Kudos To The Toronto Star.....

....for standing behind Royson James. The thing that really surprises me is that no plan B Mayor Miller even responded when you consider that he has done little in the last three years to iniate any real discussions of the problems facing Toronto. He had to be dragged to the table by a councillor before he would admit there was a crime problem on our streets. His answer to homelessness was to hire social in-activists to counsel the homeless and the results....a pregnant teenager died on the streets two blocks from city hall. He won't admit aggresive panhandling is a problem and this is probably because he is one of the most aggresive panhandlers when it comes to Queens Park and Ottawa but he won't take steps to be more fiscally responsible with the taxes he does collect.

Mayoral race erupts over garbage

Mayor says critics have distorted story
Pitfield claims city missed better deal

Sep. 22, 2006. 05:23 AM

DONOVAN VINCENT AND VANESSA LU

CITY HALL BUREAU

Toronto's dull mayoral race has erupted in a bitter controversy over garbage, with Mayor David Miller angrily accusing his critics of distortions while his main challenger Councillor Jane Pitfield insists his handling of the issue will cost taxpayers dearly.In a highly unusual move, Miller fired a public broadside against Toronto Star columnist Royson James yesterday for an exclusive report saying the mayor failed to take seriously a proposal to send Toronto's trash to a London-area landfill last year, and that inaction led to city council's decision this week to buy the Green Lane dump.Miller lashed out at the Star for publishing a story that was written by a reporter knowing it was "categorically false." He dismissed any suggestion that there was a missed opportunity last year to find a cost-effective solution for Toronto's trash.The mayor announced to city hall reporters yesterday, "I have a call in to the publisher of the Toronto Star to deal with it," and spoke privately to publisher Michael Goldbloom. He then declined requests by Star reporters to expand on his comments in an interview, referring all questions to a spokesperson."Basic standards of journalism would have required that question be put to my office yesterday," the mayor told reporters publicly.A spokesperson for Miller's office was quoted in yesterday's story defending the mayor's handling of the issue and dismissing the landfill proposal as speculative.Giles Gherson, editor-in-chief of the Star, said yesterday: "I have complete confidence in Royson, who is one of this newspaper's most senior columnists. And I can say unequivocally to the mayor that the Toronto Star would never print a story that we knew to be untrue. We still would very much like the mayor to tell us his side of this story and we invite him to do so."

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