Councillor Chris Moise, having been admonished at an executive committee meeting for his aborted attempt to disband the volunteer leadership of a hockey rink, is instead seeking to replace the board – and has apparently nominated some of his political donors.
This follows a recent appearance at the city’s executive committee that saw Moise suddenly pull his plans to remove the Moss Park Arena board. Mayor Olivia Chow publicly thanked the arena’s volunteers and in an apparent rebuke of Moise, Councillor Josh Matlow told the committee “every bone in my body feels like this isn’t how we as a city should be engaging with volunteer boards.”
The new motion, which was seconded by Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie, will be considered by city council on Wednesday. It would remove the board’s chairman and vice-chairman and five of its six regular members, two of whom joined the board just last month.
Only three people would continue to serve with the board. One of the remaining trio would be Moise, who board chairman Andy Marcus has complained rarely attends meetings.
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The other two are delegates for the skating club and the arena’s house league. The former has less than two years in that role. The latter, April Hodgins, joined in December and was singled out by Moise in a letter to the executive committee as “inspiring.”
Karin Fritzlar, who vice-chairs the board, told The Toronto Sun that lack of “continuity” would be disastrous for the arena.
“You’d have an entire board that would have no background, no experience, nothing,” she said.
It’s unclear what Moise would gain from the move, although there is acrimony between him and members of the board. Moise has complained of the board’s “resistance” to his ideas, while Marcus told the Sun that Moise has treated them “like crap.”
At the executive committee, Moise brought up roughly $500,000 in recent emergency funding for the crumbling hockey barn. He has also expressed frustration with cleanliness and disrepair, and a desire for greater “equity.”
Neither Moise nor McKelvie responded to requests for comment.
At least two of those nominees share names with two of Moise’s recent political donors. Fabiano Medugno gave Moise $250 for the 2022 campaign, and a Christopher Matthews gave $200 for his TDSB run in 2018, municipal election records show.
Moise presented another nominee, Ines Garcia, with a community award in December.
This isn’t Moise’s first controversy regarding donors and the Moss Park board.
The Sun has also reported on apparent campaign donations tied to Jessica Polanski, a developer who Moise showed around the arena and who served on the board for a little less than a year, exiting in September 2024. Thirteen people, including some who have the same names as Polanski, her relatives or business associates, gave Moise large donations on one day in August 2022.
The donors appear to have followed all the rules and Moise has denied any wrongdoing. Moise previously told the Sun he can’t speak to why someone would donate, and insisted his only interest in having developers close to Moss Park Arena was in the hope of raising funds to repair the decaying rink.
Board members like Fritzlar are brought on via the city’s public appointments process, and nominees are interviewed and weeded out by municipal staff. Speaking to the Sun last year about Polanski’s appointment, Moise’s chief of staff, Tyler Johnson, insisted on the integrity of that process.
“It’s not like the councillor hand-picked somebody to sit on the Moss Park Arena board,” Johnson said.
A city representative referred questions about the board nominees to Moise’s office and would not clarify if public appointments staff played any role in their selection.