Miller alone key to solving budgetary mess
The acrimony, finger-pointing and decided bad blood flowing from Toronto's fiscal crisis could endure for years, hobbling city council's effectiveness.
Last Friday's city hall "meltdown" over service cuts is just one example of the deterioration. Council is now split into two camps: Mayor David Miller loyalists versus the rest. And instead of both sides moving toward an accommodation of viewpoints, they are diverging, growing more partisan in a divisive, vitriolic lead-up to a crucial tax vote next month.
This is not in keeping with the conventions of Toronto city politics and our traditions of municipal government.
Faced with fiscal challenges, citizens expect city council to lead them through it. They want the mayor and council to find common ground, adopt suggestions pouring into city hall on potential savings, and limit the fallout to unavoidable impacts on service.
What they've been subjected to is an even more polarized council. In turn, citizens are saying city hall hasn't tried hard enough to avoid the closing of libraries, hockey arenas and rec centres.
For example, how could the mayor close community centres on Mondays, starting next week, when a slight reduction in each councillor's $53,000 office expense budget could forestall the cut? We are talking about a great inconvenience, disservice, disruption and damage to the quality of life for many youths and seniors.
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