Item - 2020.XV4.1

The Nominating Panel – Toronto Local Appeal Body recommends that:

1. City Council appoint the following candidates to the Toronto Local Appeal Body, including one as Chair, for a term of office ending November 27, 2024 and until successors are appointed.

Sabnavis Gopikrishna

Christine Kilby

Dino Lombardi, Chair

Stanley Makuch

Ted Yao 

2. City Council direct that Confidential Attachments 1 to 4 to the report (October 23, 2020) from the Interim City Clerk remain confidential in their entirety as they relate to personal matters about identifiable individuals being considered for appointment to the Toronto Local Appeal Body.

Candidates' biographies:

Sabnavis Gopikrishna

S. Gopikrishna is the Executive Director of The Housing Help Centre, a non-profit organization which helps tenants access and sustain habitable housing. He was a Member of the City of Toronto’s Committee of Adjustment from 2007-2015, before being appointed by the City to the Toronto Local Appeal Body in 2016. From 2014-2019, he was a Provincial Appointee on the Board of Directors of the Central East Local Health Integration Network ( CE-LHIN).

Christine Kilby

Christine Kilby is a lawyer and accredited mediator with ten years' experience in commercial litigation, including construction and regulatory law. In her full-time alternative dispute resolution practice, she mediates civil and employment lawsuits and conducts workplace restorations, mediations, assessments and investigations. She is a certified Workplace Fairness Analyst. She has called Toronto home since 2003 and is an active member of her community.

Dino Lombardi, Chair

Dino Lombardi is a Registered Professional Planner (RPP) with over 30 years of diverse municipal and private sector experience in land use planning and economic development and has been a TLAB Member and Vice-Chair. Dino volunteers with the Ontario Professional Planners Institute and the Professional Standards Board (PBS) for the Planning Profession in Canada and has been recognized by the PBS for his efforts. Dino was also recently elected as a member of the Simcoe Chapter of Alpha International.

Stanley Makuch

Mr. Makuch a Toronto lawyer and academic has had an outstanding career in municipal, planning and development law. Called to the Bar in 1976 and now the John Bousfield Distinguished Visiting Professional at the University of Toronto, he has extensive experience before the Ontario Municipal Board, the Environmental Appeal Board and the courts. As a professor of law and planning he served on many boards and commissions and published many influential municipal and planning articles and books.

Ted Yao

Ted Yao, a descendent of a Chinese head-tax payer, has been a lawyer adjudicator for the Law Society Tribunal since 2012.  He was an in-house municipal lawyer for several GTA municipalities, including the City of Toronto.  Mr. Yao was a full time member of the Ontario Municipal Board for over a decade.  Subsequently, he has worked in private practice.  Recently he has served on tribunals in Vaughan and Toronto, including chairing Toronto's first Sign Variance Committee.

The Nominating Panel – Toronto Local Appeal Body will conduct interviews and recommend five candidates, including one as Chair, to City Council for appointment to the Toronto Local Appeal Body.