A longtime Toronto District School Board trustee says she turned to a cellphone game to get through a contentious meeting with parents.
Dad Stavros Rougas found longtime trustee Gerri Gershon engrossed in her phone during a session at John Fisher Junior Public School Tuesday night.
Gershon called the meeting to hear parents' concerns tied to the planned construction of a 33-storey apartment building close to the school near Yonge St and Eglinton Ave E. Moms and dads worry about the possible effects of dust, vibrations and a loss of sunlight on their children and the potential use of part of the playground as a staging area.
And so Rougas was furious when he spotted Gershon not far from the microphone in John Fisher's gymnasium playing a word game on her phone.
"I could hardly believe it. I thought I was living in some surreal world for a moment," Rougas told NEWSTALK 1010's Moore in the Morning Wednesday. "It just stung because it kind of summed up the issues we're having around the project here and there's no information and they wonder why parents have lost complete confidence."
Gershon, who was first elected in 1985 concedes she was on her cellphone for about three minutes but swears her ears were open to every word parents spoke.
"There was a lot of tension in the room, there was a lot of screaming out and I find that if I focus on Scrabble for a little bit it helps center me," Gershon tells Moore in the Morning. "If I offended anyone I apologize."