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feature — Comments Off on City Council Scorecard: Voting to take out the trash
24
Nov 11

City Council Scorecard: Voting to take out the trash

Toronto Council Scorecard

November 24, 2011: Google Docs (Best View) - Download (PDF)  - Download (PNG)

A bit delayed this month because despite all the hoopla over animals and garbage, the October council meeting actually ended up being fairly uneventful. Especially when compared to the September special meeting, which was full of dramatic and close votes.

Have no fear, though: things are about to ramp up again. We’re just about to enter the 2012 budget season — all this core service review stuff is little more than a pre-show — where everything is likely to descend into outright chaos.

But first, let’s wrap up October by adding the vote on the contracting out of solid waste — a major Rob Ford campaign promise — to the City Council Scorecard.

New Vote


The vote added:

  • CC13.5 awarded, amongst other things, the contract for solid waste collection in District 2 to Green For Life, an upstart player in the waste collection industry with a lightly checkered past and a bid that some felt was suspiciously low. Council voted 32-12 earlier this year to put the contract out to tender and, given that GFL’s bid was ruled compliant, it would have put Council in a legally dicey position had they rejected the bid. Also of note: we learned this morning with the release of Council’s agenda for next week that GFL entered into a process to acquire Turtle Island Recycling Corporation — the holder of the contract for waste collection in District 1 — on July 28, 2011, several months prior to this vote. As a result of their successful acquisition, GFL will control solid waste pick-up for half of Toronto as of next August.

Trend Watch

Not a lot to read into with this vote. Given council’s legal position and the fact that this is one of those things that Ford can legitimately claim a mandate, there was no way this vote was going to see a different result.

More interesting was a motion by Ana Bailão, who moved that council defer making a decision on the contract until the November council meeting, to allow for more consultation with the union and a more through examination of the bid. Her motion failed 20-22, with Raymond Cho, Chin Lee, Mary-Margaret McMahon Josh Matlow and the 16 councillors who ultimately voted against the contract in support.

Bailão continues to chart away from the mayor and his agenda, which seems to be making some unhappy. The Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy savaged her in a column after the vote. Bailão should be proud.

Batting Average

Ford’s council batting average ticks up as a result of this victory, after plunging in September with a series of defeats on items relating to the core service review. But this was always a gimme. Regardless of the social or economic cost in the long-term, voters wanted some revenge for the 2009 public worker strike. In this, I guess they have it. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Questions

Questions about the Council Scorecard? Read my notes on methodology. Also, you can email me.

feature — Comments Off on Occupy Toronto: Where’s the mayor?
22
Nov 11

Occupy Toronto: Where’s the mayor?

Yesterday, before Justice David Brown released his 54-page ruling affirming that, yeah, there is an enforceable bylaw against sleeping in city parks, Councillor Pam McConnell — whose ward includes St. James Park and, also, my house — told the Toronto Star’s David Rider that she was “worried that there will be violence in this park. We’ve seen G20. I don’t ever think that Torontonians have a stomach for seeing it again.”

She then added: “I will not have a riot in my ward.”

That last quote — which was removed in subsequent versions of Rider’s story — struck me as important. It’s the kind of straightforward, declarative messaging we need to hear from our political leaders. It’s reassuring without being cloying. And I think it gets to the heart of what most are feeling these days, when they look at the protest in the park: please don’t let this turn into a scene where people get hurt.

The mayor, on the other hand, refrained from speaking publicly on this issue until after the judge’s ruling yesterday, when he emerged alongside City Manager Joseph Pennachetti to say basically the same thing over and over again until his press secretary declared an end to things.

The National Post’s Natalie Alcoba has a transcript:

Mayor: I’m asking the protesters to leave peacefully and I’d like them to leave as soon as possible.

Reporter: What if they don’t? Are you giving them a couple of days?

Mayor: I’m going to reiterate what I said. I’d like them to leave as soon as possible, the judge has made a ruling I’d like them to obey the rules and the bylaws the judge upheld.

Reporter: At what point do you start enforcing those bylaws though?

Mayor: Again, I’m going to reiterate: I want them to leave as soon as possible.

Reporter: Mayor Ford we’re live right now on CP24. Will you be asking police to step in or intervene?

Mayor: Again I’d like the protesters to leave peacefully and as soon as possible. I don’t know how much clearer I can make myself.

Reporter: But just by saying that it’s not going to make them magically disappear.

Mayor: I’m telling you I’m asking the protesters to leave as soon as possible.

via Transcript: Rob Ford wants Occupy Toronto protesters to leave ‘as soon as possible’ | National Post.

That’s only a partial excerpt, but you get the idea.

Leadership is as hard quality to define and an even harder thing to measure, but it’s one of those things that voters value, especially in a municipal leader. When Trish Hennessy reported on an Environics Focus Group held this summer involving people who cast their vote for Ford last year, she noted that while Ford supporters still have varying degrees of support for the mayor’s policies, they were united in pointing to one thing as a red flag:

[E]very single focus group raised one common issue as being the biggest ‘knock’ against Rob Ford, the mayor: his refusal to make an appearance at the Pride Day parade. While they found his candor refreshing enough to lend him their vote, now that he’s mayor, they’re beginning to apply a higher standard – one reflective of the office.

via Mythology: Ford Nation, one year later | Framed in Canada.

One reflective of the office.

That office has responsibilities beyond marshalling council votes. There is a heft to the mayor’s title that is as much symbolic as it is legislative. Ford has continued to display a reluctance to seize that and be the leader Toronto needs: that guy who’s got a steady hand and who knows how to navigate the waters ahead. Instead, he skips the big cultural events, stumbles when asked to name things about the city he actually enjoys, takes several months to reassure people that he won’t close libraries en masse and now can’t even find words beyond “peacefully” and “soon” to use regarding the month-long protest taking place in a downtown park.

But, hell, maybe my standards are too high. The mayor’s brother thinks Ford deserves credit because he “didn’t go in there with a billy club as everyone thought he would.”

And yeah, I think we can all agree that we’re happy the mayor didn’t wield a billy club.

feature — Comments Off on Denzil Minnan-Wong thinks Denzil Minnan-Wong is wrong on new overflow recycling policy
21
Nov 11

Denzil Minnan-Wong thinks Denzil Minnan-Wong is wrong on new overflow recycling policy

The Globe & Mail’s Elizabeth Church brings us up to speed on the latest proposed service cut from the no-service-cuts gang at City Hall:

Toronto’s blue box program is the latest initiative to face money-saving cuts, with a plan to limit curbside collection to what residents can cram into their recycling bin.

The move is part of next year’s proposed solid waste budget and is expected to save the city about $500,000. The measure would end the long-standing practice that allows city residents to place any overflow from their recycling bins beside their blue box in clear bags.

…

A staff report notes that residents can “upsize” their blue bins for free if the new limit is a problem.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the city’s public works committee, also noted that residents can obtain a second blue bin if one is not enough to meet their needs.

via Cuts to blue box program urged over environmentalists’ objections | Globe & Mail. (Emphasis added.)

Okay. So there’s Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, Chair of Public Works and good buddy of the mayor’s office, defending a cost-cutting move that will make it more challenging for residents to recycle.

Now let’s travel back to 2009, when the city’s solid waste management division attempted to make a similar policy change. Seems Denzil Minnan-Wong had some thoughts on this policy back then.

As reported by the National Post’s Allison Haines:

Toronto will soon be refusing to pick up the overflow bottles, cans and newspapers that don’t fit in the city’s new recycling bins — the latest in a series of changes to the curb-side collection program that require the cooperation of befuddled residents.

…

Still, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Don Valley East) said the message is the city is making things more difficult for the most avid recyclers.

“I’ve already heard from a few of my residents. They think it’s completely stupid,” he said. “We’re saying no to recyclers and we’re making it even harder for them to participate — I suppose it’s because it’s too much work for the garbage collectors to get out of their truck.”

via Toronto: New bin regime spawns new rules, confusion for avid recyclers | National Post. (Emphasis added; third-party link as old Post articles sure are hard to find since they switched to WordPress.)

So which is it, Denzil Minnan-Wong? Do your residents still think this change is stupid? Or has the fact that you’re now on good terms with the mayor somehow changed their mind?

One of the more interesting sideshows of the Rob Ford administration has been watching various councillors who seemed so comfortable in their role angrily opposing and shouting down David Miller wrestle with the realities of being in power. It’s almost inevitable that they’ll end up contradicting themselves. (For other examples, see also: Karen Stintz and Giorgio Mammoliti.)

Recycled Issues

On the change itself: it is stupid. It’s easy to say that residents can just get a bigger bin, or even a second bin, but that doesn’t really hold true for residents in the Old City, who have already had to cram the new-style garbage bins into the limited space they have in their front yards. This shouldn’t be a revelatory statement but maybe it is: not everyone has a garage in this city.

As is his habit these days, Budget Chief Mike Del Grande speaks most plainly and maybe-inadvertantly reveals the real thinking behind this move. He told Inside Toronto’s David Nickle that the reason behind eliminating overflow pick-up was purely political:

This year, the solid waste budget will see residential rates frozen – in part, according to budget chief Mike Del Grande, because of contracting out of more garbage collection that was approved at the last meeting of Toronto Council.

“It would be difficult, to say on solid waste, to increase fees when we just went through a big humongous process to save a lot of money,” said Del Brande. “We can’t do that when you have $11 million in savings.”

via City will no longer collect extra recyclables in plastic bags | InsideToronto.com.

In other words: the Ford administration wanted people to feel like the move to contract out garbage had saved them money. And the only way to achieve that was to cut service.

feature — Comments Off on Layoffs, Lies & Statistics: Does the City of Toronto employ too many people?
14
Nov 11

Layoffs, Lies & Statistics: Does the City of Toronto employ too many people?

There will be blood. And also layoffs.

That’s the word from City Manager Joe Pennachetti, who has to be loving his life these days, and from the mayor and his assorted hangers-on. The strategy seems to be to pretend that layoffs were always on the table — of course they were! –, even though Rob Ford himself promised there was “no need for layoffs” during his campaign.

The National Post’s Natalie Alcoba covers the story:

Pink slips are on the way for city employees, the municipality’s top bureaucrat warned on Thursday, as officials feverishly put numbers together to see what it takes to balance the budget next year.

“There will be layoffs and that’s been known for a long time,” city manager Joe Pennachetti told reporters as the budget committee deliberated on garbage and water rates.

…

Budget Chief Mike Del Grande would not say whether he is expecting layoffs to be part of the financial mix.

“We’re feverishly putting numbers together to see what it takes to balance the budget,” he said. He pointed out that the city’s labour force has ballooned since amalgamation, when the whole idea was to reduce employees and be more efficient.

via ‘There will be layoffs,’ city manager warns | National Post. (Emphasis added.)

That last bit is a familiar refrain at this point. And it’s the sort of thing that people assume is true, even without evidence. Of course our big government socialist bureaucracy would never get any smaller, what with all the chipmunk suits and confusing public art they keep spending our tax money on.

But, hold on, once we get past the rhetoric and the ideology, we’re still left with the fundamental question: is it true? Did the number of city staff only increase after amalgamation?

Looking to the numbers

Between 1998 and 2007 — the last year I could find numbers for — the following City departments actually saw a net reduction in staff:

  • Clerk’s Office (-97 positions)
  • HR (-73)
  • Finance (-69)
  • Mayor & Council Offices (-51)
  • Facilities (-42)
  • Fleet (-30)
  • Public Info & Creative Services (-28)
  • Auditor General’s Office (-24)
  • City Manager (-13)
  • Something called CS-SII (-9)
  • Legal (-4)
  • Toronto Water (-432)
  • Public Library (-194)
  • Transportation (-122)
  • Housing (-107)
  • Public Works (-53)
  • Solid Waste (-49)
  • Business Support (-41)
  • Policy, Finance & Admin (-14)
  • Economic Development/Culture/Tourism(-11)
  • Parking Authority (-6)
  • Fire (-7)

On the other hand, here’s where the city added employees:

  • IT (+44 Positions)
  • Planning (+5)
  • Waterfront/Clean & Beautiful City (+8)
  • Other/ABCs (+15)
  • Zoo (+20)
  • Municipal Licensing & Standards (+21)
  • Building (+30)
  • 311 (+33)
  • Parking Enforcement (+54)
  • Works – Technical Services (+83)
  • Exhibition Place (+164)
  • Parks, Forest & Recreation (+186)
  • Court Services (+251)
  • EMS (+340)
  • Police (+875)
  • Social Development (+30)
  • Homes for Aged (+111)
  • Child Services (+114)
  • Social Services (+195)
  • Shelter & Housing (+353)
  • Public Health (+704)
  • TTC (+1,927)

Whew. So what do we learn from all that? This chart from the City’s 2008 Operating Budget Presentation sums things up pretty well:
City of Toronto Net Change in New Positions - 1998 - 2007(There’s also this more detailed chart if you’re so inclined.)

Post-amalgamation, the city actually shed staff positions in the places where you’d think they would. The number of people doing administrative duties decreased as departments were combined and services shared. Basic municipal services — things like economic development, solid waste, etc — saw either similar reductions or limited growth, with a few exceptions.

Where there was growth, it was either because of the times we live in (increases to the number of IT staff, for example) or because council decided to put emphasis on specific departments or services  in order to grow or improve the city. If a mayor decides that he or she wants to improve the cleanliness of the city, as David Miller did with his Clean & Beautiful City initiative, you probably need to put some staff on it.

Some of the biggest increases in places where the city has limited ability to control costs. Social Development, Homes for Aged, Child Services, Social Services, Shelter & Housing and Public Health are all cost-shared services with the provincial government. Like we saw earlier this year with the vanishing-and-reappearing public health nurses, often the province will provide fully funded positions to municipalities. They also mandate minimum service levels, tying the city’s hands. (To be fair, they also transfer money to the city to cover — or partially cover — the delivery of these programs.)

The big spikes, of course, came from the Police (and EMS) and the TTC. As Rob Ford just learned, the police budget is challenging to rein in. To say the least.

The TTC growth is even easier to explain. Over the last seven years, TTC service was expanded far beyond the dismal levels of the mid 90s. And people noticed, as ridership has increased to record highs. But with transit, the staffing equation is simple: if you add a bus, you add a driver. And with more drivers comes more supervisors, more mechanics and more support staff.

So-called ‘efficiencies’ will only get you so far with transit, unless you start putting Total Recall-esque Johnny Cabs in the driver’s seat of city buses and streetcars. The only way to significantly cut staff here is to cut service.

Layoffs almost always mean service cuts

With a well-executed plan for continuous improvement, any corporation — including the City of Toronto — can start doing more with less. Toronto has, in fact, been doing this for years. Each of the city’s last six approved budgets included significant savings from efficiencies. With continuous improvement and employee attrition, you’re able to successfully shrink the size of government without layoffs and buy-outs.

But Rob Ford’s government has blown away any notion of continuous improvement, instead opting to look at the budget — and the city’s workforce — with a hatchet in hand. A look at where the city has seen staffing growth over the last decade makes it clear: any layoffs will almost certainly mean a roll-back in services.

feature — Comments Off on Rebuilding Ford Nation: can a war with the unions save our unpopular mayor?
09
Nov 11

Rebuilding Ford Nation: can a war with the unions save our unpopular mayor?

It’s been lurking in the shadows of other news stories for months now — I hoped it would just go away — but this week it’s become clear that there is no avoiding it: we’re going to spend the next six months talking about unions.

The Globe & Mail’s Patrick White & Tu Thanh Ha:

Demands made by the city to its 8,000 outside workers run the gamut from an elimination of premium night-shift pay to the termination of some job-security clauses, according to a copy of a 21-page bargaining proposal obtained by The Globe and Mail.

Spanning more than 40 individual concessions, the document amounts to a fundamental overhaul of the municipality’s relationship with public-sector unions, fanning concerns that the city is in store for a prolonged work stoppage.

via City of Toronto document outlines demands it seeks from unions | Globe & Mail.

What should be early-stage private negotiations between the city and the union — the current contract doesn’t expire until December 31 — quickly became public, which indicates that one side really isn’t interested in reaching a settled agreement. And given that only one side has much to gain from a protracted dispute, all indications point to Rob Ford’s team working an angle. They want to force a public labour battle which will probably include a lock-out.

From a purely dollars-and-cents perspective, it’s not entirely clear why. The Globe has a term-paper-sized list of demands-for-concessions issued by the city, some of which seem driven by a desire to contain costs, but others, oddly, seem fairly arbitrary. Are there significant savings to be had from killing, for example, “a joint union/management committee aimed at creating a ‘clean and beautiful City?'”

What’s the city’s — and by that I mean, mostly, the mayor’s office — end goal with this play? How much money does the city need to save to balance the budget over the course of the new contract? Are there other ways to achieve those savings that won’t result in a nasty work stoppage? Has anyone even considered that question?

Or do we just want war?

Ford Nation: Riding an anti-union wave back to the top

A war with the unions isn’t a bad strategy for Rob Ford. It was, after all, a pre-emptive war with unions that brought him to the mayor’s office.

Public sector unions are not very popular. There’s no getting around this. Many of the strategic moves made by the various public sector unions through the David Miller years — things like the midnight TTC strike and some of the tactics during the 2009 feud — were serious missteps that didn’t do anything good for their public support. That there was so much labour strife during a period where the political power was firmly in the hands of a labour-friendly mayor and council doesn’t speak well of the union leaders’ ability to fairly negotiate within the bounds of fiscal reality.

And, yes, I know that the ins-and-outs of contracts and negotiation are far more complicated than I just portrayed them, but perception is what it is. It’s hard to change.

And so, absent effective counter-messaging from the union, this looming debate will go this way: even though the winter work stoppage will most likely be a lock-out, not a strike, a good portion of the public will treat it like a strike, and blame the union for the cessation in public services. Rather than think of this dispute in terms of the city’s budget — how much the union wants, and how much the city needs to save — pundits and columnists and talk radio callers will endlessly pontificate on the role of unions in the public sector and the modern economy. The arguments will descend to the point they always do, with one person essentially whining that another person gets better benefits and higher pay than they do.

Very few will stop to consider whether we should be building up wages and benefits across the private sector, instead of tearing them down in the public sector.

And so the mayor takes his position as the guy standing tough against those who would exploit the taxpayers. And, lo, on the horizon, is that Ford Nation rising again?

feature — Comments Off on The Don Revelation: renegade valley may thwart Rob Ford’s underground transit vision
07
Nov 11

The Don Revelation: renegade valley may thwart Rob Ford’s underground transit vision

There is a little known geological phenomenon that divides Toronto’s east and west sides. Planners — whose grand visions are frequently thwarted by this useless gaping chasm — call it the “Don Valley.” It is truly a scourge that continues to strike when we least expect it.

Its latest victim might be the Mayor’s bold, never-voted-on plan to bury the entirety of the Eglinton LRT. The mayor’s unilateral decision to bury the line came with a $2 billion price tag and two casualties, killing light rail projects for Finch West and Sheppard East.

Here’s John Lorinc, writing for the Globe & Mail:

Under the Transit City strategy, the LRT was to emerge from a tunnel east of Laird and continue eastward on a right-of-way in the middle of Eglinton. But because of Mr. Ford’s changes, Metrolinx officials have spent months grappling with the question of how to get the Crosstown line across the Don Valley.

A tunnel may prove to be too deep and too steep for light rail vehicles, so Bruce McCuaig, president and CEO of Metrolinx, said the agency is looking at building a grade-separated bridge for the LRT as it crosses the ravines. Public consultations on an environmental assessment examining a bridge and other tunnel configurations will begin in early 2012.

via Tunnel plan for Eglinton Crosstown LRT could stymie Ford | Globe & Mail.

Despite continually being reminded that the taxpayers told the mayor that they wanted subways — not streetcars! — and that the war on the car is over, this lazy, insubordinate valley refuses to budge.

Metrolinx is said to be looking at bridge options, but that’s a dangerous path to go down. Lengthy environmental assessment processes threaten to re-politicize transit expansion, forcing council debates and public consultation sessions. In addition, any elevated bridges will almost certainly mean cost overruns and delays, pushing the completion date for the Eglinton project back from the already-distant goal of 2020.

Running the Eglinton line in a median over existing road bridges is, of course, workable. It’s what Transit City called for. But going back to that strategy could potentially jeopardize plans to use automatic operation for the line.

Operating the line in an exclusive, right-of-way on the bridge-crossing sections also immediately brings up another question: why not save a bunch of money and build the line in a protected right-of-way across other sections of Eglinton?

Under Transit City, the surface sections of the Eglinton LRT were always designed to operate at speeds close to or exceeding that of the Bloor-Danforth subway line. Eglinton’s status outside the core as a wide arterial means there’s plenty of room for transit without impacting automobile traffic. In fact, the only upside to burying the entirety of the line is that drivers won’t have to contend with limited left-turn access along the length of the route.

How much is that worth? Is it worth a billion dollars? How about two?

Undermined confidence

Stories like this only serve to undermine any confidence Toronto residents had in ongoing transit plans. At this point, people are so jaded by the planning process that only the true faithful believe that they’ll ever see the projects politicians trip over themselves to point out on maps come election time.

That Metrolinx planners are only now coming to terms with the existence of the Don Valley shows how haphazard this process is. The provincial government made a political decision to appease Rob Ford, but they seemingly never had any idea how to make the mayor’s new transit vision work.

And so we end up here: with a bunch of planners working to overcome the unforeseen problem that is one of the city’s most well-known natural phenomena. Oh, Don Valley. You bastard.

feature — Comments Off on The unlikely (and welcome) return of the Fort York bridge
04
Nov 11

The unlikely (and welcome) return of the Fort York bridge

Torontoist’s Hamutal Dotan:

Though it wasn’t originally on the agenda for today’s meeting, the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee will be considering whether to revive plans for the once-planned Fort York bridge—plans that were killed without notice earlier this year. The proposals being examined today are for some cheaper alternatives, ones that would bring the cost of the bridge down, say staff estimates, by anywhere from six to eight million, depending on which design the committee opts for.

via The Return of the Fort York Pedestrian-Cycling Bridge? | Torontoist.

Soon after Dotan’s article was published, the Public Works Committee approved a new design with a projected cost of $19.7 million.

Back in May of this year, I published a series of posts on this topic, concluding that Council’s decision to kill the original design for this bridge meant that we’d probably never see the project completed. (At least not under this administration.) “If we don’t build this thing on the planned schedule,” I wrote, all wide-eyed and sure of myself,  “it’s essentially never going to happen.”

So, for the record, let me say a couple of things. First: I was wrong. And second: this is good news.

There are still a bunch of questions to ask about this whole process. Given that $1.7 million had been spent on the original design — see page 13 of this staff presentation — are we to assume that that money was, essentially, wasted on nothing? And then there’s the new timeline for construction: is a capital savings of (potentially) $8 million — presumably less the $2 million in sunk costs on the previous design — worth a delay of three years?

And most importantly: was there any reason, aside from spite, that the motion to kill the original design was introduced at the last minute, without informing the local councillor?

I guess these questions are mostly irrelevant at this point. Water under the bridge.

It’s about selling city-owned land, stupid

Last May, Councillor David Shiner — seemingly the guy behind both the surprising death and unlikely rebirth of this project — told us rather plainly why the original bridge design was killed:

Building the bridge eliminates two future sources of cash, Shiner said.

He estimated 10 Ordnance St. — the property where the bridge’s centre columns would be placed — could fetch more than $50 million if sold, while the Wellington St. city-owned property where the bridge would start is worth around $20 million to $25 million.

via Pedestrian bridge to Fort York latest casualty of war on waste | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun.

Lo and behold, the new design allows for redevelopment opportunities that weren’t possible with the original plan. More public land can now get sold into private hands, with the proceeds used either to pay down capital debt — thus freeing up some of the operating budget that currently goes to debt servicing — or, in a pinch, to cover an operating budget gap directly.

feature — Comments Off on Calling 911 three times because there was a sketch comic in your driveway
03
Nov 11

Calling 911 three times because there was a sketch comic in your driveway

I generally try to stay away from the sideshow parts of this mayoralty and focus on policy and council dynamics, but, hell, no blog that purports to cover the day-to-day at Rob Ford’s City Hall would be complete without a mention of this. So here goes.

Rob Ford called 911 three times because there was a sketch comedian and camera crew in his driveway. This was widely regarded as a bad idea.

I thought Ed Keenan at The Grid and Ivor Tossell at The Toronto Standard had great takes on the calls, the fall-out, and all the twists and turns, including the bit where CBC reported that the mayor, over the course of his calls, said something along the lines of “You bitches, don’t you know who I am? I’m Rob Fucking Ford. The mayor of this city.” And then the part where Police Chief Bill Blair came to the mayor’s public defence, assuring us that he had hard the call, and that there was no use of the word “bitches.”

Looking back, the goal posts sure moved a lot over those five days. The mayor started the week thinking he’d get to celebrate a council victory with the contracting out of garbage collection west of Yonge. He ended it by finding vindication in the police chief’s confirmation that he did not, in fact, call a woman a bitch. (Though, admittedly, he did use a bit of profanity with her.)

There was some sputtering from would-be defenders of the mayor. They said this whole incident was because employees at the Toronto Police Service are biased against Rob Ford. They expressed great moral outrage that someone would approach a politician on their driveway in an attempt to get an interview. They suddenly had grave concerns about the length of time 911 takes to respond to calls. They did that thing where they referred to CBC and “my tax dollars” and flew into a rage.

And in all that, there were good points (a public figure’s right to privacy; 911 response times) and bad ones (any notion that bias against Ford played a role in this) but I just can’t get beyond this: if the mayor had just spent two minutes talking to the woman with the camera crew, giving her a few token comments, none of this would have happened. If he had, instead, retreated to his house, waited for the crew to leave, and then gone about his day, none of this would have happened.

In all the alternate-universe takes on this chain of events, the only one that comes out worse for the mayor is the one where he backs over Marg Delahunty with his mini-van.

Why this never mattered

The narrative of Rob Ford’s dwindling public support goes like this: a lot of people bought into the notion that there was a ton of waste at City Hall and Rob Ford was the guy to fight it. Once that story got bulldozed under the plodding reality of consultants and slow-burn service cuts, they started jumping ship. Hence, he’s the second most unpopular mayor of a major city in Canada.

An incident like this is never really going to move the needle. Either you’re a voter who has shown themselves willing to look beyond the mayor’s quirks of character — if it’s fair to call getting drunk at a hockey game and telling a woman she should get raped and shot ‘quirky’ — and support Rob Ford, or you’re not. The CBC’s original account of the situation — the one with the “bitches” — spread so far and so fast not just because it was salacious (and funny) but because it was believable. It fit the established Rob Ford we know.

The CBC’s screw-up

Much has been made of the CBC running with this story despite apparently having not heard the 911 tapes. Today at Torontoist, Mark Bourrie argues that the whole incident reflects so badly on the public broadcaster that it could contribute to a future push to reduce or eliminate funding. I think that might be overstating things.

But the CBC definitely made a mistake here, and I think it comes down to running unconfirmed quotes from the supposed 911 calls. I’m not sure who made that call, but it was the wrong one. Had CBC led off with a news story that reported only that the mayor had made repeated 911 calls, used profanity, and been rude toward the operators, that likely would have held up to scrutiny and still driven the page views.

feature — Comments Off on Sorry Mr. Budget Chief, Rob Ford doesn’t have a mandate for a ‘tough medicine’ budget
03
Nov 11

Sorry Mr. Budget Chief, Rob Ford doesn’t have a mandate for a ‘tough medicine’ budget

Writing for his pals at the Toronto Sun, here’s city budget chief and Scarborough councillor Mike Del Grande:

Our mayor was elected because voters perceived him as a simple guy, the people’s mayor, who would clean up City Hall.

But last year’s election is clearly not over for news outlets like the Star and CBC.

Apparently they cannot stand to think changes in the way City Hall operates are imminent, and they will do all they can, not to offer any alternative, but to derail them, simply for the pleasure of saying, “I told you so”.

We have a “tough medicine” budget coming and I expect more of the same conduct from them.

via Anti-Mayor Ford agenda is clear | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun.

I praised Del Grande last week for taking the right stand on the shark fin soup issue. His vote came packaged with a nice speech that I thought showed a sincere commitment to the environment. I also praised the budget chief earlier this year when he took a bit of a stand — albeit by excusing himself, instead of voting ‘no’ — when his allies at council attempted to repeal a ban on the sale of bottled water at city facilities.

Unlike some Ford allies who seem driven by a gleeful desire to spitefully tear down all things associated with David Miller, Del Grande strikes me as a rather back-to-basics fiscal conservative. His attitude toward the 2012 budget has been relatively consistent: he thinks we should take the pain of significant cuts, fix the structural deficit, and move on from there.

I disagree with him, of course. Trying to fix a structural shortfall — one that we’ve had to deal with for more than a decade — in a single budget cycle is insane and also unnecessary. It’s insanely unnecessary. There’s no reason to do things this way.

But that’s my perspective. The budget chief has his. We disagree. That’s okay.

But here’s what gets me about his editorial, and it’s something I see from a lot of the crowd that still clings to the Rob Ford steamship: Rob Ford is not some paragon of austerity and old school conservative thinking. That wasn’t his platform last year and it doesn’t seem to be his position now. Instead, the mayor clings to some rather dubious magical thinking about gravy and how he’ll cut it and save us billions of dollars.

If Mike Del Grande wanted a mayor with a mandate to pass ‘tough medicine’ budgets, he should have run for the office himself. As much as he might want to project his principles onto the guy in the mayor’s chair, it doesn’t hold up. Because the guy in the mayor’s chair said there would be no cuts.

He assured us.

Del Grande’s Budget Notes

While we’re on the subject, Del Grande’s office recently posted some “budget notes in brief” on the councillor’s appropriately austere blog. They also were included in the fall newsletter.

I’d take issue with a couple of his points.

The first is the off-hand reference to capital debt “caused by the previous mayor’s spending.” Capital spending did increase over the David Miller years, but I would challenge people to look at that spending and identify high-ticket items that shouldn’t have been bought. Like it or not, this municipality bears responsibility for one of the largest transit systems in North America. Replacing end-of-life subway trains and streetcars, coupled with a continued emphasis on state of good repair projects after that incident where people died in a train crash, make for the brunt of our capital debt challenge.

Second, there’s the continued spectre of large property tax increases. Simplifying this complex budget debate down to alarmist concerns about 30+% tax increases is a dumb strategy. It just ends up making Del Grande and company look like they have no strategy, no ideas and no direction. The city has had years where they faced much larger opening pressures — bigger, yes, than $774 million — and council was able to find a way to balance them without double-digit increases in residential property tax rates.

Enough with the fear mongering. Show us your plan.

feature — Comments Off on Nothing noble about paying for your own office expenses
01
Nov 11

Nothing noble about paying for your own office expenses

“Rob Ford buys golden business cards from family firm” is a tempting headline, but I’m going to be the model of restraint and come at this from a slightly different angle.

Let’s start here: third quarter office expenses for councillors and the mayor were posted this past Friday. Office expenses are mostly boring — all toner and Blackberrys — but there’s always a story or two that emerges after they get released. For this round, that story was this: Rob Ford bought some business cards.

On the surface, this shouldn’t be a big deal. Ford loves business cards. Handing out his card is the first thing he does when he meets someone. It’s like his super awkward version of the fist bump. And it even makes sense that he’d look to an outside printer for his stock of cards, as the city’s in-house business cards are kind of cheap looking.

But here’s the problem: When Rob Ford went to buy his business cards, he decided to buy them from Deco Labels. Deco Labels is the printing business started by his father. The mayor still has a title there, and when elected he said he would still be doing some work for the firm. A released version of his schedule from earlier this year showed him devoting full days to work at the company. So by buying these cards — a premium product with some nice gold embossing — Rob Ford essentially did business with himself.

That’s not a good idea.

Chris MacDonald at BusinessWeek dismissed Councillor Josh Matlow’s opinion that this incident amounts to a “perceived conflict of interest,” writing instead that, actually, it’s a “bona fide conflict of interest.” No bones about it: politicians should shy away from doing business with companies that they have a stake in.

Yesterday, of course, we got the requisite backtracking. Ford’s office told the Toronto Sun that the mayor will pony up the cash for the business cards out of his own pocket. And to really sweeten the deal, he’ll also pay for the newspaper subscriptions his office bought in April. (The mayor’s team gets them all, even the one whose reporters they won’t talk to.)

This is a ridiculous response that totally misses the point. There’s nothing noble about paying for office expenses out of your own pocket. All it demonstrates is that certain politicians are, in fact, rather wealthy and can afford to put their money forward for things that should rightly be provided by the organizations they work for. By holding this kind of thing up as virtuous, we’re aggrandizing personal wealth and turning it into a political tool.

Suddenly the candidate who inherited his father’s successful printing business is preferable to the other guy, who wasn’t so lucky. Because the first guy will be paying for his own damn staples while the second will be billing you, the taxpayer, for the cost.

This is, ultimately, a news item with a small price tag attached to it. A $1600 bill for mayoral business cards is not a thing that should be commanding our attention, especially when items like a broken transit plan and looming labour strife are bubbling under the surface, but there’s a troubling precedent here. Rob Ford may have respect for taxpayers, but how about respecting the rules in place to protect taxpayers from corruption and shady dealings?

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