It Is Going To Be A Cold Hard Winter...

When they start they fall fast!
We Elected Them

City layoffs deal with economic reality

The Lynchpin In The Gentrification Of The Entertainment District...

Councilor Adam Vaughan Is a Supporter...

Homeless Hilton still not ready

By SUE-ANN LEVY, City Hall Bureau

The now infamous city boondoggle we have come to call the Homeless Hilton was still shut tight to all but the construction crew Monday — despite a projected opening date of Aug. 16. 

COMMENTS

...and Councilor Vaughan is also a supporter of:

Deathwatch: Clubland

Ten signs that the Entertainment District is on life support

Presto! The Offspring of eHealth And...

...the sire of that boondogle, George Depends Snivelman,  wants to be the Mayor Of Toronto!

Why PRESTO won’t work for TTC: Giambrone

By Adam Giambrone, Guest Columnist

Fare payment technology is changing constantly.

Why Toronto continues to be a Canadian weakling: Sa

By RACHEL SA, Toronto Sun

Frailty, thy name is Toronto.

Screw The Portlands...

...build recreational facilities in the hinterlands like Jane and Finch, Flemington Park, etc. The idiots at Silly Hall are so wrapped up in becoming a world class city they neglect the needs of the people who pay for their indulgences. 

Portlands arena brain freeze: Editorial

By Toronto Sun

Call it SkyDome, aka the Rogers Centre, on the rocks.

Not A Day Goes By That I Don't Have The Urge To Light Up BUT...

...the vocal outrage and vocal beating from she who must be obeyed makes the urge disappear. Too bad their isn't more vocal beating from the citizens of Toronto.

City of Toronto spends $30,000 a year on cigarettes for the homeless

But I thought civil servants and do-gooders wanted to ban smoking everywhere?
Why then is the poor, helpless, Residentially-Challenged Community being enticed to smoke?
Is some kind of intentional, very slo-mo Jonestown-like suicide operation taking place right before our very eyes, paid for by our tax dollars and carried out by government agents?
And if so, how can we make it go faster...?

# Kathy Shaidle

The City Doesn't Own Nathan Phillip's Square-The Taxpayer And Votersx Do...

...and this is where citizens, whether they are politicians, social in-activists or nutbars  should be allowed to setup their soapboxes!

Mayor's man tries to shut Ford down

Last Updated: July 14, 2010 11:02pm

The irony was too delicious to ignore.

Some 15 minutes before Rob Ford’s press conference — called to outline how he’d protect taxpayers — was set to roll Wednesday morning on taxpayer-funded Nathan Phillips Square, the mayor’s communications flak, Stuart Green, tried to have it stopped.
It had something to do with the city’s election-year policies that are supposed to prohibit a candidate from using city facilities and resources for campaign purposes. You know, those same rules that council last week voted 28-15 to override to allow their socialist pal Maria Augimeri to promote herself when the Robert Leek park opens at the end of September.
I wasn’t there at the time.
But Ford’s campaign manager Nick Kouvalis said Green spoke to a couple of city staff, including director of council services Winnie Li, telling them the Ford team was not permitted to have a campaign event in the square.
The event went ahead as scheduled. Like other events have on the square held by Ford’s opponents.
Kouvalis accused Green of acting like a “Storm Trooper” and a bully.
For his part, Green defended his actions, saying he just happened to be in the square and advised one of Ford’s people they should check with security about campaign events there.
“It was meant as a courtesy, nothing more,” he told me in an e-mail.
Now I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times staff in the mayor’s office have been courteous to me, or to anyone who dares oppose their view of the world.
That said, even if his fellow socialists on council don’t get it, as a communications flak, Green should know better than to start up with Ford’s team.
Each time something like this does occur, it just highlights, all the more, the culture of entitlement, arrogance, petulance, self-indulgence and the devil-may-care attitude with tax dollars and with rules that is so ingrained at Socialist City Hall.
No wonder Ford’s promises to protect the taxpayer are resonating with angry citizens.
Despite Green’s best attempts to thwart the delivery — and the Toronto Star’s weak effort to divert the message with their “smear de jour” — Ford’s proposals respond very well to a public disenfranchised with City Hall.
His Taxpayer Protection Plan will include opening the $1 billion in major city purchases and contracts to competitive bids and offering protection to those city employees who blow the whistle on waste, abuse and mismanagement of the public purse.
“Taxpayers have the right to know they’re getting the best value for their money,” he said.
“Too often ... too many purchases are negotiated behind closed doors without competitive bidding,” he added, pointing to the sole-source contract signed with Bombardier for $750 million in subway cars.
Ford said he will also cut the mayor’s office budget by 20% and councillor office budgets from $50,000 to $30,000 per year, while introducing rules to clamp down on loopholes that allow councillors like retiring Kyle Rae to throw lavish $12,000 farewell parties as he did last month.
“These actions will begin the process of making respect for taxpayers a key part of how Toronto does business,” he said.
Asked whether he’ll take a look at getting rid of the city’s Fair Wage policy, he said “absolutely.” That policy, which dictates any shop wishing to do business with City Hall must pay its employees close to union wages, has shut out many competitive bids on city contracts.
Ford said he’ll be definitely be looking at contracting out garbage pick-up as well — following a decision by Windsor city council to do so earlier this week.
Early Tuesday morning Windsor council voted 8-3 to award a seven-year contract to Turtle Island for 100% of its residential curbside garbage pickup. Pickup by the private sector, projected to save $8.9 million, will commence in the new year.
No wonder Green attempted to shut down Ford on Wednesday.
Respect for taxpayers is as foreign a concept to the socialists as being courteous to their critics.
sue-ann.levy@sunmedia.ca

It Is Also Paying For $12,000 Party For City Councilor...

...get your own house in order before being critical of others.

Your tax money is paying for private golf clubs

City councillor Adrian Heaps wants something done about the fact that nine private golf courses in the city enjoy lower taxes and have so far received more than $30 million in subsidies.

CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

By Robyn Doolittle

Tue Jul 13 2010

 

Star exclusive: Across the city, swanky private golf clubs, whose wealthy clientele have paid as much as six figures to become members, are being subsidized by Toronto taxpayers. One city councillor is calling for an end to the decades-old agreement.

This Column Should Be Run Once A Week In Every Major Paper...

...because unfortunately the message will be overshadowed by firework display, barbecues, re-enactments etc. 

  

Let’s shake up municipal politics

The easy thing in running for the top job is to pronounce that taxes are too high and the current council sucks 

By Brian French, Guest Columnist

Toronto will continue its downward spiral from the “City That Works” back to the “Muddy York” of two centuries ago unless something totally different is done.
Yet no mayoral candidate is suggesting anything in their platforms that might really change our direction.
Here are a few big things a real leader would propose to get the city back on track.
First off, Toronto needs to become a government. We need to become masters of our own domain. Maitres chez nous!
Constitutionally in Canada, cities do not exist. So the City of Toronto is a “corporation” with the province owning the voting shares. It’s like just one more provincial agency — the Ministry of Toronto.
It’s no small wonder the provincial parent doesn’t offer council more power. The premier did allow them to apply new taxes, which is akin to giving a teenage boy whiskey and the car keys (thank you P.J. O’Rourke).
It will take a long time to change the basic form of governance so someone wanting to be mayor should start today.
The second thing is to apply serious oversight to prospective candidates by starting a municipal party system. There are few barriers to running for city council. The only permission necessary is from one’s spouse, the only cost is $100,000 and the only restriction is to not have done something on a vapourish prohibited list.
But to run for a political party in a provincial or federal election involves inquisitive scrutiny by the sponsoring party and a very intense nomination procedure.
Muni politics? No scrutiny at all.
Running with and for a party would allow voters to better understand the platforms to which a candidate would be expected to adhere.
Term limits would drastically change the way politics is conducted.
Councillors would no longer be able to look at their elected positions as careers. It would be get in, do your good work (or cause your damage) and get out.
Term limits should be implemented as soon as possible. A strong potential mayor could immediately announce if elected he will resign in eight years.
Other ideas??
Extending the vote to residents? There is a history of people showing up at polls whose IDs are personal — mail may be theirs, maybe not. I doubt making voter I.D. less restrictive will eliminate this problem.
Reducing the size and eligible expenses in the councillors’ office budgets?
Definitely. It is a slush fund to buy everything from clowns, to sponsoring teams, to printing quantities of propaganda for various anti-establishment groups.
The easy thing in running for the top job is to pronounce bikes are great or horrible, that the previous mayor spent way too much money (and I’ll spend just a teensy weensy less), that poverty is bad and business is good, that taxes are too high and the current council sucks.
But it takes bravery to identify and commit to meeting our real needs. I don’t see anyone currently running for mayor daring to do so.

— French was policy director for Jane Pitfield in 2006 and advises on many election campaigns

City Of Toronto Still Trying To Be World Class...

...we already have the CN Tower and now:

Pay to flush in T.O.

By JOE WARMINGTON, Toronto Sun

One down and 1,000,599 flushes to go. 

Mayor plugging shiny new pay toilet

By JONATHAN JENKINS, Queen's Park Bureau

For those who can give two bits, Toronto’s first automated pay toilet is now taking customers at 25 cents a poop — er, pop.

The Automated Public Toilets will take any coins up to and including toonies and will provide change. They will also work with tokens that the city plans to distribute to homeless people through its Streets to Homes program.

...and who pays:

Ice cream vendor frozen out

By DON PEAT, Toronto Sun

A downtown ice cream vendor feels he’s getting the cold shoulder from City Hall.

Clown Council Hard At Work On Critical Issues...

  Council wants to ban pop from vending machines on city property

Milk, juice and soy drinks would be only choices May 14, 2010

Toronto’s snack bars face same fate as vending machines

Concession stands would fall under same proposed ban on sugary drinks at city-operated facilities May 14, 2010

...while property owners taxpayers have to deal with: 

Facebook used to tag graffiti punks

By Tom GODFREY, Toronto Sun

Facebook and other websites are being used to find teenage vandals who are spraying graffiti on businesses and homes in south Etobicoke.

Mihevic, Miller, TTC Disagree...

Lawrence Solomon: Return sidewalks to private control

Posted: April 02, 2010, 9:12 PM by NP Editor

Governments have systematically stripped away the character of neighbourhoods

By Lawrence Solomon

S idewalks in commercial districts should be privatized to retire city debt, to perk up street life and city neighbourhoods and to free city businesses from the tangle of red tape that dampens their bottom line. At one time, our governments did not intrude much on our use of sidewalks, which have traditionally been privately managed public space. Apart from a minimum of rules, most of them involving public decency, almost anything went. In those tolerant times, entrepreneurial activity flourished. Pedestrians in popular shopping districts might wend their way past foods carts offering exotic fare, past organ grinders with monkeys, past hawkers selling trinkets. Looking up, they would see awnings and store signs swinging overhead. To their side they’d see a profusion of storefronts, their merchandise often spilling out onto the sidewalk.

Click here to read more...

Keys To The Candy Store Given To...

Chipmunk suit no joke

Fri Mar 19 2010

On one level, some Toronto city councillors' inappropriate expense claims are laughable: rental of a chipmunk outfit and other theatrical costumes, presentation of a reptile show, opera tickets, parade beads and candy.

The Official Bird Should Be A Turkey...

...and I would suggest the following be added:

as we tend to blame the "other guy"; ie: society, the police, whitey, the banks, etc. etc. and the concept of individual responsibility is treasonous.

Living In This City Can At Times Drive You Mental...

In search of a Toronto mentality

March 16, 2010
Rosie DiManno

What is a Toronto mentality?
Perhaps, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, that being a Torontonian is 90 per cent mental and the other half physical – (italics here) in loco (close italics) geographicus.
We (italics here) are (close italics), therefore we think we are…the centre of the universe.
In truth, I don’t think most Torontonians think about it all that much.

It is very prevalent in the area bounded by Bloor, on the north, Toronto Islands, on the south, DVP, on the east and Spadina on the west and the inhabitants in this enclave are the ones that send the leftists to Toronto Silly Hall.

That’s the purview of local politicians, endlessly jacked-up about the alleged preeminence of this metropolis, vis a vis the rest of Canada, and newspaper columnists who consider themselves above such plebian debate, albeit dipping into the dialectic for occasional riffs.
From time to time, as well, some mook with a soapbox will come along to suggest that Toronto secede from the province and establish itself as a city-state, like Washington D.C., or Sparta. Phrased more bureaucratically, this essentially is what’s meant by demands for a “New Deal’’ from Queen’s Park and Ottawa, a concept heavily promoted by the Star in crusade-past and routinely bruited about by power-greedy mayors-who-would-be-king.
For the most part, though, people from afar – and afar is anyplace outside the 905, though personally I would draw the boundary at Eglinton – are satisfied simply kicking around T.O. for its perceived sins, the self-preoccupation and smugness, the liberal-left tenor, the disconnect from heartland values, the yearning for Big Apple little apples metaphor. Even back in Alberta’s energy glut era, when the screw-youse mantra was all about letting Toronto freeze in the dark, few came out and overtly advocated for the capital of Upper Canada to take a Confederation hike – or detach itself for special status sovereignty.
Yet now a Progressive Conservative MPP – duly elected so presumably not a complete whackjob, although we are talking Tories here – has made exactly that postulation, as a means for getting the purported un-Ontarioness of Toronto off the weary province’s back.
Bill Murdoch, who represents Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound, which I think is somewhere due north, made his comments this week at a meeting of the Bruce Country Federation of Agriculture, which sounds vaguely gay-Commie to me. According to a Canadian Press report – though why the over-tasked national wire service would be staffing such an inside-the-tractor-belt confab is hard to fathom – Murdoch claimed that Ontario, as state of mind and agronomic society, is fighting a losing battle against a big-footing “Toronto mentality’’.
Again, I don’t know what “Toronto mentality’’ means and more specifically when used in such a clearly pejorative context. But Murdoch added that Toronto decision-makers routinely ignore rural voices, which leaves me wondering which Toronto decision-makers have any influence at all on rural matters outside the city’s jurisdiction. I do not recall Toronto Council, loopy though it may be, ever debating issues that might directly impact Bruce County or any other rube burg, unless maybe we at some point considered shipping our garbage there.
By way of illustrating his point, Murdoch referenced Toronto’s coyote problem as among the hurdles that T.O. based decisions create for the farming and rural economy. Now, really, I don’t see where predatory middle-aged women in the city should be causing any problems for farmers. Sorry? Oh, that’s cougars, my mistake. Coyotes would be those confused bush creatures that have occasionally ventured into the Beaches and snatched little doggies for dinner. Most Beachers don’t want them killed or harshly leg-trapped, I understand, just transported back whence they came. Admittedly, this is a squishy tree-hugging response to prowling carnivores. But still, don’t see why farmers should have their overalls in a twist about it. Let ‘em long-gun shoot all the coyotes they want, in season and with a properly registered firearm, as the law allows.
In fact, bet there aren’t half as many guns in Bruce County as there are in placeScarborough. Just saying.
Anyway, Murdoch suggested to his audience that Toronto designate itself Canada’s 11th province, which would require amending the Constitution. This, he argued, is rural Ontario’s only hope of having its voice heard, not drowned out by Toronto’s urban caterwauling.
Actually, I like the idea. But if Ontario wants to dispense of Toronto, go all rural rogue, maybe the rest of the province should be the party initiating divorce proceedings on grounds of irreconcilable ideological differences. Doubt if anyone down here would contest the action.
Murdoch said Ontario should keep the 905 region, though.

Thanks Christie But The Sad Reality Is...

...it is the apathy of the residents of the city that allow people like Fletcher, Moscoe, Mihevic, Pantaloonie, etc. to get re-elected.

 It is time for term limits and recall legislation to hold councilors responsible to keep promises and for actions not in the common good.

 The voters likely won't forget who Councillor Fletcher works for...

Christie Blatchford

Published on Saturday, Mar. 06, 2010 12:00AM EST Last updated on Saturday, Mar. 06, 2010 10:45AM EST

 

As evidence of the almost magnificent degree of dysfunction attained by the city government in Toronto, you can't do much better than revisit the notorious Paula Fletcher shrieking match last week.
Ms. Fletcher is a city councillor for the Toronto-Danforth ward in the east end. She was one of a few councillors present at a budget committee meeting this week, one of two special meetings where the public had been specifically invited to make deputations.
As with all 44 councillors, she earns $99,153.50 a year, with the usual budget for staff (about $205,557 for three full-time positions) and an additional office budget of $53,100. A review of her expenses reveals that like many of her colleagues, Ms. Fletcher rarely reaches into her own pocket - she has regular lunches with the "women's caucus," for instance, which means some of her female colleagues on council and which one or another of the attendees usually bills back to the city. Much of the support she gives to local community groups comes from the public purse, not her own.
This is how incumbent councillors have such a whopping advantage: Once elected, they use their office budgets to buy ads for themselves in local rags and tickets for locally run golf tournaments and to sponsor local soccer teams and the like. Thus their names are everywhere: They use the public's money to buy back the public.
In any case, unusually, for this particular meeting, citizens also had been encouraged to come out and be heard by John Tory, a former mayoralty candidate who in January announced that he wouldn't be trying again in the coming municipal election and who now works as an on-air host for Newstalk 1010 (the same radio station on which I appear twice a day). That day, Mr. Tory had done his show from the rotunda at City Hall.
During the course of that meeting, a well-dressed man with an agreeable manner named John Smith stood up to politely question the coming property tax hike of 4 per cent and the imposition of new user fees contained in the $9-billion budget.
Ms. Fletcher went to town on him.
First, she turned the tables entirely and instead of speaking to his remarks, began peppering Mr. Smith with questions - did he or did he not support cuts to arts funding (bravely, he said he did), daycare subsidies (he started to explain that it was a long time since his kids were that young but was interrupted by Ms. Fletcher) and breakfast programs in the schools (Mr. Smith said, sensibly, that he was involved in helping such a program, but that he didn't view this as "being that something that should be [solely] funded by my taxes").
Previous speakers (but of course) had come to City Hall to beg for more money for these very programs (their views were in alignment with City Hall's, so they were treated delicately), so Ms. Fletcher's questions to Mr. Smith were what Mr. Tory correctly called later "trick questions," raised by a politician who had both facts and figures at her fingertips and a sympathetic audience at hand.
In other words, Ms. Fletcher was trying to make Mr. Smith look like an ill-informed, anti-progressive right-winger (the kiss of death at City Hall and more generally in downtown Toronto).
But she didn't stop there. She was not content with hectoring Mr. Smith, belittling him, or interrupting him.
Instead, her voice rising, furiously jabbing the air with her pencil, Ms. Fletcher proceeded to shout hysterically at him, suggested he was a John Tory plant (he was not; the two had never even met), and, when someone yelled from the gallery that she should be fired, yelled, "Oh, come and run against me! Come on down, baby!"
It was an absolutely astonishing spectacle, and so revealing.
Like all too many of her colleagues, Ms. Fletcher has forgotten who works for whom. She in fact is employed at the pleasure of Mr. Smith et al. Elected for the first time only seven years ago, she is nonetheless as contemptuous as any old ward-heeler of those who pay her salary and whose money she spends.
Her behaviour was so loutish that it shocked even some of her colleagues, well-accustomed to being treated like dirt by one another and to shows of rudeness to the citizenry.
Ms. Fletcher later issued, through budget chair Shelley Carroll, whose feeble efforts at attempting to control her colleague the night before had failed miserably, a classic of the modern apology - that is, "if my tone put anyone off", "if my tone was argumentative," if she offended anyone, she regretted it. There was no acknowledgment that her tone put off everyone who heard it, that her tone was craven and entitled as well as argumentative, and that she offended every taxpayer in the city.
Unbelievably, Mr. Tory had the grace to allow her to come on his show (thereby yet again revealing why he would have been such a good mayor and why Ms. Fletcher is such a lousy councillor), where she said that she had "lost it" and displayed "bad manners" with Mr. Smith.
She then decided the matter was over, or as she told a Toronto Sun reporter, "And that is that." You see? Not only does she get to berate a taxpayer, not only does she issue a pathetic apology to paper over her egregious conduct, but also she gets to decide when the discussion is over.
The next municipal election is Oct. 25. Ms. Fletcher is, tragically, already registered as a candidate. How lovely it would be if the voters reminded the harpy that it ain't over until they say it is.

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum...

The Perpatrators 

...and the sad thing is most of them will be re-elected!

While The Cat's Away The Mice (rats) will Play...

Taxpayers ripped off for 600Gs

By BRYN WEESE, Toronto Sun

Toronto taxpayers were ripped off for nearly $600,000 last year by unscrupulous municipal employees and private companies working for City Hall.
The city’s auditor general, Jeffrey Griffiths, released his annual report on the eight-year-old fraud and waste hotline Thursday, which saw a 9% increase in complaints in 2009 over the year before.
But that’s not an indication that fraud at City Hall is on the rise, according to the chairman of the city’s audit committee.
“It’s increased just about every year since we started it, but it’s not that there’s more crime or anything funny going on, it’s that more people feel comfortable with the hotline and have increased confidence in it,” Councillor Doug Holyday said.
The hotline, which includes an online component, identified $590,000 in lost revenue for the city, less than $2,000 of which has been recovered.
But in his report, Griffiths suggests that amount will increase this year as the city and the courts follow up on the fraud and theft.
Of the 677 complaints fielded by the auditor in 2009, 18% were substantiated in whole or in part and discipline was meted out in 23 cases.
The fraud and skulduggery rooted out last year by Griffiths’ office includes: Theft of admission fees at a city facility, employees using city equipment for personal use, a dental office filing fake claims to the city’s benefits carrier, and nine employees defrauding the city’s insurance provider for $180,000.
In some cases, Griffiths notes, the employees were arrested and convicted.
In others, they were simply canned.
“I think we have to be firm and swift in meting out justice to those people who do these things to the taxpayer. I don’t think there’s any excuse for it whatsoever,” Holyday said. “People who are going to cheat and steal from the taxpayer should all lose their jobs as soon as they’re found guilty,” he said.
“The folks who do these things should know that there are severe penalties and it won’t take long to be imposed,” he added. “That’s one of the best things we can do to try to stop some of this.”
The auditor’s report will be tabled at next Friday’s audit committee, which will also look at how to stop bleeding $18 million a year in cancelled parking tickets.
In a separate report, Griffiths suggests 15% of the 2.9 million parking tickets handed out in Toronto each year are cancelled either because the driver speeds off before the ticket is issued, or the parking perp doesn’t have Ontario plates, and can’t be tracked down.
The ticket issue isn’t just about the money, Holyday said, “though if ever there was a group who needed the money, it’s us.
“But it’s also a matter of fairness. If we don’t pursue these tickets to the best of our ability, it isn’t fair to those people who admit that they made a mistake and pay the fine,” he said. “If other guys are doing the same thing (parking illegally) and getting away without paying, that’s not fair.”
According to Griffiths, as of December 2008 there were 3.4 million outstanding parking tickets, which equals about $103 million in unpaid fines.

Was It Councilor Carrol Who Said Council Decisions Are Supreme...

...and outweigh the law of the land?

City’s $65,680 legal payout to councillor coming to a boil: Levy By Sue-Ann Levy

If Coun. Adrian Heaps had the slightest shred of decency, he’d offer not to take the $65,680 for his legal bills which are now the subject of a Toronto Party for a Better City lawsuit.

The Problem Is In The Solution...

Fiorito: Answer the buzzer, city housing (first fix it)

by Joe Fiorito

Not Good News.....

John Tory: Does Toronto Really Need Another Liberal Running for Mayor?

John Tory has apparently decided not to run for mayor of Toronto in the upcoming municipal election. Reading the story, what struck me was the people who managed his previous campaigns: Jeff Bangs, who managed Tory’s 2004 campaign for the Conservative leadership, decided to run former Liberal provincial minister George Smitherman’s campaign for mayor. As well, Rocco [...]

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