Dear Neighbour,
We need to move from the Toronto District School Board’s tired, old “can’t do” attitude to a “can do” attitude.
The old way of doing things has been for trustees to threaten school and pool closures when money is tight. In the worst cases trustees actually follow through on those threats, as they recently did in closing Arlington Middle School. That’s the “can’t do” attitude.
I’ve modeled “can do” for all to see.
Just look at the Winona school pool. When the school board threatened to close this St. Paul’s pool, I took a leadership role in the community effort to keep the pool open as vice-chair of the St. Clair West Aquatics Club. We worked with our neighbours to create a sustainable financial model that for the first time in decades opened up that pool for community use on evenings, weekends and over the summer.
That’s not all.
As a director of the Toronto Public Library Board, I’ve played a leadership role in passing balanced budgets that enhance our local library branches and add more open hours without increasing costs thanks to technological innovation. And as president of Wychwood Open Door, a local drop-in serving homeless and socially isolated people, I have doubled that organization’s budget by leveraging money from private foundations with public funding.
That’s why “can do” isn’t empty rhetoric.
Having grown up and attended school in St. Paul’s, I am deeply committed to our community and hope you will support my candidacy with your vote on October 25.
Yours,
Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler
