Morning Brew: Metrolinx chair responds warmly to Ford's subway plan, Toronto councillors weigh in on new graffiti website, Bell employees suing co-workers over lottery win, helicopter targeted by laser pointer, Kaberle trade reaction
Despite the doubts and criticism that some have directed toward Rob Ford's public/private financing plan for a Sheppard Avenue subway extension, Metrolinx Chair Rob Prichard has responded warmly to the idea. "It's ... impressive, I think, for the city to be stepping up as a partner and potentially bringing additional resources to the building of transit in the city," he said in his first comments since receiving the plan on Tuesday. That's not an official "yes" to the proposal, but if it does go through, Transportation City would shape up to include the subway extension in question, an underground Eglinton LRT from Jane to Kennedy Station, and an as of yet undetermined replacement for the Scarborough RT.
The Toronto Sun picked up our article from yesterday on a new website that documents graffiti and street art, but took it in a decidedly different direction by asking Toronto councillors whether they thought it could be of use to the City. When the site was brought to the attention of Councillor Cesar Palacio, he said the City might turn to it for help in clarifying its graffiti by-laws. But he also noted that he'd like something that updates in real-time so as to be able to determine which areas of the city need to be "cleaned up." By the way, thanks for the link back to our original story, guys.
In a turn of events that once again proves the wisdom of Biggy Smalls, nine Bell employees are suing 19 co-workers over their recent $50-million lottery win. And they might have pretty good reason to do so. The statement of claim basically boils down to the fact that they had been partners in the office pool since February or March 2010 for, as their lawyer says, "the purpose of joint participation in lottery draws....The whole arrangement in the group as you see from the statement of claim was such that they could pay up later. They were all partners," said lawyer Marek Tufma. If this can be proven, it sounds like a valid point of contention to me. Cue Biggy: Mo money, mo problems.
Another one of those laser-pointing incidents took place yesterday, wherein a boy in Richmond Hill targeted a helicopter flying near Bayview and Major Mackenzie. The pilots of the craft were able to pinpoint the source of the light, which eventually led police to confiscate the kid's laser pointer. Although pointing such lights at aircraft is against the law, insofar as the culprit is under 12 years old, no charges were laid. So that's the story, anyone want to take a look at this headline from the National Post and tell me what proves this took place on the Friday of a long weekend (publication time-stamp 4:33 pm).
IN BRIEF
Photo by Phil Marion in the blogTO Flickr pool.
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