The Americans Don't Have Enough Economic Problems...

Miller lands at American university
Ford 'furious' over arena bailout

Sue-Ann Levy

Rink stink

The Operative Word Joe Is "SHOULD" But...

...will it be the right heads and how about the city councillors who sat on the board while all this was going on?

Fiorito: Heads should be rolling at TCHC


Tue Mar 1 2011

Lavish contracts, extravagant spending, and no controls: the public housing corporation has a lot to answer for. (37)

Give Him Credit....

...he is welcome down in the trenchs with the common person unlike the past mayor who will be remembered for his couffiure and new Brooms.

Ask Comrade Miller...

...he had no problem cancelling the contract in the old city of York to suckup to his union buddies so just reverse the process.

Garbage in, garbage out


By Benjamin Dachis

Tue Dec 21 2010

The issue is not just contracting out garbage collection, but how you do it.

Leftwing Political Incompotence Appears to Be Genetic...

* St. Clair Right Of Way
* Homeless Hilton
* ????

Don’t blame the messenger. Blame the people who have caused every project, no matter how small, to be dragged out with study after study. Blame the rules that restrict competitive bidding and require that construction is done by overpriced union labor. Blame the politicians who have allowed this process to descend into this disaster all over our country. Governor Christie was just the first to say no more. For that, he should be declared a hero. 

SOURCE

Reality Of Comrade Miller's Legacy...

Mayor Miller: Leaving behind a mixed legacy


Sat Nov 27 2010

David Miller's policy achievements are many but his legacy includes a fundamental disconnect with city voters. (24)

He Won't Be Taking Off From Island Airport..

A Leftist To The Very End!

Miller's speech an insult to our heroes


Was it an antiwar rally, David, or a Remembrance Day ceremony?

Miller Obit...

REST IN PEACE

Goar: David Miller goes from hero to punching bag

By Carol Goar

Fri Oct 15 2010

Miller era ends in disappointment and frustration.

Miller regrets nothing, sees nothing

More Tattooing In Politics Might Reduce Broken Promises...

He Stood Up To Comrade Miller...

Unleashing our new weapon at City Hall

By BRIAN ASHTON, TORONTO SUN

Who is Brian Ashton? And why is he getting between me and my morning coffee.

How Typical....

...of Toronto Silly Hall.

City Hall elevators from underground lot out of order

Citytv reporter leaves T.O. — accessibility an issue

By JOE WARMINGTON, Toronto Sun

Toronto for me won’t be the same without Tara Weber wheeling around and chasing stories.
Sadly Citytv is losing the top-notch reporter to Calgary. But there is more to this story than a job offer for a much sought-after on-air talent.
And perhaps some lessons learned?
“I hate to leave but it’s just not easy for me to live here,” the 29-year-old Kelowna, B.C. native told me. “Ever since I came here in 2003 to go to Ryerson, I have found it so difficult to get around and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.”
Tara — a paraplegic since she suffered a broken back in a car accident at age 17 — is as tough a journalistic competitor as there is. She combines grace with grit and does not use the chair as a hindrance or advantage — unless, of course, she can get an advantage for her story.
I have seen tough nuts like Leafs GM Brian Burke or Gen. Walter Natynczyk — chief of defence staff — show extreme class, and perhaps favour, by kneeling down to give her an exclusive. We tease her about the special treatment but also note she could not join us at the Irish Embassy for a pint after because there are several steps and she’s too proud, and perhaps stubborn, to mention it.
Tara is fiercly independent and in the years I have known her this is the first time her wheelchair has become a topic of conversation.
“I am not an advocate or spokesperson,” she stressed. “I just thought I should say something before I leave.”
She left Citytv last Friday and heads west Wednesday. She sent a note to Mayor David Miller, as well as those running to replace him, about one of the reasons why.
“I’ve interviewed you all and have enjoyed meeting every one of you,” she wrote. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve left my job and am leaving Toronto to go out west. A big part of my decision to leave is the lack of wheelchair access in this city. I’ve lived in various places throughout Canada and can honestly say Toronto is one of the least accessible.”
She also wrote “the majority of places in this city are not wheelchair accessible — bars, restaurants, transit stations, bathrooms and even stores.”
Tara is able to drive which is good because she tells me the TTC is useless to her.
“Take, for example, the two TTC stations on the Danforth that will be going under massive renovations at a cost of close to $4 million. At the end of all that planning, work and expense, neither The Donlands station, nor the Greenwood station, will become wheelchair accessible. This could have been the perfect opportunity to make them so.”
She also challenged them by saying “many of you took part in the CPA’s (Canadian Paraplegic Association’s) day in a wheelchair recently. Even just trying to get around for an hour must have opened your eyes to Toronto’s shortcomings. Rob Ford pointed out that I couldn’t even run for city council in Toronto because I wouldn’t be able to access the chambers.
“I know the premier has pledged to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025 ... In the meantime, nothing is being done to bring Toronto closer to that goal. There simply appears to be no political will.”
There certainly, though, seems to be political will for bicycle lanes, green projects, artists’ communes, Councillor Kyle Rae’s travel diary and bunny suits.
Has Tara issued Toronto a wake-up call? She is hoping it can become an election campaign issue.
It’s not working so far. No one has responded.
The only response I got back was from TTC spokesman Brad Ross who clarified “there are two separate projects for those stations. One is the second exit being constructed, the other involves elevators; elevators will be installed at the main entrances” and that “all subway stations will be accessible by 2024.”
Tara is hopeful things will get better but it won’t happen soon enough to keep her around.

Warmington Is Right On The Mark...

Another headache on the DVP

By JOE WARMINGTON, Toronto Sun

Last Updated: August 31, 2010 9:02pm

Go Transit buses will travel on reserved lanes on the DVP, between Lawrence Ave. and York Mills Rd. (JOE WARMINGTON, Toronto Sun)

The war on the car continues. This time the battlefield is on the Don Valley Parkway.
In fact the bicycle-socialists have established a new front that ought to help pay for some new environmentally-friendly bunny suits for our free spending councillors.
“Open Sept. 7: $85 for mis-use,” said the flashing electronic sign which alternates that message with “Go Transit bypass lane.”
Just like that Toronto Police brass have another fishing hole to waste their officer’s time to vigorously enforce instead of assisting with the city’s dozens of unsolved murders. If your home gets broken into, there will be no investigation but there will be a robust effort to enforce these phony new Go bus lanes.
At a cost of $120,000 to the Toronto taxpayer, Go Transit has a new 2.5-kilometre lane — northbound and southbound — between Lawrence Ave. and York Mills Rd, which was previously the shoulder.
It will now be a lane strictly for GO buses and if you succumb to the temptation to venture in, you are not only facing an $85 fine but two demerit points. And don’t forget the $90 fine for violating Ontario’s “yield-to-bus” law.
No fines ever seem to happen to any of these useless politicians, though.
While this is part cash-grab and part road-block, the Cadillac conservationists — who go on carbon-emitting jets on money collected from these fines — will say this is going to make Toronto the greenest morning rush-hour in North America.
All this really does is make your life harder — unless, perhaps, you are on one of those 100 Go Buses which will have 10 minutes shaved off their trip.
Wonder what it will add to the trip of the ostracized motorist? No one seems to care about the 20 minutes stolen from the north Toronto commuter on Jarvis St. thanks to the new bike lanes built for Councillor Kyle Rae’s 100 cycling friends.
Sad that for the cost of the $1 billion G20 weekend, we could have had a rail-link run all the way up and down the Don Valley instead of a few coats of paint that will make the DVP even more dangerous.
Once again they have stuck up regular people with another disgraceful, distasteful and rapacious robbery of law-abiding and contributing taxpayers while the real criminals laugh out loud.
It’s called the war on the car but it really is a war on the average taxpayer, many now living on minimum wage while being driven to, protected and serviced by public sector service workers making close to or more than six figures.
Meanwhile struggling families, many whose jobs have been stolen by slave labour countries, must pay these new fines, fees, taxes, levies, delivery charges and permits, with their third salary source — their already maxed-out credit cards which ding families with interest rates at 19%.
How fourth-rate failures like McGuinty and Miller can look in the mirror is beyond me. Our role has now become to service the Service Industrial Complex that is there to serve us but has flipped around so that we serve it. It gobbles up every penny in a society that no longer creates anything but new ways to soak our money.
This is just another money-collection trap in a long line so plentiful we can’t even remember what they all are any more. Beaten, and with their pockets exposed, many have simply put their hands up in surrender.
The truth is there really is no war at all.

Your Comments

Artsy-fartsy deal stinks to high heaven

Joe Warmington

Just what the east end needs: A hippie-style commune for poor, starving artists.
And paid for by you!
Perhaps, no matter who is elected by the voters Oct. 25, we can also let the future tenants, and those leftist councillors who slammed this disgrace through, decide who the next mayor is, too?
Why not? They just do whatever they want anyway. All other rational thinking disappeared a long time ago.
“There is a dearth of housing in this area for artists,” Councillor Pam McConnell said in somehow trying to justify this disgrace.
What there is a dearth of is common sense on city council.
But what there is an abundance of is communists, socialists and blatant waste-a-holics.
The stench of this deal hits one’s nostrils from miles away because every part of the purchase of the circa 1899 Harris House heritage home at 450 Pape Ave. to create subsidized rental work and living spaces for artists stinks to high heaven.
Despite staff originally not recommending it, and saying there was no money for it, council in a suspect-move decided to go ahead and borrow from another department’s budget about $2.2-million — $1.9-million of which is to purchase the Salvation Army property, once known as Bethany Home for pregnant teenagers, at the corner of Pape and Riverdale and an additional $275,000 for closing costs.
They are making it up as they go — at your expense.
It looks like a sweet deal for so-called artists who don’t seem to want to survive on the market economy like the rest of us have to. Others who want to live in this neighbourhood have to come up with $600,000.
This feels like a heist. Somebody call Chief Bill Blair.
“People borrow money all the time,” says Councillor Paula Fletcher. “It’s an opportunity to do something very positive.”
Positive for whom? For artists perhaps. Not for taxpayers.
“Maybe the city can give it to me,” jokes single mother Donna George, who lives in below standard Toronto Community Housing with her five children. “I am not an artist, but I would like to live there.”
“Artists can get a part-time job to make ends meet,” said neighbour Greg Gherini. “Make it a place for single mothers because they have it tougher.”
Front-running mayoral candidate Rob Ford said he will open up, and rip up, deals like this when he becomes mayor.
“There are 70,000 people waiting to just get into (housing) and now we’re setting up special housing for these people?” Ford told the Sun’s Don “Pistol” Peat. “We can’t afford it.”
Just what is going on here?
“I don’t think they know,” said an angry Councillor Doug Holyday. “I don’t think there is any proper plan for that property.”
I talked to Fletcher last night who admitted, “it could end up as seniors housing or something else.”
You know we are hard on Fletch but I can tell she really believes she is doing the right thing.
“I am sick and tired of the west end getting all of the housing for artists,” she explained.
“Joe, it’s a very low paying job and they struggle. Don’t worry this is going to work out. Next year we will have a social housing provider to partner with and we will get the money back. Next year, we will go there and I will show you. You and me.”
I am already looking for my bandana, paint brush and peace sign.
The alleged redneck and the former commie. It’s a date.
joe.warmington@sunmedia.ca

Your Comments

Using Our Money To Appeal A Court Ruling...

 THE MAYOR

...that says it is against the law for councilors to steal our money to resolve their personal problems.

No wonder taxpayers are fuming

By SUE-ANN LEVY, Toronto Sun

Last Updated: August 26, 2010 6:56pm

Mayor David Miller — the lawyer and Harvard graduate — came out of an in-camera meeting Wednesday night urging his compatriots to vote with their “conscience” to ignore the law.
After he waxed poetic about how he was really doing it for the “public” and not at all for the motley cast of characters who’ve hitched their wagon to his star, councillors voted 24-14 to appeal a recent Ontario superior court ruling that said council didn’t have the power to pay the legal expenses of two city councillors fighting audits of their 2006 election spending.
The court ruling, released July 19, quashed the bylaw that made the legal payouts to Adrian Heaps and Giorgio Mammoliti — of $83,375 and $95,973 respectively — possible.
But that didn’t bother council one bit. Led by the feckless Miller, they simply crafted their own bylaw that would allow the money to be provided to the two councillors in the form of grants.
That motion was merely a technicality since both councillors already have their $179,348 in payouts.
“It is shameful ... we should be upholding the integrity of elections,” Miller said. “We should be ensuring that people aren’t risking their house or their family’s future in order to stand for office and commit public service.”
It’s obvious to me that our so-called “strong” mayor and esteemed lawyer didn’t much like that the Toronto Party for a Better City and Councillor Doug Holyday chose to go to court to fight council’s move to make the illegal payouts — and horror of horrors, won.
The decision Wednesday night should have been a slam dunk — had this council been led by a mayor who actually practises what he preaches about leading with integrity.
(I repeat, is it any wonder taxpayers are mad as hell and not prepared to put up with this nonsense anymore.)
It was all handed to Miller and Co. on a silver platter in the form of advice received by the city’s very pricey outside counsel, Alan Lenczner.
In his confidential Aug. 11 opinion, obtained by the Toronto Sun, Lenczner recommends that the appeal be “abandoned” — noting he does not see a “reasonable prospect” for it to succeed.
City solicitor Anna Kinastowski advises council in her confidential report of Aug. 23, also obtained by the Sun, that it will cost upwards of $40,000 for the appeal and another $25,000 if the city loses and is forced to pay costs.
She does not provide figures on what has been spent on the court case to date.
But Lenczner doesn’t stop with his advice not to appeal. He suggests that while the court could not order the city to retrieve the money from the two councillors, he suggests the city do so anyway.
“The city may grant them time to make the payments but the demand should be made,” Lenczner writes.
In another opinion, provided on Aug. 18, Lenczner says that there is “no lawful bylaw” that can be crafted to address the reimbursement of councillors Heaps and Mammoliti retroactively.
Kinastowski, in her report to council — which she recommended be made public but has not — even gives Mammoliti and Heaps an easy out, suggesting they be allowed to raise the money they need to pay back from private donors!
She writes that the integrity commissioner, Janet Leiper, has offered to be available to spoon-feed them advice on how they can do so while still complying with the gifts and benefits provision of the code of conduct.
Ah, yes. Makes me wonder what she’d say about their appeal for funds using their councillor letterhead.
Seriously, the whole situation is absolutely absurd considering on the very same day (Wednesday) mayoralty frontrunner Rob Ford had his knuckles rapped for using his letterhead to solicit private funds for his football foundation.
Holyday said Thursday this will just keep adding to the city’s legal bills and is a “blatant disregard” of the taxpayer.
“These people seem to think they’re above the law,” he said. “They’re doing all this in aid of their own.”
Murray Maltz, of the Toronto Party, echoed Holyday’s sentiments.
“This is nothing more than an attempt to try to do what the courts have already told them is illegal,” he said.
“Clearly this shows a lack of good faith and continual breach of their fiduciary duty to the taxpayer ... it’s obvious council simply intends to ignore the law no matter what.”
sue-ann.levy@sunmedia.ca
THE VOTE TO APPEAL
YES: Paul Ainslie, Brian Ashton, Shelley Carroll, Raymond Cho, Janet Davis, Glenn De Baeremaeker, Frank Di Giorgio, Mike Feldman, John Filion, Paula Fletcher, Adam Giambrone, Mark Grimes, Pam McConnell, Joe Mihevc, David Miller, Howard Moscoe, Case Ootes, Joe Pantalone, John Parker, Gord Perks, Anthony Perruzza, Kyle Rae, Bill Saundercook, Adam Vaughan.
NO: Mike Del Grande, Rob Ford, Suzan Hall, Cliff Jenkins, Norm Kelly, Chin Lee, Gloria Lindsay Luby, Peter Milczyn, Ron Moeser, Frances Nunziata, Cesar Palacio, Karen Stintz, Michael Thompson, Michael Walker.
MIA: Maria Augimeri, Sandra Bussin, Adrian Heaps, Doug Holyday, Giorgio Mammoliti, Denzil Minnan-Wong, David Shiner

James: Councillors back down on funding legal battles

The city’s executive committee drops a hot-potato issue as lawyers tell them to accept defeat on making taxpayers cover their post-election legal bills.
 

Relentless Is A Subjective Term...

...and I would like to see the list of possible breaches made by other councilors that are under investigation. Integrity and politicians is an oxymoron.

Integrity commissioner's witchhunt

By SUE-ANN LEVY, City Hall Columnist

Enfant terrible and front-running mayoral candidate Rob Ford says the city’s integrity commissioner was absolutely “relentless” in her pursuit of the latest complaint about him.

Impossible Miller Banned Hand Guns...

 

Three Injured In Two Separate Shootings

 

Two people were shot at a home near the 401 and The Allen, while the second shooting Tuesday evening was in Etobicoke.

Toronto Silly Hell

Toronto city council's last-minute spending spree

Toronto city council voted unanimously in support of an $88 million multi-level waterfront hockey arena, $45 million in arts funding in the last council meeting of the term.

Stacked ice rinks making us shiver: Editorial

Publicly funding recreational projects in Toronto is all fun and games … until someone has to pay for them.

...minor boo boo but the guffaw attitude of politicians and bureaucrats speaks volumes about how voters are viewed at silly hell; 


Red-faced Rocket

By DON PEAT, Toronto Sun

Call it the Red-faced Rocket

ToRonto Silly Hall...

Toronto Star linked to 'edits' of Rob Ford Wiki page ?

Smitherman rips council's largesse

By DON PEAT, Toronto Sun

Mayoral candidate George Smitherman came down to City Hall Monday to tell outgoing Mayor David Miller and city council to stop ticking off a “bucket list” of items in the lead-up to this fall’s election.

Flagpole for Emery Village

By DON PEAT, Toronto Sun

A giant flagpole should go up in Emery Village and so should arts and culture funding, city councillors decreed Monday

Rink project gets the nod

By DON PEAT, Toronto Sun

An $88-million plan to build an “Icescraper” scored at Toronto’s influential executive committee Monday — even though the project comes with a shortfall of at least $29 million.

Arena gets thumbs-up, never mind the funding

Though the money hasn’t been found yet, an $88 million hockey arena proposed for the city’s waterfront has received unanimous support in principle from the city’s executive committee. 17 August 00:00 
 

...BUT

Move afoot to save City-owned ski hills

Toronto Silly Hall...

 

No need to appeal

August 16, 2010

After going against the repeated advice of their own legal department, and ending up in a lawsuit which they resoundingly lost, Toronto city councillors are set to discuss whether to challenge that verdict by appealing to a higher court. Given that they are on flimsy legal ground, they should reject the appeal and spare taxpayers further expense.
Regrettably, Toronto councillors have a record of being blind to the obvious when it comes to foisting unnecessary and unwarranted legal costs on the public purse.
The city’s executive committee is to vote today on whether to fight a Divisional Court ruling that found city council had exceeded its authority in paying out almost $140,000 in 2008. That money went to cover legal bills incurred by councillors Giorgio Mammoliti and Adrian Heaps while they were running in the 2006 municipal election. The expenses were reimbursed even though council’s own lawyers warned there was no legal justification for the payments.
To his credit, Councillor Doug Holyday pursued the case in court at his own expense and won a clear ruling against the council’s ill-judged move. Under these circumstances, an appeal by the city would add insult to the injury done to all taxpayers in this matter and to the reputation of council as a responsible governing body.
To be sure, councilors are now sitting ducks for vexatious law suits brought forward by defeated candidates and others with an axe to grind over alleged spending violations during election campaigns. But the solution to that problem is to change the provincial law to keep such cases out of the courts. That way councillors will not need their legal expenses to be subsidized by the taxpayer.