A comment regarding Monday’s Planning meeting.
I hope you got a little rest last night after a long and difficult meeting.
I appreciate your leadership and your can-do attitude to try and find constructive solutions for all parties. Notwithstanding perceptions to the contrary, this remains our strong desire as well. We are willing to collaborate and meet with whomever, whenever on this matter. Your suggestion of a facilitated discussion I think is a particularly good one and needs to be followed up on. To that end, I have initiated a call to the LHIN this morning to see if they will work with City staff to bring the parties together with a facilitator in an effort to find common ground. I have a provided a few names of potential facilitators who understand long term care and have excellent mediation/facilitation skills. Others may have additional names and we are open to ideas. Hopefully with LHIN and City oversight and skilled facilitation we can collectively make progress which has eluded us to date.
In addition, I will be sending written correspondence to City staff and Council members to clarify a raft of misinformation from last night. One of the significant ones is that Riverside has been knowingly misleading the City about these two uses for several years (begging for forgiveness rather than permission). This is patently not true and I look forward to providing clear information on this item and several others so that facts rather than misinformation can be considered by Council. Stating untruths repeatedly does not make them truths.
If you would like to discuss this matter with me at any time, please do not hesitate to contact me. JS