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Riverdale Farm free no more?

The mayor’s budget chief signalled Monday he wants Riverdale Farm to charge a small fee to all its visitors. Supporters of the historic agricultural attraction say he’s putting the cart before the horse.

Riverdale Farm, currently free-of-charge, was one of the many subjects of heated debate earlier this year when during the mayor’s core service review process, consultants recommended it either be sold off to a private company or shut completely. Backlash from Riverdale supporters was fierce, and ultimately council unanimously voted to save the farm and directed the grassroots Riverdale Farm Coalition to work with city staff to come up with a long-term business plan for it.

The coalition is expected to report back to the city in the spring of 2012, but on Monday budget chief Mike Del Grande appeared to bypass that process by tabling a motion at a budget committee meeting that would see every visitor to the farm charged a $2.00 fee.

“There are a lot of things that occur in the city of Toronto and to charge a nominal fee in order to keep Riverdale zoo going, I don’t think is the end of the world,” Del Grande said after the meeting.

But Anne Pastuszak, a member of the Riverdale Farm Coalition, says Del Grande’s motion threatens to derail a process that’s already been approved by council.

“It’s absolutely jumping the gun and it’s really giving people the wrong idea,” she said. “In some ways it’s undermining what city council voted for by giving the coalition the green light to come up with a business plan.”

Pastuszak says she’s been in close contact with staff at the city’s parks and recreation department, and was planning to put forth a proposal to ensure the long-term financial stability of the farm by June of 2012. She won’t rule out the possibility that the coalition will recommend user fees as a revenue source, but insists it’s too early to single out any options.

“We are systematically looking at all the possibilities,” she said. “What we will come back to the city with in our business plan, will be that which gives them the best return on investment. To jump to say that a $2.00 user fee is a great idea is completely not in the process.”

Del Grande’s motion will be voted on at the budget wrap-up meeting that starts Friday, and if approved would still be subject to approval by city council.

A trip to Riverdale Farm wasn’t the only city service that councillors tried to attach a fee to on Monday. Del Grande also moved to charge swimmers a toonie for drop-in visits to outdoor pools, and Councillor Michelle Berardinetti put forth a controversial motion to look into charging library users to rent non-educational DVDs.

“I think that we should focus on literacy. It should be about reading books,” Berardinetti said of the Toronto Public Library’s services. She hopes that making users pay to rent out Hollywood movies could help stave off cuts to library hours, which are facing a seven per cent reduction next year in order to help the TPL meet Mayor Rob Ford’s target of reducing all city department budgets by 10 per cent.

Berardinetti said a $2.00 fee would probably be a good idea, but ultimately the amount charged should be up to the library board.

To implement DVD fees at libraries isn’t something the city can do on its own, however. It would require change to provincial legislation that currently stipulates Ontario public libraries can’t charge for their lending services.

Luckily for Berardinetti, she has the ear of the provincial government, or at least one of its members. Her husband is Liberal MPP Lorenzo Berardinetti, and the councillor says that she met with him and “a few” other unnamed MPPs Monday. She said the MPPs told her they would support changing the Ontario Public Libraries Act to allow for DVD charges.

Councillor Janet Davis was appalled that the city would ask Queen’s Park to loosen the legislation.

Free access to library materials “is a fundamental concept that has been in this statute for over 100 years,” Davis said. “If we, as the city of Toronto, lobby to open this Pandora’s box, to allow for charging of fees in libraries, it will set a precedent and right across this province you’ll begin to see basic things being charged for in libraries. It’s frightening what might happen if they in fact proceed in this direction.”

DVDs make up about nine per cent of the TPL’s collection. Speaking before the budget committee on Monday, chief librarian Jane Pyper said that the library attempts to strike an appropriate balance in the kind of material it collects.

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