Flying Squirrels

A week ago, I wrote a piece about eagles soaring over Salsbury Park. Today I was sitting on a bench at the same park. The bench is positioned between two good-sized trees.  At the very top of each tree was a squirrel, one black, the other gray.

They were chasing each other — playfully, it seemed — leaping from one tiny springy twig to the next, from one tree to the next. Back and forth, up and down.

I guess it wasn’t quite as awesome as the eagles, but it sure was entertaining.

Night Music: Money For Nothing

Only Greed Requires Towers

In case you haven’t seen it already, I would urge you to visit the No Tower Coalition site where they have begun the discussion about alternative futures for the Commercial/Venables/Adanac site.  That’s where Boffo Properties wants to erect a monumental mass — three towers totalling 30 storeys, nearly all for high-priced condos.

More than 3,600 people have signed the petition against a tower on that site, but those who seek to extract the largest possible profit from our popular, dense, and successful neighbourhood refuse to listen.

What’s even more intolerable, frankly, is the attitude of the Kettle Friendship Society who have been stitched onto this project — lipstick on a pig, some might say — as the social “face”, the excuse that the Vision majority on Council needs to override community concerns and up-zone the neighbourhood without our consent.

You might hope (in vain, it seems) that the Kettle which has been so admirably supported by the community for four decades might support the community this once, and start looking at community-acceptable alternatives to get them their needed expansion. But no; they have become Boffo’s noisy lapdogs, barking madly at anyone who doesn’t agree with them. That’s unfortunate. Regardless of how this plays out, the Kettle will need to expend a great deal of political capital to regain the trust of the people in Grandview.

Once again, please visit the No Tower site and perhaps add your ideas and suggestion for what would best suit that slice of publicly-owned land.