As some of you may know, the City has been consulting with communities on changes to ward boundaries. This is done periodically to ensure effective representation as the City grows. The final result will add one new ward to our City so it will go from 23 to 24 wards. The realignment will cause some changes on the south and west boundaries of Kitchissippi. Currently, those boundaries are Carling/the Queensway and Sherbourne. This will change to Carling and Denbury but there are also a few strange “jags.” See the map with the new boundaries: Westgate goes to Carlington Ward; McKeller Heights and McKeller Park go to Bay Ward; and a grouping of towers north of Richmond from Rochester Field to Dominion St. will also go to Bay Ward.
The Westboro Community Association advocated against this change; we participated in the City’s consultations, met with representatives of McKeller Park – which would be part of Bay Ward with the new boundary – and the Kitchissippi “K9” group, an organization of all CA’s in our ward, and of course, expressed our concerns to Jeff Leiper. Both Jeff and Teresa Kavanagh, the Bay Ward councillor, presented a motion to the Finance and Economic Development Committee – the committee that approves the new boundaries – to keep the boundaries as is. However, they did not succeed and new boundary will be implemented.
What does that mean for the Westboro CA? Well, CA’s are not required to change their borders when the City changes ward boundaries, so those streets within our jurisdiction that move to Bay Ward stay with us: they will have a different councillor. So Westboro will have two councillors. This is not uncommon in the City: there are several CA’s that have two councillors. Time will tell if any further changes will be made. The first election with the new boundaries will be 2022.
Read Jeff’s take on this here.
https://kitchissippiward.ca/content/mckellar-park-and-ward-boundary-review