Hello petition supporters,

I'm contacting you now in hopes you will take a some time out of your busy schedules during March Break to prepare an email to be sent to City Council prior to their meeting March 25-27. Once the agenda is published on March 20, a link will be provided to the public so our voices can be heard. It's vital we flood council with our reasons/justifications for having THYC removed from the Humber. Please include your personal experiences with the club (interactions with members on & off the water, observations of the clubs treatment of the property they occupy and the river as a whole etc). As soon as the link is available to submit emails to council I will send an update. Please note anonymous submissions will not be considered and all submissions will become part of the public record.

It's clear THYC has hired a PR team to help "green" their image in order to hide the facts on the ground at the Governance Commmittee in what appeared to be a coordinated effort between THYC & certain council members to get a reprieve.

I received this in an email from a club representative:

"Vice Commadore of the Toronto Humber Yacht Club. I know you have had discussions in the past with our previous Commadore M. I also understand your views and opinions of our club. I'm reaching out today not to rehash previous concerns you've had, but to extend and olive branch and openly discuss how we can move forward with a productive discussion in developing constructive objectives. One thing we can both agree on is our love of the Humber River. With that, we are committed to change how THYC moves ahead with community involvement."

Of important note is the fact he wants to "extend an olive branch" but only if I and the community let of our past "concerns" (which still exist today) go. No suggestion is given as to how THYC will address remediating the damage they have done.  No mention of the damage to the shoreline they occupy by covering it over with hardscape to so they could erect gazebos. No mention of the increased hardscape laid to allow yacht club members closer parking to their slips in the summer and increase boat storage in winter. No mention of the 25-30 JetSki members plus the JetSki rental company which used the club as homebase last season.

The club members want to pretend they care about the community now because they realized their past actions just might have ramifications but they don't want to address or take any remediation efforts to undo the damage caused by their clubs unwanted and unapproved aggressive expansion between 2018-2025

Here is my response, to which I have not had a reply:

Hello W,

I'm not sure what your intent is in reaching out to me. I know your club has hired a consultant and PR team to represent your interests in Council and maybe they suggested you reach out to me so you can try to demonstrate your willingness to work with the community.

But to suggest we ignore previous concerns I had with the club even though those same concerns persist today seems disingenuous as does this apparent "effort" to collaborate".

It should be noted, in July of last year (you can refer to this article) Mark called a general meeting and suggested to club members they try to work with the community to come to a compromise. I had met with Mark prior and when he asked what steps could be taken to show the club was acting in good faith, I gave him two suggestions. When he brought the suggestions to the members:

"Attendees of the meeting, which included all club members, say it was loud and tense. In the end, Girimonte persuaded the club that Seenarine had charted the wrong course for lease renewal. They didn’t need to clean up their act. They need to get lawyers involved to pressure the local councillor."

After watching the travesty which took place at the GC meeting it's clear your strategy paid off, at least in the short term.

Also it's pretty easy to document the aggressive expansion the club undertook between 2018-2025. An expansion the community was unhappy with, TRC didn't approve of and the city wanted it halted. But instead of trying to work in collaboration with the community/TRC/TO your club chose a litigious approach and hired a lawyer who pointed out your actions were not expressly prohibited in the lease even though those actions were contradictory to the intent of the lease. Your previous commodore acknowledged his actions were controversial as well as acknowledging his aggressive behaviour toward community members with the audacity to complain.

As you've not suggested any concrete actions on the part of your club to address previous and existing concerns the community has with the club and its sense of entitlement not only to 101 Humber Valley Road but the river as a whole, I'm not sure how you feel we can work together. 

Setting up committees while taking no actions to undo any of your past acts seems to me to be a play to ensure you and your members can continue to act tomorrow exactly as you did yesterday.

Finally, I understand your desire to stay on the shores of the Humber, it is truly a beautiful river. But through your own actions since 2018 and your unwillnes to see and or address how those actions have negatively affected the community, fellow river users and the environment you have demonstrated your club members do not deserve the privilege of maintaining possession of such a beautiful piece of public land. You are not victims of some mean outside force, you are victims of the ramifications of your own behaviours. As such, even though the fight will be hard, I'm going to keep up my efforts to have your lease rejected.

Regards,