feature — Comments Off on Civility, Responsibility & Opposing the Mayor
11
Apr 11

Civility, Responsibility & Opposing the Mayor

I didn’t write about the NOW magazine brouhaha a couple of weeks back, because it all  just felt like an unnecessary distraction. Yes, they photoshopped some pictures so it looked like Rob Ford was almost naked. Yes, there was some “confusion” when it looked like the mayor’s office wanted all copies of the alt-weekly removed from City Hall.  But you know what also happened that same week? Significantly huge transit news that will impact our city in many different ways for decades to come.

Really, the most significant thing to come from the whole mess was this Dave Meslin essay, written after he felt he was quoted out of context in an article by Joshua Errett that appeared in the Naked Ford edition. Meslin has taken some heat in various left-leaning circles due to his rather optimistic take on Ford’s election. (Just after Ford won in October, he expressed he that was “genuinely optimistic” saying, in a Corey Mintz blog post, “I think it will be more of an accessible administration than we had under Miller.”)

His essay ends very nicely. The whole thing is worth reading:

Let’s raise the quality of debate in this town.  Let’s foster a political culture that is respectful of opposing views, with more collaboration and less back-stabbing.  More policy-based propositions and less personal attacks.  More listening and less preaching inwardly to ourselves.

via Me, Rob and NOW. In search of political civility. | Mez Dispenser.

And, yeah, I’m mostly with him all the way with that sentiment. What I really hate to see is someone who might, for example, enjoy the kind of things that I write here but then veers off into a weird kind of attack mode, labelling and insulting Ford.

It’s not fair, and it ignores that Ford is not an easy character to define. Yes, his record of HIV/AIDS isn’t good, but to call him a homophobe is far too simplistic. Yes, he displays traces of hardcore libertarianism and a lack of empathy for the poor but then he goes and coaches a football team in a low income neighbourhood or bends over backwards to get repairs done at a TCHC building. He contains multitudes.

Where I disagree some with Meslin is that I don’t think it’s wrong to look at what Ford represents and has represented for over a decade politically in this city and say, rather emphatically, that this isn’t the right person to lead Toronto. To that end, I think it is entirely fair to look at everything he does with a healthy level of  skepticism, to hold him to his many promises and, above all else, to always call him on his bullshit.

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.

link — Comments Off on Tumbleweeds in Toronto as federal election looms
07
Apr 11

Tumbleweeds in Toronto as federal election looms

The Toronto Star’s David Rider talks to the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, who is pretty fired up about the need for increased federal funding for Canada’s towns and cities, especially as various programs are set to expire:

“It’s time for leadership — traffic gridlock is choking our cities, local police services are overstretched, and 175,000 Canadian families are on affordable housing waiting lists,” said FCM president Hans Cunningham.

“Municipalities just don’t have the funding tools other governments have, and they can’t afford to meet these national challenges all on their own.”

via Federal funds for cities set to expire, municipalities ask: What’s the plan? – thestar.com.

Hell yes. This is a cause we can all get behind, right? Our mayor, who just a few months back was threatening to unleash ‘Ford Nation’ on the provincial government unless they coughed up more funds, should be all over this kind of thing.

Let’s see what he had to say:

So far, Ford has not followed predecessor David Miller’s lead in being a leading FCM voice lobbying Ottawa. Cunningham said FCM staff have talked to Ford’s staff, but not to the mayor himself.

“At this point we haven’t heard from Toronto with regard to their goals with this election. We hope to do that shortly . . . ,” he said, noting he understands “the big issue in Toronto is subways.”

In other words:

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.

link — Comments Off on TTC chair continues to be surprised by mayor’s transit plans
05
Apr 11

TTC chair continues to be surprised by mayor’s transit plans

Missed this last week, but the Sun’s Jonathan Jenkins’ report on last week’s transit announcements contains this bit at the end:

And Stintiz [sic] said while she had heard rumblings, Ford’s ambitious promise to build a Finch subway in 10 years was unexpected.

“I know that (Ward 1 councillor) Vince Crisanti has been actively pursuing a subway on Finch and I know that he had discussions with the mayor but I wasn’t apprised of the timeline,” she said.

via Province happy to hand Sheppard subway to Ford | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun.

Nothing says “team player” like surprising your TTC chair with your plan to build a subway line. (There’s been other stories about Stintz being left out of the decision-making process, as well.)

link — Comments Off on A shrug on Sheppard
05
Apr 11

A shrug on Sheppard

From his weekend column, the Toronto Sun’s Rob Granatstein:

The man is charge of making the business case for Rob Ford’s Sheppard subway admits the plan may never come to fruition.

“While everybody is optimistic about the building of the Sheppard subway, it could still not go,” said Gordon Chong, who is entrusted by the mayor with leading Toronto Transit Consultants Limited and putting together a business case analysis for Sheppard.

“It will either be yea or nay,” Chong said in an interview this past week.

Chong said pension funds are interested in investing and he’s optimistic, but there’s a real possibility the train is never going to hit the tracks.

via Rob Ford’s Sheppard hole: Granatstein | Rob Granatstein | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun.

I hope everyone who lives in the area around Sheppard East realizes that this administration just traded a sure-thing high-capacity transit line — due to open in three years! — with a roll-of-the-dice idea that no one, even the people working to make it happen, have much confidence in.

link — Comments Off on As Toronto looks to privatize everything “not nailed down…”
04
Apr 11

As Toronto looks to privatize everything “not nailed down…”

Earlier this year, the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy quoted Doug Ford on privatization: “We’re going to be outsourcing everything that is not nailed down.” These days, this is what amounts to strategy at City Hall.

We need to elevate the discussion.

The New York Times has a “Room For Debate” feature on their opinion page today. It starts off by noting that New York City recently saved 41 million dollars by in-sourcing their technology services:

Stephen Goldsmith, the deputy mayor of New York, recently said that its time to get rid of costly private contractors and have city employees handle more of the citys technology services. Mr. Goldsmith, known as “the prince of privatization” when he was mayor of Indianapolis in the 1990s, said he found $41 million in immediate savings by taking the work of the citys data center and wireless network back in-house.

via Is Privatization a Bad Deal for Cities and States? – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

What follows is a variety of points from a variety of people, most of which seemingly add up to this: privatization isn’t magic, can cost more and deliver worse service, and we in Toronto need to look at these things cautiously. (On the flip side, there’s a column by the Reason Foundation’s Leonard Gilroy, parts of which match up verbatim with the Ford Nation script.)

I’m going to excerpt a few items from the feature, as I’m pretty sure this kind of thing will come in handy over the next year. Plus I’m not sure when this feature will get swallowed by a paywall of doom.

Mildred Warner, professor at Cornell University, who has been tracking the issue of privatization-versus-public-delivery through the International City County Management Association (ICMA) surveys:

I.C.M.A. also tracks the reasons why local governments bring back in-house previously privatized work. The reasons are problems with service quality (61 percent), lack of cost savings (52 percent), improvements in public delivery (34 percent), problems with monitoring (17 percent) and political support to bring the work back in house (17 percent). It turns out citizens prefer local services to be locally controlled and publicly delivered.

Rigorous quantitative analysis of every published study from around the world of water delivery and garbage collection (the two most commonly privatized services at the local government level) finds no statistical support for cost savings under privatization.

via The Pendulum Swings Again – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

Nicole Gelinas, contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal:

In general, too, whenever cities and states sell or lease a big asset to the private sector to reap some short-term cash to cover budget deficits, as Chicago did with its parking meters, taxpayers get a bad deal. Bidders know when a government is desperate for money. They stand ready to enable government officials to enter into decades-long contracts, which only magnifies the effect of any mistakes in calculating potential profits and costs.

via Not a Cure for Incompetence – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

Elliott Sclar, professor of Urban Planning at Columbia:

We would do far better if we started with the recognition that the public sector is a highly complex and socially vital operation staffed by hundreds of thousands of highly trained professionals. Like all organizations, public ones require competent management and continuing investments in improving operating capacity. Utopian schemes to contract away these problems through privatization efforts is a form of magical thinking, which leaves taxpayers to pay for the mistakes.

via When Ideology Drives Decisions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

Steve Tadelia, professor of economics at Berkeley:

Politicians like simple messages. Conservatives like to say that “privatization provides good services at low costs,” while many liberals will claim that “privatization reduces quality and costs jobs.” Both can be right or wrong, depending on the particulars of the service involved. The trouble is that political agendas seldom align with the cost-benefit analysis required for good privatization policy decisions. The tough part is strategically choosing the right projects and services for privatization that have a good chance of avoiding outsourcing’s pitfalls.

via Corporations Make the Same Mistakes – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

But, really, why even stop to think about this stuff? Let’s just plow through and get it done. Damn the torpedoes: let’s see everything not nailed down get screwed.

Hat tip to greenleaf on the Urban Toronto forums for bringing this to my attention.

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.

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