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feature — Comments Off on Replacing the gravy train with a crazy train
08
Apr 11

Replacing the gravy train with a crazy train

Earlier this week, in response to news that board-of-one Case Ootes would approve the sale of 22 TCHC properties, the Toronto Sun’s Don Peat quoted Mike Layton. “What’s the rush now?” asked the rookie councillor.

It’s a question you could ask about a lot of news coming out of City Hall. If there’s a single unifying characteristic for the first four months of Rob Ford’s administration, rushing would be it. If you buy the mayor’s claim that the previous council was some kind of “gravy train,” this council is a train of another sort, rumbling forward at a million miles per hour, taking no care on the curves. This train moves forward even at the expense of planning, consultation or process.

The mayor rushed through the budget process, and attempted to make cuts to TTC bus routes without public consultation. Every effort has been made to avoid debate on transit planning issues, though that may change next week. We were told it was imperative that every member of the TCHC board be immediately removed, even recently-appointed councillors and elected tenant representatives.

For a recent example, take the Sheppard Subway plan. This week we learned that former councillor Gordon Chong was hired as President of CEO of Toronto Transit Infrastructure Ltd, the agency revived a month ago to oversee the early stages of the project. As John Lorinc with the Globe points out today, Chong was essentially “sole-sourced” into the position, bypassing the TTC’s normal process for recruiting senior executive positions.

Chong will be paid the equivalent of a $100,000 per year salary. Lorinc points out that he is “the third high-profile member of Mr. Ford’s transition team to find paid positions in the mayor’s administration.”

This kind of behaviour — rewarding supporters with well-paying positions; avoiding due process –, while it doesn’t appear to break any rules, seems surprising, given the mayor’s history. Ford once publicly accused Adam Vaughan of having a serious conflict of interest because a person who donated $250 to Vaughan’s campaign ended up appointed to a city committee. (Ford was later forced to apologize, then there was a party.)

Giving the mayor his deserved credit, I do believe that any characterization of Ford as even a little bit corrupt is nonsense. I think what drives the mayor is a casual ineptitude when it comes to rules and process, coupled with a general lack of patience.  You can see echoes of this in the stories (also by Lorinc) about irregularities in Ford’s campaign expenses. I doubt very much that the Fords attempted to game the system — it seems more likely that they simply barrelled forward, unencumbered by complicated campaign finance rules, taking the easiest path towards getting things done. Rush rush rush.

There’s an upside to the rushing. People often complain about the general lethargy of government. How nothing changes and nothing gets done. This administration certainly takes a different approach, and up until now it’s been largely effective in the broad-strokes. But a train moving this fast, and with so little regard for the rules of operation, runs the real risk of going off the rails.

feature — Comments Off on Public housing isn’t just about dollars and cents
07
Apr 11

Public housing isn’t just about dollars and cents

One more quick hit on the TCHC story from this week: The Star’s Robyn Doolittle scored a nice win when she reported Monday that a 79-year-old widow would be displaced by Case Ootes’ move to sell-off housing. This got the attention of the ombudsman’s office — who doesn’t get along well with this administration —  and the widow’s house was saved.

During the controversy, voice-of-the-mayor Doug Ford said this, as reported by Natalie Alcoba:

“Nothing is fair. It’s not fair to the taxpayers that she’s living in a million home, too. I feel sorry for her, my heart goes out to her, but I could take that million dollars and build four other homes and house four other families,” said Councillor Ford.

via TCHC could net $13M from 22-house sale | Posted Toronto | National Post.

This is a variation of a conservative argument that’s been making the rounds today. See also Sue-Ann Levy’s column “Sell! Sell! Sell!” where she ever-so-cautiously tiptoes around the idea of selling housing.

Three things to keep in mind in response to this:

First, it is somewhat challenging and will only get more so to find a single family home in good condition anywhere in Toronto that isn’t valued at more than half a million dollars. Some terribly designed real estate website tells me that the current average price of a detached home in the 416 is $719,843. Semi-detached is $533,039.

If we want to promote mixed-income neighbourhoods and avoid lurching toward an all-Starbucks gentrification across the Old City of Toronto, we’re necessarily going to have to devote some potentially valuable property to low-income housing. This isn’t a big deal: we also devote potentially valuable property to all kinds of social services, like transit facilities and highway off-ramps and fire stations.

Second, the argument that we can house more people for less money if we sell-off single family homes seems to creep toward mid-century thinking that saw efficient housing built vertically as blocks of towers, clustered together in concentrated areas. This was a less-than-succesful strategy.

Third, and not directed at any one thing, the idea that you might be able to ‘motivate’ a person out of poverty by making their life suck just a little bit more doesn’t seem to hold true. Just saying.

feature — Comments Off on One-man board Case Ootes breaks his word
06
Apr 11

One-man board Case Ootes breaks his word

On March 14, days after the seven hour meeting that saw him installed as the lone director of the TCHC board, Case Ootes told the Toronto Star’s Royson James that “it wouldn’t be appropriate” for him to sell off city-owned housing. “That’s not on the agenda for me,” he said. “I do not believe that is something I’d do.”

Today, less than a month after making those comments, Ootes held a board meeting where he moved and approved a motion that would see the city sell 22 single-family homes owned by TCHC:

Acting as a one-man board, interim managing director Case Ootes has approved the sale of 22 single-family homes owned by the Toronto Community Housing Corp.

The issue will now go to city council. From there, approvals will be needed from the province before the properties can be put on the market.

“Past boards, for various reasons, have avoided the difficult decisions that need to be made. We can’t continue on the road where the capital repairs continue to escalate; we can’t keep up, we’re way behind. Something has to give.”

via One-man TCHC board approves sale of houses – thestar.com.

In the same article (by The Star’s Robyn Doolittle), Ootes claims that he’s “simply following through with a process initiated by the previous board.” But that would appear to be disingenuous.

Last year, Kris Scehuer of the My TownCrier outlet reported that the TCHC was selling several properties to a non-profit Aboriginal housing provider at below market value. Scheuer also reported that the TCHC board was looking at doing the same thing with other properties, including beachfront houses on Hubbard Boulevard.

The move was vocally opposed by then-councillor Case Ootes:

But there were voices of dissent on the plan, including Toronto-Danforth Councillor Case Ootes, who voted against the decision to sell to Wigwamen.

“I’m not convinced that handing off assets that belong to the city to an agency at less than market value makes sense,” he said. “The agency will provide social housing, but we’ve lost control of the asset.”

[…]

Councillor Ootes would like the city to sell those homes for market value, and use the revenue for rent subsidies.

“I don’t think people in social housing need to live in $800,000 houses or $500,000 houses,” he said. Instead, “Look at the option for a rent subsidy.”

via City Housing stock in Beach sold cheap – TownNEWS – MyTownCrier.ca.

The previous board was in favour of selling assets at below-market value to not-for-profit organizations that could offer housing services. This strategy allowed the city to continue to meet its provincially mandated quota for public housing while shifting ongoing maintenance costs to a third-party organization.

Ootes opposed this, as was his right as a city councillor.

That was then. No longer a member of council, Ootes has, in effect, used what we were told was a temporary ‘caretaker’ position on the TCHC board to attempt to effect a policy he was pushing in his previous role as a city politician.

Whatever your opinion on the merits of selling these properties, this comes off as dishonest.

feature — Comments Off on Transit City: What We Lost (aside from 49 million dollars)
01
Apr 11

Transit City: What We Lost (aside from 49 million dollars)

The worst part about Rob Ford’s attitude toward transit planning is how damn simplistic it is. It’s inspired by a few things: a poll he saw during the campaign that showed Torontonians prefer the city’s subway system to its streetcars, his own frustration over getting stuck behind surface transit vehicles when driving from Etobicoke to City Hall, and populist rage over delays and mismanagement — real and imagined — on St. Clair West during the recent right-of-way project. (As if the damning factor on St. Clair was that it was surface rail and not, you know, all the unrelated things that went wrong during construction.)

Everything else — even cost-benefit analysis! — takes a back-seat. It’s easy to get angry about this approach. It’s short-sighted and backward and not befitting of the City of Toronto as I know it. But then: this is the mayor we elected. So it goes.

Lots has been written about the supposed ‘death’ of Transit City over the past few days. And while I hold firm to my belief that the outcome we’re facing isn’t abjectly terrible,  I do think it’s worth taking some more time to point out what we lost with this week’s announcement:

Transit City would have transformed the city’s avenues

Soon after the new transit plan was announced, effectively killing the Sheppard East LRT that would have opened in 2014, InsideToronto’s Mike Adler reported that the Sheppard East BIA was very unhappy:

There was no satisfaction, though, for Mark Bozian, chairperson of the Sheppard East Village Business Improvement Association, which represents merchants east of the planned Sheppard route.

The merchants cooperated with the city for three years on the shelved Sheppard East LRT project, hoping to gain valuable streetscape improvements as it was completed.

Faced with a new plan under Ford, BIA representatives made their case to Karen Stintz, TTC board chairperson, and to Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother.

Councillor Ford seemed to accept an invitation from the merchants to tour the area, but hasn’t followed through, said Bozian, “which is very disappointing.”

Bozian added the BIA may have to appeal to Toronto Council to get the improvements merchants feel they deserve. “We’re going to have to exercise a different route now to have our three years of hard work recognized by the city and the TTC,” he said.

via InsideToronto Article: Eglinton rapid transit expected to benefit central Scarborough.

A critical difference between above-ground and below-ground construction is that above-ground construction tends to bring general streetscape improvements. Things like bike lanes, new paving, new sidewalks, light standards and poles were all supposed to be part of Transit City construction, along with zoning changes to promote mid-rise mixed-use development. Transit City was about transforming neighbourhoods in addition to increasing transit capacity.

It remains to be seen if the Eglinton Line, all underground, will bring any on-street improvement to that stretch.

Transit City was designed to bring transit to priority neighbourhoods

Not lost on those who remember the original Transit City map, as revealed back in 2007, is that it would have brought two transit lines to the intersection of Jane & Finch. It also would have brought transit to the priority neighbourhoods of Jamestown, Malvern, Weston-Mt. Dennis, Flemingdon Park, Steeles-L’Amoreaux, and others. The Eglinton line will still provide much better service to those in priority neighbourhoods who live along that route, but it doesn’t do much for many others, particularly in the northwest and northeast corners of the city.

And, as noted above, the transformative on-street improvements these areas would have seen under Transit City are likely lost now, under the ‘no above ground transit’ edict.

Transit City was the beginning of an affordable network

This should be what gets self-described ‘fiscal conservatives’ to stand up and take notice. Operationally, Transit City was a budgetary dream because it generally would have reduced or sustained current labour costs. If you replace buses in service on a route 1:1 with light rail vehicles you vastly increase the reliability, capacity and speed of transit, but you’re still just paying one operator to drive the vehicle. With on-street stations, there are no staffing costs there either. Underground transit, by comparison, is far costlier on an ongoing basis.

On the capital side, while the start-up cost for the Transit City network was high, once completed the city would have been in a position where transit expansion could be affordable without significant provincial funding. With a fleet of vehicles, storage yards, and a base network of trackage, we could have embarked on a continuous expansion program. Not only does light rail cost far less than subway on a per-kilometre basis, it’s also more flexible. Spur lines (like was proposed for the Sheppard LRT to the University of Toronto Scarborough campus) and incremental expansion are cheaper, and come in chunks small enough that they could fit into the city’s capital budget.

Transit City wouldn’t have flushed away 49 million dollars

And, lastly, there’s this:

Toronto is currently on the hook for at least $49 million for cancelling the Transit City light rail plan, says the head of the regional transportation agency tasked with implementing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s new transit plan.

That outlay is likely to rise, said Bruce McQuaig, the CEO of Metrolinx. The city would have to pay for any penalties incurred for breaking or altering contracts secured in the previous Transit City plan, he confirmed.

via Toronto must pay at least $49M to cancel LRT plan – Toronto – CBC News.

This $49 million (or more) represents the biggest outlay of wasted taxpayer money in recent memory. When you consider the staff time spent at the TTC over the past number of years working on these plans, that number is likely an order of magnitude higher. Speaking as a taxpayer, this isn’t what respect looks like.

feature — Comments Off on Transit City is dead; long live Transit City
30
Mar 11

Transit City is dead; long live Transit City

Robert Benzie and Tess Kalinowski with the Star:

As first reported at thestar.com, Premier Dalton McGuinty is to announce Thursday that the province will spend $8.2 billion on the new 20-km Eglinton Crosstown Metro. It would run underground all the way from Black Creek to Kennedy station and continue above ground along the existing Scarborough Rapid Transit route, which would be converted to the same LRT technology.

But it will be up to Mayor Rob Ford and council to determine how to finance the $4.2 billion for the Sheppard subway extensions he wants to build west to Downsview station and east to Scarborough Town Centre.

via Queen’s Park and city have a $12.4B TTC deal – thestar.com.

I have two points.

First: This is disappointing but not disastrous news. I’d caution Transit City supporters (and I am one) against condemning the plan outright, as the last thing we want is for the city to get entangled in endless debates that delays rapid transit on Eglinton by another decade. Yes, the plan is flawed. All plans are flawed. But the greater good of getting something built on Eglinton tends to trump the many many misgivings I have about the route we took to get to this plan.

Second: I have a lot of issues with how this is being reported. The Star’s headline is okay: “Queen’s Park and city have a $12.4B TTC deal.”  Aside from this not really being a $12.4B deal — it’s an $8.2B deal with $4.2Bish of P3 funding that will apparently fall from the sky — I can live with that interpretation of facts. The Globe, though, runs with “Ontario agrees to Rob Ford’s transit plan” which is incredibly misleading. Rob Ford’s transit plan looked like this. (Page Three.) What we’re getting is a compromise plan that sticks closer to Metrolinx’s vision than it does Ford’s. BlogTO nailed it with their headline: “Province to fund Eglinton LRT, but not Ford’s subway.”

Despite the weirdness of tunnelling sections that really don’t need to be tunnelled, the Eglinton project (and the associated Scarborough RT replacement with LRT) will stand as a legacy project for David Miller, Adam Giambrone and the Transit City plan. Ford can bury parts of Eglinton, but he can’t bury that.

feature — Comments Off on Ford’s media relations strategy mirrors Stephen Harper’s
29
Mar 11

Ford’s media relations strategy mirrors Stephen Harper’s

Royson James in his Toronto Star column today writes about GM2.12, an item the Government Management committee will consider shortly. The item recommends “Enhanced Security Measures” (but doesn’t list them specifically) to provide councillor security.

From what James and others have written, the move essentially seems to be about restricting the media’s access to City Hall:

So, it is with no little concern that television and newspaper reporters and columnists received news that the city’s government management committee Tuesday could severely restrict the media’s coming and going — in the name of enhanced city hall security.

You should be concerned as well.

One idea, apparently being tossed around, is to have the media sign in, like the general public, and be escorted to councillors’ offices. Over our dead bodies — and court challenges.

via James: Is the press a security threat at City Hall? – thestar.com.

I’m written before that there is, unfortunately, very little downside to an elected official cutting off the media’s access. The public seemingly doesn’t care.

In 2006, a newly elected Stephen Harper did essentially the same thing, as reported by Global News:

Harper has come under fire from the media in recent months for limiting the parliamentary press gallery from having access to certain events and federal personalities.

Shortly after coming into power, the Harper government ceased publicizing Tory cabinet meeting times and also barred the media from the corridor outside of the cabinet room, effectively preventing reporters from staking out cabinet ministers and throwing questions at them as they emerged from the room.

via Stephen Harper vs. The Press. (Emphasis added.)

Feels a bit like déjà vu.

feature — Comments Off on Unspecified lessons to be learned
21
Mar 11

Unspecified lessons to be learned

The Executive Committee today voted (of course) in favour of various reforms to the city’s boards, agencies and committees. I wrote a bit about this last week. This isn’t surprising, nor is it necessarily a good or bad thing. The real impacts of this move won’t be felt for a while.

My favourite part was the justifications members of the executive committee used when endorsing this move. The Toronto Star’s Paul Moloney had this great bit:

The reforms were endorsed Monday by the powerful executive committee, chaired by Ford, and go to the full city council next month for final approval.

The public supports a clampdown amid revelations about thousands of dollars being spent by the housing company on gifts, spas, manicures, Muskoka planning trips and Christmas parties for staff, said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong.

“There’s a lesson to be learned and applied through recent events such as the TCHC,” Minnan-Wong, a member of the executive committee, said in an interview.

via Ford moves to rein in agencies – thestar.com.

So these reforms are necessary because of the TCHC scandal. Except that council still hasn’t received the auditor general’s report on mismanagement at the TCHC, nor have they had an opportunity to question TCHC staff about the allegations. And in the case of the former board and CEO, there’s no longer any opportunity to ask questions, because they’ve all been fired.

There are probably literally hundreds of important lessons to be learned from the TCHC scandal. But thus far the mayor and his allies have seemed indifferent to actually figuring out what those lessons are. (John Lorinc has actually done a good job digging into the TCHC thing beyond the surface “my tax dollars” sheen.)

Fire everyone and hope things get better is a pretty lousy management strategy. Also lousy? Using the spectre of an unrelated spending scandal to justify reforms like these.

 

feature — Comments Off on Bless this mess
20
Mar 11

Bless this mess

Earlier this week, OpenFile did the thing that media outlets do where you spend some time going through the public expense records of councillors trying to find things that look like wasteful spending. (I did it too.) They hit upon a good one with Councillor Michael Thompson, reporting that he spent $300 to have his office blessed Pastor Dr. Tai Adeboboye, who in addition to doing office blessings also owns a spectacularly great suit.

Anyway, a lot of shock and horror and reaction about this supposedly improper use of funds followed. It all led to this, as reported by David Rider:

Councillor Michael Thompson is refunding taxpayers the $300 he charged to his office budget to have his office blessed by a Baptist pastor.

“I will provide the city with a cheque for the $300 and at the same time ask the integrity commissioner to take a look at this and rule on it,” Thompson (Ward 37 Scarborough Centre) said in an interview Friday.

via Councillor Thompson refunds Baptist blessing expense – thestar.com.

This was a giant waste of everyone’s time.

The angle from the left is that Thompson is a hypocrite, supporting Ford’s stop-the-gravy-train message while at the same time dealing “gravy” himself in the form of office blessings for $300. The angle from the right is the same as it always is: the ideal councillor would work in a cave and never do anything that costs money. Respect for taxpayers.

Joe Mihevc actually did a nice job coming to Thompson’s defense in the original Star article. He said that this was “an ‘interesting and creative and dynamic’ way of making a community donation.”

If we want to debate anything about this, it should be that last part: should councillors be allowed to make donations to community groups like churches, charities, youth programs and neighbourhood associations out of their office budget? Some, like Doug Holyday, would like to see councillors banned from making community donations. He says they should pay those bills themselves. Which seems like a great way to encourage residents to vote for millionaire candidates who, if elected, will donate to the local sports team.

Some clarification on this is probably a good idea (particularly with regard to whether councillors should be able to publicize the donation), but it would be a shame to eliminate the practice altogether. Sometimes a couple of hundred bucks given to a group so they can hold a barbecue can have a significant impact on a community.

Mostly, though, I think people just need to stop losing their heads over this stuff.

feature — Comments Off on Finding waste: Hurry up please it’s time
20
Mar 11

Finding waste: Hurry up please it’s time

David Rider:

The City of Toronto is preparing to unleash pricey management consultants on all departments and agencies, with orders to uncover waste and identify city services ripe for “potential reductions and discontinuation.”

Executive committee is expected to authorize the reviews Monday, kicking off months of painful deliberations to find $775 million in savings and revenue to balance the 2012 operating budget.

via Team Ford set to give go-ahead to gravy-sniffing consultants – thestar.com.

Tomorrow the Executive Committee will consider EX4.10, a report on the 2012 budget process. This represents basically everything you’ve been hearing about when people mention “2012” and all the terrible things that come with it. In brief: the city will spend three million dollars on consultants, who will identify areas where the city can save money. Presumably they will find enough in cuts to shave 774 million dollars off the city’s operating budget, as that’s the  amount of pressure the city faces next year. The City of Toronto must balance its operating budget and cannot carry a defecit.

Why this is harder than anyone will admit: read this.

Here are the things that the city spends a significant amount of its revenues on: Police Services, TTC, Debt Charges, Fire Services, Shelter & Housing, Parks & Rec. Those would be your “first tier” — the big-ticket items. Then you have Employment & Social Services, Transportation Services, and the Toronto Library. Beyond that, you get into small-ticket items like community partnerships (ie. grants) — these will be cut, but it will be for ideological reasons more than anything else. People will claim that governments simply shouldn’t be supporting, for example, an arts program, when “it can’t afford it.”

Yes, there is a lot of room for efficiencies in the programs offered by the City. Finding such efficiencies should be an ongoing project. But you’re not going to find enough efficiencies to dig your way out of this hole. This will be about taking a long, hard look at everything the city offers and deciding if something can be eliminated or drastically cut.

This will be amount making city services fit into the budget, as opposed to making a budget that fits city services.

David Nickle talked to Shelley Carroll, and she put it like this:

Don Valley East Councillor Shelley Carroll was budget chief under Mayor David Miller. She said she supports the planned review, but was skeptical that council would have the stomach to actually implement the service cuts and realignments that would be necessary to find the quarter-billion dollars in savings.

“Councillors defend – we’re great at defending,” she said. “And if we’re going to do this on the council chamber floor on Channel 10, we’re just going to defend the heck out of everything.”

Carroll said councillors need to meet and focus in on areas where they’re all willing to make cuts.

“We need to do this so we know what the councillors’ no-go sacred cows are,” she said.

“If we find one, then we need to know where else you want to look to find efficiencies.”

via InsideToronto Article: Former budget chief skeptical of mayor’s savings plan

She knows, of course, that most of the operating budget is made up of either mandated programs or “no-go sacred cows.” It’s very challenging to fill this hole without killing a sacred cow. (I won’t rule out, though, that they may pull a rabbit out of their hat that will balance 2012 and shift pressure to 2013. It’s happened before.)

Keeping to the same pace as the 2011 budget process, this stuff will happen very very quickly over the summer. From the report, here’s the schedule we’re looking at:

At least it won’t be boring.

feature — Comments Off on Memo to Councillors: Stop the gravy train, turn off data roaming
15
Mar 11

Memo to Councillors: Stop the gravy train, turn off data roaming

Councillor expense reports for 2010 were posted online yesterday, which of course immediately led to no less than four articles in the Toronto Sun by Reporter Don Peat. All of them are boring. Kelly Grant at the Globe & Mail at least has a bit of fun with it, noting the handwritten outrage on Mayor Ford’s staff cellphone bill which I found hilarious last night. The Toronto Star’s David Rider gets points for actually uncovering something newsworthy in this whole exercise, pointing out that Case Ootes’ office paid for another candidate’s election expenses. I move that we dissolve the TCHC board in light of these allegations.

The item that most concerned me looking through these numbers, however, was just how much of the city pays to Rogers, Bell and Telus through ever-escalating smartphone bills. I get that communication is a critical part of being a city councillor — and I’d never advocate they use something as outdated as a GoldsbiePhone — but the number of times the city got stuck with huge data and roaming overages is crazy.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti's office paid more than $1500 in charges for international data roaming last year. Above is a section from his March 2010 invoice.

For example: Giorgio Mammoliti, who is the worst offender, spent $16,140.50 in ‘Telecom charges’ over the course of the year. This represents nearly half of all his office expenses in 2010. (For comparison’s sake, the average councillor seemed to spend about $2,000 on Telecom charges  last year.)

In March, Councillor Mammoliti used 7MB of cellular data while roaming in the U.S. This cost $234.60. In December, he used 6.7MB of data, costing another $202. His former Executive Assistant, Anthony Cesario, used 13.4MB of international data in January and 20.7MB in May. These two overages cost a combined $1,021.65.

For those not well-versed in the language of nerd, these are very small amounts of data — representing a few emails or webpages in most cases. Yes, this is insane. The absurdly high rates we pay for international data both here and in the United States has been called legal theft.

Mammoliti wasn’t the only councillor to face these kinds of ridiculous fees. Peter Milczyn was billed $77.92 for 9MB of data use in January. Mark Grimes was dinged $81.08 in fees in September. (He also spent $50 on Picture & Video Messages.) Shelley Carroll saw a $279 data charge in December, while Ron Moeser faced a $153 data roaming fee the same month.

Several councillors also paid per-text-message fees, instead of signing up for a bundle plan, which is significantly cheaper.

This doesn’t add up to a ton of money when you look a things in terms of a ten billion dollar operating budget, but it is probably something the city could stand to look into. At the very least, ensuring that councillors are on sensible monthly billing plans that don’t result in continued overages would be a worthwhile move. There’s not a lot the city can do in terms of the high cost of US/international data, but a quick workshop explaining how damn expensive those rates are and showing councillors how to disable data roaming might help.

Another fun IT-type note on councillor expenses, illustrating if nothing else the eclectic nature of this political body: Someone in Denzil Minnan-Wong’s office has a 3G-enabled iPad, while Anthony Peruzza still bills the city five bucks a month so his assistant can have a pager.

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