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Frontlines CITYSCAPE
GREENSPACE ’DOZED FOR SPADINA LRT
Residents of the Bloor-Spadina area are once again taking aim at Metro over construction of the Spadina LRT, this time because of the destruction of part of a popular local patch of greenspace, along with all the trees that had been planted on it.
Located just below the southeast corner of Bloor and Spadina, the area in question is a small parkette equipped with benches and tables that provided a popular, verdant summer outdoor lunch area.
The parkette and all the trees in it have been removed while construction continues at Bloor and Spadina, something Metro transportation department spokesperson Tom Mulligan blames on the LRT, adding that the transit commission intends to rebuild the parkette once construction is done.
But TTC spokesperson Rick Holly concedes that the replacement will be much smaller in size because of Metro’s decision to install new dedicated right-turn lanes as part of the construction work. Holly says the lanes used to exist there but were removed in order to build the parkette in the first place.
Joan Doiron, of the Sussex-Ulster Residents Association, says Metro did the deed before residents were given a chance to voice their opinions. Doiron says her group and its allies at the Huron-Sussex Residents Association are planning a campaign aimed at Metro councillors that will push for the greenspace’s restoration.
“They just came in with their chainsaws without telling anyone,” she says.                  – GLENN COOLY
ECOLOGY
TORIES CASH IN ON OLD GROWTH
The long-standing battle over world-renowned Temagami, with its stands of ancient pine, is revving up again following the June 20 announcement that the Tories are opening the region to more logging and mining.
According to environmentalists, the areas designated include fragile old-growth stands, and they are vowing to revive the dramatic direct action campaign of seven years ago.
Says Dan McDermott, executive director of Earthroots, “There are any number of tactics we might use — tree-sitting and blockading of equipment, for example.”
But the Tory government says protesters are missing the point. According to Michel Payen-Dumont of the ministry of natural resources, there will be no clearcutting. “We’re going to go in there and we’re going to select species that are ready for cutting and that are not old growth themselves,” he says.
Earthroots, however, has no faith in such reassurances. For the last month, the organization has been training people in civil disobedience techniques. On Thursday (August 8) at 6 pm, at 519 Church, its subcommittee — the Temagami Action Group hosts a meeting to discuss resistance plans. Call 599-0152 for information.
– ALI SHARIFF
JUSTICE
THREE STRIKES STRIKING OUT
The anything-but-liberal Rand Corporation has pulled the rug out from under law-and-order extremists with a new study arguing that when it comes to decreasing crime, the carrot is just as effective, but far less costly, than the stick.
Released earlier this month, the U.S. think tank’s study compared California’s three-strikes sentencing policy — offenders get an automatic life sentence with their third conviction — with preventive programs aimed at young people who are considered a high crime risk.
The most successful one is a pilot project offering youths up to $7,500 in stipends, plus matching scholarship funds, for taking part in extra-curricular studies and community activities while in high school.
Rand researchers concluded that the pilot project is just as effective when it comes to preventing crime and comes in at about one-fifth the cost of three-strikes, which has a price tag of close to $5.5 billion a year in California.
Graham Stewart, executive director of the John Howard Society of Ontario, says the Rand study demonstrates that more punitive measures are a dead end. “The conclusions (in the study) are not very surprising.” “You don’t have to work in the prison system for very long to realize that it’s futile to keep spending money to lock more people up.”              – GC
POLICE
FANTINO SUBDUES INTERNET NEEDLER
Self-described “Internet god” Joe Baptista was brought down to earth, so to speak, on Friday (June 28) when a judge awarded his nemesis, London police chief Julian Fantino, $40,000 in libel damages.
The judge found that Baptista libeled Fantino in three separate instances.
They include an e-mail communication by Baptista to a friend, a letter faxed to a number of police forces and material submitted by Baptista to the privacy commissioner in a freedom of information hearing last year.
Fantino’s lawyer, Renato Gasparotto, says the communications amounted to suggesting that Fantino is an “asshole” and “crooked.”
The judge also awarded Fantino — who was seeking $1.5 million in damages — legal costs and granted an injunction “that basically prevents Baptista from communicating anything about chief Fantino by way of Internet or facsimile,” Gasparotto says.
An unrepentant Baptista, meanwhile, says his issue is no longer with Fantino but with the courts.
“The courts have shut me out,” he says.
Baptista is referring to the fact that the judge agreed to fast-track a judgment instead of calling a full trial.
– ENZO Di MATTEO

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DARYL JUNG
DANFORTH DREAMS FLY HIGH IN JULY
As I sit in my office late on Canada Day evening, the bombast and shrieking of fireworks audible even over the whir of the air conditioner and the traffic cacophony of the Danforth, tears well up in my eyes and a lump threatens my throat.
I’m thinking ahead to Thursday, the “Fourth Of July” where I come from, envisioning yet again my family, friends and various and sundry loved ones relaxing around barbecues, bars and bonfires, luxuriating without me on that precious summer day off when you can at least pretend that being American is something to be proud of. But there’s an extra charge this time around, as I realize that 15 years ago today — July 1, 1981 — I came to Canada and, rather inadvertently, the next day, became a founding staffer at NOW.
I was the first body to actually go to work here, a then illegal alien just out of grad school in the Midwest who was absolutely thrilled at, and who not for a moment doubted, the prospect of Canada’s Village Voice being churned out of this empty — save one phone, one desk, one typewriter and one wastebasket — three-bedroom second-floor apartment on the south side of a street they called “the” something.
Weeks later, a dozen of us were hysterically scrambling to put out an alternative newsweekly — writing, editing, proofing, pasting up, bill-collecting, delivering and countless other details that relentlessly revealed themselves — devouring 48 beers in production on Wednesday nights, joints and cigarettes dangling from our mouths, finishing our beloved 24-page product by 6 am if we were lucky.
We slept and ate with each other — often in the office. We screamed at each other, we supported and loved one another until... a whirlwind 14-and-change years later, a 200-page issue. Four or five of us are still here.
Looking back, it’s been like a dream that continues to come true. But I’m bewildered by the fact that I’m still delighted, if not obsessed, with operating on the edge, which — believe me — on this job, you do. With alarming regularity.
I guess I’m just a small-town boy from Iowa, and that’s all I’ll ever be.