We just received the below from Toronto Police. Wednesday's Community Safety walk is now postponed.
"The Waterfront Neighbourhood Community Officers want to ensure we are responsive to community concerns and needs. Part of our strategy is to use small community meetings to hear from the people most affected by crime and disorder in their neighbourhoods.
Like we do in our other areas of the division, we take part in community walks to ensure that voices are being heard. Community walks are very focused, and are best done in small groups to ensure they remain productive. We are committed to working with the community, and these walks have been very successful when done properly.
We set a community meeting for this week, but frankly it has now become a much larger event through sharing and now includes media and politicians. While I respect both of these groups, the reality is that the meeting will no longer be small enough to stay focused. Equally, we risk not being able to hear the very voices we are seeking. We have also received some feedback that the timing of the meeting would exclude some from attending.
To address these concerns, we are going to postpone this meeting. We will reach out to ensure that local residents and businesses are able to take part at a re-scheduled date. We may need to conduct multiple meetings in order to keep them small enough to be effective. We would like to ensure that every business or condo building has a representative if they choose to take part.
To be clear, our purpose is to address crime and disorder issues in the general neighbourhood. It is our intention to re-schedule this event with sufficient planning so that one (1) individual from each of the various local residents and businesses can be invited to represent their concerns.
We apologize for the delay, and look forward to re-organizing this event to touch base with the Waterfront community soon."
