Council's road warriors
City government spent $40Gs travelling world
Several Toronto city councillors hit the road in the first nine months of this year, courtesy of their taxpayer-funded office budgets.
Documents made public on the city's website show councillors spent $40,000 travelling across North America and the world and billed it back to their individual $53,100-a-year office budgets.
Councillor Norm Kelly went to Washington, D.C., and expensed $930 worth of mileage on Easter weekend. Councillors are reimbursed 52 cents for every kilometre travelled when they use their personal vehicles for business.
JUSTIFICATION
Attached documentation, also provided online by the city, showed Kelly justified the 1,790-km trip to see "firsthand" the American capital's solar powered, photo radar traps and "village-style big box development."
Kelly told the Sun yesterday the trip was a good use of taxpayers' dollars.
"I think so," Kelly said. "You can have people talk to you about it, you can read about it, it's another thing to actually be there and see it in person."
A note on the bottom of the expense claim states "only mileage is being claimed by the councillor, all other related travel costs paid for by councillor."
"I wanted to save as much money as possible," Kelly said. "There are a number of former constituents of mine who live in the area so I imposed on them."
In a memo to city staff, the Scarborough Agincourt councillor said that in his role as chariman of the planning and growth management committee, he's "always looking at new ways of providing city services."
"Two of the major challenges facing the city are the monitoring of speeding traffic without incurring increased policing costs and curbing urban sprawl with more intensive commercial/residential development," Kelly wrote. "Over the recent long weekend (March 21, 2008) I took the opportunity to visit the Washington, D.C.-area to see (1) standalone, solar powered speed monitors and (2) village-style big box development."
He attached a photo of each subject and said he followed up with private firms which deal in the field of speed monitoring and Toronto's planning department.
Councillor Doug Holyday, a long-time critic of sky high travel expenses, was shocked to learn of Kelly's trip.
"Wow. Well, there's no end to what Norm Kelly will put through in mileage," Holyday said.
Kelly said he tried to go the cheapest way possible.
"I could have flown down, I could have stayed at a hotel, I could have charged a per diem," he said.
But Kelly isn't the only one who travelled beyond the city limits.
Councillor Kyle Rae took two trips this year, totalling nearly $9,000 -- both times for conferences.
In February, he travelled to Phoenix, Ariz., with the president of Ryerson University, and in August, he spent a week in Mexico for the annual International AIDS conference.
Both trips, he told the Sun, were valuable learning experiences that benefited the city.
"I chair the AIDS sub-committee of the City of Toronto and I have done so for 17 years, so I think it's appropriate that I attend (the AIDS conferences)," he said Friday. "Out of that meeting, I've met with staff and we are refocussing our strategy based on what we learned in August. So it was really worthwhile."
In total, councillors spent $40,000 of "office travel," including Mayor David Miller who alone spent more than $14,000 travelling to London, Eng., Quebec City, China, and Miami.
In October, the mayor also travelled to Milan, Italy, and Japan for climate change conferences.
Rae defends the travel, saying there are benefits to learning from others in other parts of the world.
LEARN ABROAD
"There tends to be, in some media, a sense that there's no point spending money on learning. We learn when we go abroad, and we're able to teach when we go abroad, and when we have guests from around the world, we learn from them, as well," he said. "We are not on an island, we are part of a world society."
Since Jan. 1, 2008, other councillors have travelled elsewhere, including Gloria Lindsay Luby who went to Santa Fe, N.M.; Peter Milczyn went to New York City; Maria Augimeri went to Victoria, B.C.; Paula Fletcher went to Ottawa; and Raymond Cho went to South Korea. Councillor Adrian Heaps also flew to London, Eng., where he was, according to a hand written note on his expense claim, "staying with friends," while meeting with key decision makers about London's cycling policy.
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