“Public Service” — easier said than done part 6
Forgive me if I momentarily return to the topic of the perils of business people getting involved in public service activities (see prior representative posts “Lies, Damn Lies, and municipal politics” Aug 24-09 and “‘Public Service’ — easier said than done part 5 June 4-09″)…but this will just take a moment.
If you want just a glimpse of the challenges faced in trying to manage a 71 year-old airport, here is today’s vignette. The folks who want to shut down the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport have been lobbying the City of Toronto’s Board of Health. It seems that an airport next door to Etobicoke, Mississauga and Brampton is just fine for the people who live there, but there’s something particularly unhealthy about there being one beside the Toronto Harbour.
Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy attended the Board of Health meeting, and heard a fellow by the name of Max Moore advise the committee that:
“We have a little bit of Haiti everyday living by the Toronto Island airport,” he said chuckling cheekily at the idea of comparing their perceived inconvenience for choosing to live near the Island airport to the horrors of thousands dying in Haiti.
According to an independent study done last year by Jacobs Consulting, which was shared with community representatives by the TPA last Fall, there is lower noise decibel peak from a Porter Q400 taking off or landing than there is from a motorcycle on Queen’s Quay, or even the City of Toronto’s own Wards Island ferry horn. As for health concerns, what’s that thing called that snakes along the Waterfront for miles and operates day and night? Oh right, the Gardiner Expressway.
Are you as galled as I am that someone would compare the impact of a small commuter airport to the potential loss of 200,000 Haitian lives?
MRM
(disclosure – this blog, as always, reflects a personal opinion; and in no way represents the views of our firm, the TPA, its Board/Staff or the federal government)
Public Meetings are not the time for perspective. Only the irrational survive.
I don’t know which is worse, Mr. McQueen, the hairshirt you wear as a Board Member of the TPA or that as a financial adviser, you read the Sun!
Thanks for stopping by, Ms. Keele.
Don’t slag The Sun for having the courage to report on “wing nuts” who advise Toronto’s Board of Health that there is a parallel between a 71 year old commuter airport in Toronto and a 7.0 earthquake that has killed 200,000 people in Haiti. For a City with a $500 million budget deficit, you probably can appreciate why the Sun’s concerned that tax dollars being spent on such hearings.
As for my reading material, there is a diversity to it…this is true.
MRM
Galled? Indeed. Surprised? No. The cottage industry of anti-YTZers cobbles on, despite the verdict provided daily by the free market.