancy in 2022.
There will be exemptions for snowbirds, the sick and recently deceased, and homes undergoing renovations.
We’re almost done. There have been three cases of COVID in the past 21 days in Weston.
I could be wrong, but I think that’s the lowest case count we’ve had since the pandemic started.
Weston has been one of the hardest-hit neighbourhoods in Toronto. More than 12% of the population here caught the virus, the seventh-highest rate of all the neighbourhoods in the city.