Progess - Mayor Miller Style

I guess spending $2.9M that we don't have is better than spending $6.2 that we don't have even though what we are spending it on doesn't seem to be needed. The big question, one that has been asked and answered by experts, is whether the meetings really need to be held in the first place. The answer is probably NOT.

City Hall cuts back on $6.2M reno
Staff scales down upgrade plan to $2.9M, but keeps media studio, more room for mayor's staff. It goes to committee Friday
February 20, 2007
Jim Byers
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

They've dropped one of the proposed committee rooms. And they're suggesting councillors not lose their views of Nathan Phillips Square.

But they're still talking about more space for the mayor's office and proposing a fancy media studio for councillors to strut their stuff.

City of Toronto staff was greeted with a barrage of criticism recently when it was revealed they had plans for a $6.2 million renovation at City Hall.

Plans called for upgrading two existing committee rooms, building a studio for press conferences and moving five council members from favoured offices overlooking the square to less desirable digs at the back of the building.

The latter move was proposed so that Mayor David Miller could bring all his staff under one roof and not have them split into separate offices on the second floor, as is now the case.

Miller denounced the plan as too expensive, while councillors moaned about having to move to accommodate the mayor.

Chief Corporate Officer Bruce Bowes said staff sat down with Miller and top bureaucrats and drafted the new plan, to cost between $2.5 and $2.9 million and to go to council's budget committee for consideration on Friday.

Instead of getting rid of two existing committee rooms and making them into larger, state-of-the-art rooms like the two main rooms at City Hall, staff suggested improving one and leaving the other as is.

The new committee room will be built so that it can be split into two smaller rooms, Bowes said, while the media centre/studio also will be designed to be turned into a committee room.

Improving both of the smaller committee rooms on the second floor would've required moving some of the mayor's staff, and the plans called for them to be shifted into space overlooking Nathan Phillips Square – space now used by five councillors.

Some were angry at the idea of leaving their space to make room for the mayor, most notably Councillor David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale), a sparring partner of Miller.

The new plan calls for the mayor's new staff to be housed in what is now an entryway into council member's offices, a corridor that splits the mayor's office staff in two.

The councillors will get a new entrance elsewhere on the second floor, and the mayor will be able to house his staff in one convenient spot.

Miller has said he wants to hire new workers to handle environmental issues and economic development matters.

Two new administrative staff also are being proposed, which would bring his staff of 19to 23.

Miller said he needs the increase because he has new powers and responsibilities under the City of Toronto Act brought in by the province.

A spokesperson for Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan said has seven workers on staff but pointed out Vancouver has only 600,000 residents; about one-quarter of Toronto's population. An official in the office of Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay said there are nine policy workers in his office, plus an unknown number of support staff.

Miller yesterday said he's happy staff brought the price tag down so far and feels the proposed, new setup is a reasonable one. But council still has the last word on the renovations, and some members remain unhappy.

"I don't think we need a media studio," said Councillor Brian Ashton (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest).

"Council members can hold a press conference anywhere they like."

Bowes told the Star that the city's four second-floor committee rooms are booked 100 per cent of the time and that the city has to turn away groups that want to use the rooms.

But Shiner said that rooms that have been booked often don't get used.

A Star survey of the four rooms on four recent days at City Hall – days when council's major committees have been in session – revealed the rooms were often empty.

In 16 combined checks, there were meetings taking place on only 10 occasions in the four-day survey period; a 62.5 per cent occupancy rate.