Parking tickets really a Rob Davis election gimmick
Last Updated: 25th January 2010, 7:13am
It’s a “mock ticket,” said author Rob Davis, a city council candidate for Eglinton-Lawrence (Ward 15).
Davis had 10,000 of the yellow tickets whipped up as a pre-election gimmick, to call attention to his bid for scrapping the $60-a-year city vehicle registration fee. Voters go to the polls on Oct. 25.
“I’ve been busier than a meter maid at a car show,” Davis said on the second day of his windshield-plastering venture.
City council imposed the levy in September 2008, with an annual fund-raising target of $57 million.
Davis called the fee unfair and invited voters to sign a petition to rescind the program.
Davis, who has served on Toronto and the now-defunct City of York councils, was appointed to the Toronto Catholic District School Board in 2008.
Hitting motorists for $60 every time they renew their licence stickers “takes a lot of money out of the local economy,” he said. “You renew on your birthday, so I’m calling this a reverse gift ... uninvite the city to your birthday party.
“The roads in Toronto are not any better than roads in Mississauga, Vaughan and Pickering,” Davis said, calling the fee “a penalty, a fine for Toronto motorists.”
The bottom of his non-tickets — which were paid for out of campaign funds — have two boxes voters can check off:
n I’m voting for Rob Davis, and
n I like high taxes. I’m voting for the other candidate (veteran incumbent Howard Moscoe).
Moscoe supports the fee, saying “Toronto needs the money. It’s a reasonable user fee and it’s being applied to repairing roads.”
Comment:
Rob if you put one on my car, my fellow councillors and I will get the city to sue you at the taxpayers' expense!
What do you think all the new fees and taxes are for.
We have lots of perks taxpayers need to pay for.
Joe, January 25th 2010, 6:41am