Ward 16 race heating up

[attach]7577[/attach]UPDATE: Businessman Paul Spence, 52, has become a fifth candidate in the race to replace Karen Stintz in Ward 16. Transit, development and rent control will be his main issues, the Yonge and Eglinton area resident says, adding that he’s building on experience.

“Ward 16 is where I eat when I get out, it’s where I get my hair cut, where I work out, where I take my dog to the park, so a lot of concerns that I have are concerns that residents of Ward 16 have as well,” he tells the Town Crier.

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The race to replace Karen Stintz as Ward 16 councillor is heating up, and the fourth candidate to declare was a senior advisor to Stintz in her former position as TTC chair.

J.P. Boutros, who resigned his position on Feb. 25 about a week after Stintz vacated her role as head of the transit commission to launch her mayoralty campaign, is up against municipal lawyer Adam Tanel, fire and security officer Michael Coll and project manager Christin Carmichael Greb in the competition for the Eglinton-Lawrence council seat.

Boutros, 41, who lives in the riding with his wife and son, told the Town Crier the experience of the last four years makes him the right candidate for the job.

“I’ve been at the centre of every major decision the city has had to make and, frankly, the province as well,” he said, referring to transit issues. “There are very few people who are non-incumbents who can have both the knowledge and skillset to be an advocate at city hall, know their neighbours and be able to bridge both.”

Like Boutros, Carmichael Greb and Tanel are launching political campaigns for the first time.

Coll ran for the Ward 16 seat in 2010, finishing third with slightly less than 10 percent of the vote.

Boutros, who is also a member of the Eglinton Park Residents’ Association, says transit and the role of the Ontario Municipal Board in new developments will be focal points of his campaign. He wants to look at the feasibility of having a separate municipal board for Toronto, especially considering the prospect of Yonge and Eglinton “turning into Yonge and Bloor in 20 years.”

“We have to plan this out the right way and we have to do it now,” he said. “You don’t get second chances at this.

“We need to be masters of our own house. The OMB is such an anachronism.”

Development pressures is also a major issue for Tanel, 28, who says he has worked on at least 10 cases involving municipalities facing development or zoning issues.

“I think having some municipal-law experience is something lacking on current city council, and that’s something I would like to change,” he said.

Tanel, who lives just outside of Ward 16 with his wife Lauren, said he’s been “profoundly disappointed” with city hall in the last four years and doesn’t think there has been sufficient progress on “the big files.”

“I’m not going to sit on the sidelines anymore and just complain about our city not making progress,” he said. “I think it’s time to
get into the fray and move our city forward.”

Carmichael Greb, a 36-year-old married mother of two who grew up in North Toronto, lists public transit and gridlock, development, and community issues as figuring prominently in her platform.

“The decisions that are being made today are the decisions that will affect the city my children will inherit,” she said in an earlier interview.