My Neighborhood: Ajax, Ontario
By Justin Behan
LOCATION
The
town of Ajax is located in the Durham Region of Ontario, Canada on the eastern
part of the Greater Toronto Area. There are approximately around 110,000 people
living in Ajax today and the town is bordered by Pickering and Whitby and is on
the shore of Lake Ontario.
HISTORY
The
town was named after a Royal Navy cruiser that served in World War II, called
the HMS Ajax. The town of Ajax was first established back in 1941 as a military
town that offered jobs to thousands of people. The Defence Industries Limited
(DIL) owned a bombshell and people from all over Canada would come to work
there to assist the war. Ajax had schools, a sewage plant and homes and became
over time, a very large community and is still growing today.
LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
Ajax
has a few attractions for the public such as conversations like Rotary Park,
Duffin’s Creek and the Greenwood Conservation Area. These places offer public
playgrounds, trails, fishing and dog parks and also host big and small events
and even picnics. The three community centers are The Mclean Community Centre
(MCC), located in the North end of Ajax, and in the South end of Ajax there is
the Ajax Community Centre. The newest community center in the town is the
Audley Recreation Centre (ARC) which is located just at the border of Ajax and
Whitby on Audley road. There are skate parks at each community center as well
as libraries, indoor swimming pools, outdoor splash pads, hockey/skating areas,
gyms and offer dance lessons and other activities for people of all ages.
LOCAL PROBLEMS/ISSUES
There
aren’t many issues in Ajax, unlike cities closer to Toronto. It’s a small
suburb area so the only real problems we have are small petty crimes like theft
and small robberies. There are a lot of drugs in Ajax, but no matter where you
go there’s going to be drug related crimes and issues. Majority of the crimes
that happen in Ajax are related to marijuana and young adults. Aside from that,
it’s pretty rare for anything bad to happen in the community. Ajax is one of
the safest towns in the GTA, for sure. One problem is facing right now is the
amount of algae and stench coming from Lake Ontario. The smell gets worse every
year and the public is starting to question the town on how to get rid of this
problem.
CURRENT NEWS STORY
People
living near the shoreline of Lake Ontario aren’t happy about the amount of
algae that has built up over the years. It’s smelt terrible for a long time
already but the public is finally acting upon this and demanding it be dealt
with. There has been open house council meetings to discuss how they are going
to act upon this. The plan is to extend the outfall pipe out farther into the
Lake Ontariio by at least 3 kilometres rather than the one kilometer. The only
problem with this is that it will cost between $200 - $250 million. Another
problem is that this would make the lake even more polluted than it is now.
What could happen in the ne next 30 years once the 3 kilometre extension is no
longer enough? This is an issue they are going to need to look further into and
make wise decisions.
LOCAL PROFILE
Erick
Valentic has been one of my really good friends for a long time now and he has
accomplished quite a lot since I’ve known him. Erick is a skateboarder who was
born and raised in Ajax. Erick is a 19 year old film maker who owns his own
company that I also help out with, called Minor
Media which started back in 2006. A lot of attention was first brought to
Erick after he and his crew of friends entered a contest on a very popular
skateboarding website called The Berrics (www.theberrics.com).
Erick and his crew ended up winning out of over 1200 videos entered across the
entire world and won a trip to go skate the privately owned skatepark and film
their own video there. Since then, Minor Media has attracted fans from all over
the world and to this day continues to put out videos to showcase everybody in
the crew’s skateboarding. Erick remains living in Ajax but has hopes to move
out to California and continue film making out where the industry for
skateboarding is bigger and full of opportunity.
Here
is Erick’s contest entry as well as the final outcome of the award.
