Comrade Miller Won't Address The Tempest In A Teapot

But has put off the issue until April 2008! This to me sounds like procrastination: * to defer action; delay: * to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost, * to postpone or delay needlessly. * To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. I thought a mayor was supposed to lead. BTW this little tempest cost taxpayers $2.3 million per year.

Tempest in a coffee maker
BY Dale Duncan December 12, 2007 15:12

“Would you like an espresso?” Councillor Adam Vaughan asked me when I stopped by his office last week.

“Why not?” I thought. “After all, I did help pay for it.”

Vaughan was one of many councillors taken to task recently for spending taxpayers’ money on questionable office expenses, such as a $296 espresso machine. First on the case was the righteous, penny-pinching Councillor Rob Ford, followed later by the media, who revelled in making front-page news of his purchase, alongside rabbit-costume rentals (Sandra Bussin: $205) and trips to China (Norm Kelly: $3,100) and other expenses from other councillors.

The office where I work has a coffee machine (the regular kind) paid for using money from an office budget, too. And after sampling one of Vaughan’s espressos, I’ve got to say: his machine was probably one of the best fractions of a fraction of a fraction of a cent I’ve ever spent.

“Rob Ford for six years screaming and shouting about councillors’ expenses has created a political climate where this is all the media wants to talk about,” Vaughan argued, exasperated. A media-savvy councillor himself, he insists that when it comes to money, there are other, more important matters that could make headlines. He gives the example of the city-owned Bloor Street property currently occupied by a McDonald’s, whose lease is up. Vaughan says the city could garner close to $7 million for the prime piece of land. “[Others] will say, well how does the espresso machine help the poor in your neighbourhood?” he says. “I can tell you what $7 million dollars would do.”

For some reason, however, that $7 million doesn’t have the same symbolism that the $296 spent on the espresso machine does. Councillor Brian Ashton (who spent $1,400 on a trip to the UK) says that the mayor and council ought to take public perception to heart if they expect to build support around the campaign for uploading to the province and additional funding from the feds.

“Every time you see an article on someone buying a bunny outfit on their office budget or taking limos, the public goes, ‘Why the hell am I going to stand behind you to get more money when you don’t even know how to run [your office]?’” he said. “The very fact that the finance minister of the country can criticize Toronto openly and publicly without rebuke tells you something about Toronto council’s credibility and the mayor’s.”

To Mayor David Miller’s credit, he has called for a new policy on council expenses. Ford, for his part, provides a breakdown of every councillor’s expenses on his website www.robford.ca. What he doesn’t provide is any of his ideas for how city hall can save money, which raises the question: does he want to help solve the city’s financial crisis or simply to get back at councillors who have given him a hard time over his unexplainable lack of spending every year? If you ask me, it’s time for city hall and the media to move on to solving bigger problems.