The Star Cannot Be Considered Right Wing

So it's condemnation of Mayor Miller's failure to keep his promise of transparency just illustrates Miller's real agenda.....keep his power base, unions, waterfront condo owners, island squatters, social in-activits and evironuts happy and to hell with everyone else.

Where is openness that Miller promised?
Toronto Star

He came to office promising open and accountable government. But Mayor David Miller has, instead, delivered a pinched and closed administration that keeps much basic information from public view.

Even in the darkest days of former mayor Mel Lastman's tenure, a time of secret deals and out-of-control lobbyists, the public was at least given whatever the latest figure was for Toronto's expected shortfall when the budget process began early in the new year.

No more. City officials refused to provide that estimate last week. Nor would they reveal how much cash will likely have to be drawn from the city's shrinking reserves.

Much is at stake. Last year's budget totalled $7.6 billion. And the silence on these numbers isn't happening in isolation. It fits into a larger pattern of closed doors and information clampdowns. Examples from the last few months include:

# Miller's continuing refusal to disclose full details of a $220 million deal to buy a sprawling St. Thomas landfill site.

# The city's rejection of a request for documents surrounding the unusual sale of thousands of local utility poles to Toronto Hydro.

# A reluctance to make public a 2-year-old report analyzing options for the Gardiner Expressway. The 564-page document was hastily released in September only after its secret status threatened to become a municipal election issue.

Miller's continuing refusal to disclose key aspects of a deal to buy the Green Lane Landfill site is especially troubling in light of an assurance he made, in September, to make all information public after 90 days.

To protect owners of the landfill site, before a deal was signed, it was necessary to keep details under wraps for an initial period of "due diligence." During this time, the city's lawyers, accountants and environmental experts were allowed to pore through the company's files looking for issues that could derail the yet-unsigned contract.

An agreement was inked at the very end of the 90-day due diligence period. But instead of making all aspects of the deal public, Miller continues to withhold information.

Now Torontonians have been told to wait for full disclosure until the current owner of the garbage dump officially hands over the site in March.

It's not certain that details will ever become clear on the sale of about 80,000 city-owned utility poles and street lights to Toronto Hydro two years ago. The city aimed to cash in on that sale, use the resulting money to ease a budget shortfall, and then lease back use of the poles and street lights from the utility.

It was a speculative arrangement from the start with no one, at the time, knowing the market value of a utility pole. Estimates ranged from $500 to $5,000.

A deal was eventually concluded after lengthy closed-door negotiations, but city officials have balked at releasing key documents on this convoluted contract. Given the deal's importance in balancing the books in 2005, the public surely has a right to know.

Secrecy also clouds this year's budget process, especially compared with the way Toronto City Council has traditionally balanced its books. From January to April the process would unfold in open public view. A huge anticipated shortfall was gradually nibbled smaller through a mix of cuts, creative bookkeeping and tax hikes. Finally, the province would step in with a last-ditch bailout.

To be sure, that process needed reform. Councillors wasted a great deal of time grandstanding, bickering, and defending their own pet projects while criticizing those of others. The system needed streamlining.

Miller's strategy, however, goes too far the other way. Budget talks, with departmental and finance staff, are being conducted in secret. Disclosure of where the city stands is scheduled for March 19. Councillors will have one day for comment. Interest groups will be allowed another day and ordinary citizens, too, will have one day to respond. That's far too little.

The budget process needs to be opened up – not to the free-for-all that it used to be, but in a manner that won't leave Torontonians utterly in the dark about where the city is heading.

Openness is a fundamental quality of good government. We need more at city hall.