Highlights and fisticuffs at the JUNCTION BIA meeting Thur, night

Last night at the Junction BIA General Meeting there was some some rallying and some floor-standing on both sides of the podium. A good outing of the issues is great, and the BIA has to be commended for allowing the public in so freely.  BIA’s are funded by a levy in addition to business property taxes calculated from the individual property tax and the whole  property tax base. They are great local take control of your issues organizations- in this case of the retail strip along Dundas  St. West in the Junction.

They also decided to partly fund the Junction Arts Festival this year with a little drop less, although as a non-profit, the group (JFAC) that runs the arts festival can double any BIA contribution to the Fest.  Undoubtedly the fest brings more people to the Junction than anything else, so funding the “visitor cow” would seem like an easy choice.

BUT not all of the Dundas Strip retail  and building owners turned up at the meeting, well common sense says if you are part of an organization – contribute.
There are now two good organizations in the Junction to help better the area, The BIA, which can be considered the community’s friend and the Junction Residents association which can be considered the community’s  tool.

Posted by Robert

Wondering how to get your local BIA’s info, ask them or get a community member to attend if it’s public. …pointing out that it appear fully  on the cities web site, that’s what we did.

Update January 19th 2009:  Original information provided by Junction Gardens BIA with amounts checked by examination of the Junction Gardens BIA budget filing with the City of Toronto.

BIA’s who supplied their  complete budgets and supporting documentation to the city by  by October 10, 2008 are available in this city document.

2009 Business Improvement Area Operating Budgets:
Report No. 1  Full report [opens in new window] This report contains the Junction Gardens Report.

Look for the section that is pictured to the right.

You can quickly find the budgets for any BIA in Toronto using Google

here is a search that finds the Emery Village BIA [Google search link  opens in new window]

or enter a string such as this into the Google search box {do not enter the brackets} [Parkdale Village  BIA budget site:Toronto.ca] this one  delivers the Parkdale Village  BIA budget.

Looking find other information about your local BIA simply substitute the word budget with a word or two that reflect your subject of interest, more than two or three words produces weak results …have fun