As we indicated in our recent blog post, DECA posed the same questions to every Ward 19 City Councillor candidate with a published email address (on the city election website). We are publishing their replies in the order that we receive them.
Meet: Frank Marra
1. What makes you the best person to represent the Danforth East area?
As a lifelong Toronto resident I have watched the City grow in spurts but never until recently have I witnessed such deep internal divisions on City Council to the point where political platitudes are the rule and residents suffer and the City bogs down. I don’t have any fixed political affiliation or inclination, which is exactly what I think residents of the Ward need, someone without a fixed agenda, someone willing to listen to, learn from and act on all of the concerns of residents, from the minor to the momentous.
It is my pledge that I am your representative first, last and always and I will not let ideology get in the way of serving residents. That is what I believe makes me the best person to represent Danforth East, a willingness to engage in and promote community input and idea sourcing from residents.
2. What do you think is the most pressing issue for this area, and what is your plan to address it?
It isn’t entirely clear which is the most pressing issue in the area but clearly there is great concern with gun violence, housing affordability and development as well as transit in its numerous forms.
I would rank development and transit as topmost as they are more directly impactful issues to more residents on a daily basis. Improvements in public transit in our ward have been mostly pinned to a Downtown Relief Line which can’t come soon enough to the area, however that is a long way away and more immediate solutions are needed. If elected, I would be pressing the TTC to advance and complete the improvements to track signaling which are touted to provide decreased travel times and capacity at peak hours as congestion is frequently raised as a concern in our community. With four subway stops within our Ward, the operation and continued improvement of service schedules is a great interest/concern to area residents. I would support the TTC in maintaining and expanding transit improvements that affect our ward residents.
In tandem with that is the Avenue designation of the Danforth for increased density which will not only bring increased numbers of residents into the community but also more pressure on our already stretched infrastructure, including the TTC and our road network. I am proposing that we step back from headlong development along Danforth to better examine what the infrastructure capacities can reasonably sustain or what investments need to be in place in advance to avoid unmanaged growth in
our area which can only lead to the degradation of the quality of life that may be had. Social housing has to be a vital part of that plan also after too long a period of neglect by the City.
3. Who do you support for mayor, and why?
This election brings with it a brand new dynamic between Council and the Mayor due to its reduced size and increased workload. For that reason alone the Mayor should be someone who can and does more directly engage with Council and residents in an open and transparent manner. This is not what we have seen from John Tory on most issues and I can’t honestly support him this time around. The City needs a new style of leadership that will both stimulate and challenge Council to dig in and get things done, the days of a less than a full time commitment of Council and the Mayor are gone. Delay upon delay is what we’ve seen from John Tory and I see no way for that to improve in this election.
I think Jennifer Keesmat is the better choice although she too has some baggage that is of concern, namely her time as the Chief Planner of the City. All in all though I think she has more energy and commitment to advancing matters in the City that does not involve the many distractions our current Mayor engages in such as the giant downtown park proposal and the frequent junkets out of country which bring little to nothing back with him.
4. DECA took the position that changing the ward boundaries during the election was undemocratic. What do you think about that?
I’ve expressed numerous times that I feel that the move to a 25 seat Council was very poorly timed and bound to rather needlessly cause concern among residents as an undemocratic attack on proper and effective representation of residents. However, as the process unfolded I became rather more optimistic that it is good for the City but not for the usually raised reason of being money saving. I don’t believe it will actually save money at all but it is a great opportunity for residents to really weight the worth of
their vote and to whom it shall go this election. Because of the increased size of the new wards, more people will come to be represented by one voice alone and no voter should now be casually casting their vote for anyone who stands behind ideology alone. Ideological rigidness and sloganeering is exclusionary and divisive and won’t serve the City or residents at all and is something I don’t practice.
This election cannot be a proxy for the last Provincial election however strong that temptation may be in a voter’s mind. This election demands that your representative be committed to the community, engaged and available and practice a true spirit of fraternity with voters.
5. We expect that our area will see a lot of development in the next four years. What do you think about that?
As touched on above I think development in the area needs to be tempered with a thorough examination of potential development sites and projected densities against the existing and/or required infrastructure. Doing less than that promises to bring problems and community upset that would be fruitless. As has been seen with the Woodbine Bike Lanes, true consultation is a worry and not always performed well by the City. I would insist on the widest possible level of community engagement/consultation for all major development matters in the Ward so that any development is thoughtful and considerate of the community. Most development should be geared toward the suggested scale of 6-8 storeys, perhaps a bit less, and no more as that would detract from the feel of the
street, setbacks as they currently stand should be maintained. Structures that encroach on the sidewalk like the LCBO on Coxwell are out of scale with the street and are not necessary to any foreseeable development in our ward. Our sidewalks are our greatest asset on Danforth and elsewhere in the ward and should be preserved whatever future development may bring.
6. How will you contribute to a more diverse and representative Council?
As a straight white male I can’t claim to be “diverse”, either racially or sexually, but I can say that having come from a large ethnic family of 8 children I do have a strong sense of the challenges and struggles that diverse people face, the greatest being ignorance and fear. My upbringing was not privileged and that has led me to be open to relating to others point of view and experience. My outlook is that everyone starts out as an equal and has the right to be who they are. This is what I defend and practice as a core value everyday and that will inform the decisions that would come before me as Councillor. I
support City programs and policies that promote diversity in all its forms. As to being representative, it is not about symbols for me but about the reward of service to the community and the City in being fully informed and invested and to making smart decisions both in the ward and on Council. As stated earlier, a smaller Council means there is no place to hide and our smart electorate will see through anything that is disingenuous or distracting.
Being representative to me means being a facilitator of the community’s wants and desires, being objective, honest and informed on the basis for a decision being sound or not, in short, being a sincere positive contributor on Council.
(No contact information was provided)
