THE BEACH BLUES
As the city approaches the 2016 budget season, daily raking of beaches does not look like a priority,
During warmer months, Marawan El-Asfahani and his children love swimming in Lake Ontario and hanging out at Kew-Balmy Beach near the family’s east-end home. “We have a phenomenal set of beaches in the city, and not only that, they’re Blue Flag certified too,” he said of the international eco-award given to beaches meeting stringent water quality, environmental and safety standards.
But the Toronto branding specialist also said it’s not uncommon to stumble across debris in the coarse sand. It’s one of the reasons he would like the city to start grooming all swimming beaches daily, treating them as a valued public asset and “core destination” for residents and tourists alike.
“For three quarters of a million dollars — when compared to all the other things we’re spending our money on — I think we’re all going to benefit from that, not just the community, the city as a whole,” he said.
El-Asfahani shouldn’t hold his breath.
Next week, Toronto’s 2016 budget season kicks into gear when councillors begin debating and prioritizing the coming year’s spending and revenue plans and priorities.
The city is facing severe fiscal challenges. Staff have presented an operating budget that comes up $57.4 million short, along with another $67 million in previously identified priorities including repairs to social housing and new spending for a council-endorsed poverty reduction plan.
For months, budget committee chair Gary Crawford has been meeting with representatives of 35 agencies, departments and divisions “to talk about their priorities.” He has also been setting the stage publicly for the annual financial showdown over the $11-billion budget.
He has talked about the “difficult decisions” ahead and stressed the need to keep property taxes at or below the rate of inflation — one of Mayor John Tory’s key promises.
“The 2016 budget is about achieving the right balance between being fiscally prudent and making targeted investments in our priorities, emergency services, poverty reduction, vulnerable citizens, transit and a continued commitment to the arts,” Crawford said in mid-December.
On several occasions, the soft-spoken Scarborough councillor has also made clear raking the sand on Toronto swimming beaches each day does not top his priority list.
“From my perspective, we don’t need to be grooming beaches daily, three to five (times) is probably enough a week,” he told the executive committee, of which he is a member, last fall.
Two weeks ago, Tory also raised the subject while answering questions about the looming budget.
“For my money I will not be supporting having the beaches groomed 11 times a week, instead of three to four,” Tory said.
So why all this talk about clean sand — a subject, ostensibly, on no one’s radar?
Last June, the parks and environment committee asked staff to re- port on “business cases for proposed service standard changes by Parks, Forestry and Recreation.”
In September, the department’s general manager presented the parks committee with a report that, among other things, recommended daily grooming of 11 swimming beaches, requiring $736,000 in funding (on top of the $2.5 million the city already spends annually on beach maintenance, including waterfowl management and waste disposal.)
“Beach grooming removes pollution such as seaweed, fish, glass, syringes, plastic, cans, wood and other unwanted debris from large areas of sand,” the parks report said.
This week, Matthew Cutler, public relations manager with the parks department, said there are sound reasons for wanting to clean Toronto beaches every day.
“We can’t clean all of the beaches at 6 a.m. We’re using equipment that has to rove from beach to beach so we may not fully finish grooming the beaches until 2 in the afternoon. The byproduct of that is the beaches, on a hot summer day, fill up, so if we don’t get to Ward’s Island by 8 a.m., we may not be able to groom it that day.”
The Blue Flag designation is also important to the city, he notes.
“For my money I will not be supporting having the beaches groomed 11 times a week, instead of three to four.” MAYOR JOHN TORY
In the end, parks staff didn’t bring beach grooming forward as a recommended item, though the budget committee, and ultimately council, could still add it in, Cutler said.
Sheila Block, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said daily beach grooming may sound like a frill, but it’s anything but.
“It’s about the quality of life for residents of Toronto and it’s also about how appealing it is as a tourism centre so the beaches are one of our one big main attractions. If they’re covered in garbage . . . that’s what beach grooming means, picking up the garbage,” she said this week.
Tory’s campaign promise not to raise property taxes above inflation is a commitment that has “really boxed the mayor into a corner.” A property tax increase of 4.5 per cent would raise an additional $170 million and make a real difference, Block said.
Council could also reconsider bigticket spending commitments on items such as the controversial $3.5billion Scarborough subway extension or even Tory’s signature SmartTrack surface rail plan.
“Beach grooming is not big enough to solve the problems,” she said.