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The outcry, while present,
over the Old Mill proposal flared here and there
but didn't spread far beyond the parochial Etobicoke universe--being more
schmaltzy than sexy, the Old Mill as cause celebre didn't lend itself to
major press coverage. And besides, for economic or whatever reasons the
proposal remained dormant for a number of years. But finally--suddenly,
and under an odd stealthy cloud of underreportage--construction started in
the spring of 2000.
And in the significant meantime, as a result of municipal amalgamation a
new LACAC structure, under the umbrella of the newly formed Toronto
Preservation Board, had taken effect. If the LACAC situation in Etobicoke
had been bad before, at least there was a kind of gravitas--though had the
status quo carried into the TPB era, it might have appeared as a
McMichaelesque rogue conservative element. But amazingly, nobody from the
former EHB/LACAC volunteered for the new LACAC Panel--they either went
straight to the newly separate Montgomery's Inn board, or retired. It was
as if they knew they weren't up to the task. But to make matters worse, if
there was any serious effort to will other interested, capable community
members into LACAC volunteership (and surely, the previous board or EHS or
councillors or other individuals must have had the broadbased
"connections"), it failed utterly--from all appearances, Etobicoke's
"heritage community" was a vacuum, a nullity, a dead zone. Out of 300,000
residents--zilch.
The result was pathetic, catastrophic, even scandalous: only three people
initially applied for the Etobicoke Community LACAC Panel, with two more
shoehorned in later to make a bare quorum. Not only were they completely
green, all new to Etobicoke heritage organizations--or even to a basic,
elementary comprehension of what a LACAC was supposed to do; our only
qualification seems to have been that "we applied", regardless of our
merits--but only one (myself) was even an Etobicoke resident! (One more
subsequently moved to one of the Motel Strip condominiums.) We were
rootless, aimless, devoid of adequate assistance, fringey dregs stumbling
along as an accident of fate--like the Bob Rae NDP government, we could
easily be labelled as "Clampetts". And by the end of 2000, consumed by our
ill-vetted quirks, we were on the brink of tragic, but nearly inevitable
self-immolation.
In light of the impossible scorched-earth situation, it was incredible
that we achieved, in our naive by-defaulty way, what we did--more,
constructively, perhaps than many other Toronto LACACs, which in spite of
having a more "rooted" and cream-of-the-croppy membership were left in
virtual paralysis by the continuing Heritage Toronto/TPB turmoil. And if,
as seems possible, even probable, the ill-set Etobicoke LACAC bone has to
be rebroken in order to heal properly, it is hoped that those critical
lessons and new foundations, courtesy of our unlikely, doomed motley crew,
are built upon rather than blithely discarded.
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