Wards

Ward 32 Beaches-East York

By Jamie Ngo, University of Toronto/Centennial College

Profile

The average family household income was $73,019, $3,894 more than Toronto's average. In terms of education, 42 per cent of the population attended university and 32.5 per cent graduated with a bachelor's degree or higher. Only 4.1 per cent of people were unemployed. Most families were couples with one to two children. Of the 24,390 households in the area, 27.7 per cent of dwellings were semi-detached houses, 26.1 per cent were apartment buildings less than five stories and 25.5 per cent were single-detached houses. About 54 per cent were owned.

The Beaches-East York area is diverse, made up of mainly English-, Chinese- and French-speaking communities. Mostly immigrants from China, Pakistan and the United Kingdom moved into the area from 1999 to 2001.

Campaign Snapshot

"I enjoy the campaign and presenting my record of strong results for our community and our city," Bussin said. "I believe my record of bringing many possible projects and initiatives to our ward are well received by my residents."

She's seen as a tough nut to crack.

"Definitely Sandra Bussin is my biggest competition," said Erica Maier, a first-time candidate for the election. "Last time she received 11,000 votes, which is a large amount of votes. We only have 20,000 people voting here and the next person down got about 5,000 votes."

Maier, 44, has worked for the Ministry of Health and volunteered for United Way and the Toronto Board of Education. She is currently on leave from Canada Post for the election.

Maier has several major issues she wants to focus on but emphasizes the areas of vandalism and crime.

"I am a local person and I am sick to death of graffiti, litter and breaking into cars," Maier said. "It's about putting a foot on this crime, on this petty crime. Regular crime is better in the city than ever before, but now this small stuff is cropping up."

Maier and returning candidate Donna Braniff, 51, both have similar plans to devise a way to have more police patrolling the streets.

"David Miller has said that 200 officers are out walking the streets, and I haven't seen any," Maier said.

Another candidate, Matt Williams also agrees that Bussin is his biggest opponent and that she has "a lot of support from her political affiliations."

Williams, 32, wants to focus on areas such as crime and traffic congestion, stressing on the area of government waste.

"Too many politicians in this city waste our time and money," Williams said. "Sandra Bussin had the highest office expenses of any city councillor in 2005. She managed to rack up $52,000 in office expenses. This is our tax money!"

Williams currently works in corporate sales at Carbon Computing. He also earned a diploma from Humber College in comedy, writing and performance and a post-graduate certificate in radio broadcasting.

Although Bussin is a threat to some candidates, Luca Mele, 22, calls himself his own opponent.

"The thing with politics is that we waste so much time, effort and energy when political parties and politicians are voting against each other, instead of working together and focusing on what they do best," Mele said. "I am my only opponent. I have the power to call it a day, or continue with my plans."

Mele is currently a singer with the band No Assembly Required, releasing its third CD in spring 2007.

Also running for councillor are Alan Burke, John Greer, William Gallos and John Lewis.

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