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feature — Comments Off on There’s a hole in our budget
02
Jun 11

There’s a hole in our budget

The city is currently holding a series of budget consultation sessions in advance of a three million dollar “core service review” set to take place this summer. There’s also an online survey available. It’s structured such that you could, if you wanted, advocate that publicly-owned theatres are the only vital service the city provides, and also that fire services should be contracted out. Don’t do that, though. It’d be wrong.

I haven’t been to a session yet — I’m hoping to make it to the one taking place at City Hall on Saturday — but from what I hear they, like the survey, sort of play out like an elementary school brain teaser. As in: Oh no! The city’s former left-wing Mayor Goofus was addicted to spending and got us in a $774 million budget hole! Help the valiant new Mayor Gallant fix the problem by identifying services that could be cut!

There’s little about revenue generation strategies. Nothing about reinstating recently-cut taxes. Nothing about directing more of the tax money we pay to the provincial and federal governments toward urban initiatives like transit and housing. Instead, it’s a kind of civic Sophie’s Choice: pick the services you love least, because some of them are surely going to die.

Over at the Toronto Standard, Ivor Tossell sums things up nicely:

The whole thing is insane, in a relentlessly logical kind of way. It offers the solutions its framers want to pursue to a solve a crisis they had a hand in creating. Toronto! We may have to raise the taxes we just froze to replace the taxes we just axed to alleviate the apocalyptic financial shortfall we face every year that we just deliberately made worse! What shall we do? Feel free not to care!

via The Useful Hole | Toronto Standard | News, Media, Art, Business, Technology, Fashion, Events.

Similarly, in this week’s NOW, Ellie Kirzner has a nice summary of one of the recent public consultations at Danforth CI. She highlights just how much more challenging Ford’s handling of the 2011 budget have made preparation for the coming year:

Gord Perks sums it up: if Rob Ford hadn’t frozen property taxes, ditched the vehicle registration fee and frittered away the surplus, “we would be in a position where property tax increases just over the rate of inflation could have kept the ship afloat. Now we face significant tax increases or cuts, not because services cost so much, but because Mayor Ford really blew it in his first budget.”

via NOW Magazine // News / Rotten core.

I would never deny that the city has financial problems, but it’s ridiculously short-sighted to think we’re a few service cuts away from a long-term solution. Toronto’s problems are complex and resulted largely from a series of moves from senior governments that dumped operational costs on the one level of government that is legally prohibited from running a year-to-year deficit. The path to fiscal sustainability for our city lies not in service cuts — though we must always be vigilant about the services offered and the efficiency with which they are delivered — but rather in coherent, strategic negotiations between levels of government, resulting in a fair deal for Toronto.

link — Comments Off on Credit to Thompson for considering police layoffs
01
Jun 11

Credit to Thompson for considering police layoffs

The Globe & Mail’s Patrick White:

In a move that introduces the unprecedented spectre of police layoffs in Toronto, the city has asked Chief Bill Blair to explore reducing the number of officers under his command by 10 per cent – down to levels not seen since Mel Lastman was in office.

At a Toronto Police Services Board on Monday, Councillor Michael Thompson asked the chief to look at how much money the city could save by dropping 500 uniformed officers and 300 civilian members of the Toronto Police Services, the country’s largest municipal force.

via Layoffs possible as city asks Blair to reduce police staff by 10 per cent – The Globe and Mail.

I have to give credit to Councillor Michael Thompson for at least floating the idea of downsizing the Toronto police force, even if it is both a) impossible; and b) politically unpopular. The reality is that if these guys at City Hall really want to get serious about reducing the size and cost of the city’s government, they can’t ignore their single largest budget line.

This won’t happen, of course. If for no other reason than because one of Rob Ford’s campaign promises was to do the opposite of this: to increase the number of officers on the streets. Ford’s platform called for a 0.1 per cent decrease in non-policing city spending to fund “100 additional frontline police officers.”

link — Comments Off on For Ford, credit when credit is due
30
May 11

For Ford, credit when credit is due

The Toronto Sun’s Don Peat scored an actual, honest-to-goodness interview with Rob Ford. It’s rather light on detail and hard-hitting questions, but it’s worth reading anyway.

I liked this part:

Ford laughs when he’s reminded that retiring councillor Kyle Rae predicted, if elected, Ford would be mayor in name only. Retiring councillor Howard Moscoe said Ford wouldn’t be able to pass gas without council’s permission.

“Well, I’ve done a lot,” he says, shaking his head and smiling. “I’ve done everything we’ve said we were going to do.”

via Six months in: Ford is large and in charge | Home | Toronto Sun.

I already said this last week, but I find it incredibly disconcerting that Ford believes he’s nearing the end of his political agenda. Not only because the agenda is so light on ambitious — though it is: rescind a tax or two, eliminate potential for annoying strikes, kill some council perks, and he’s done? — but because it’s not even accurate.

The Sun also has a list of Ford’s supposed accomplishments. But here are some things Ford hasn’t actually done, despite claims to the contrary:

  • reduced the city’s overall operating budget, or “reined in spending.”
  • secured funding — much less broken ground — on any new subway project
  • privatized garbage collection, or done anything that has ‘reined in’ public sector unions or reduced labour costs

His actual accomplishments so far are actually relatively meagre, typified more by the city’s new lack of ambition, and a handful of spite-based initiatives, instead of some kind of Brave New World of fiscal conservatism.

If Ford can succeed in delivering on his promises for a reduced operating budget, high-quality/low-cost privately-delivered services and a funded subway extension (The Eglinton LRT is a David Miller legacy, and does not count), then he can realistically crow about his accomplishments. But that hasn’t happened yet.

Also from Peat’s article is a bit from Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday:

Asked why the Ford administration has targeted so many of Miller’s legacy projects, Holyday says it’s due to necessity.

“So many things we couldn’t afford to do in the way he planned to do them,” Holyday says.

He pointed to the $24-million Fort York pedestrian bridge blown up by the public works committee.

“We would have had to borrow every cent to build it,” Holyday says.

I’m very confused by fiscal conservatives who savage the idea of debt, as if it’s some terrible way to finance capital projects. How are they suggesting the city invest in infrastructure, if not through financing? Is the province supposed to fund everything for us? Or is this just another private-sector magic beans thing?

link — Comments Off on Having achieved his vision for Toronto, Ford looks to abolish ‘bag tax’
24
May 11

Having achieved his vision for Toronto, Ford looks to abolish ‘bag tax’

The Toronto Sun’s Don Peat reports that Ford is mulling over getting rid of the mandatory five cent fee for plastic bags:

“I think we’re going to deal with that but again there was more important things to do,” he said. “Obviously, contracting out garbage and everything we’ve done in the first six months, I think, and again I can’t say for sure, I think we’ll get around to it this year.

“I’ll try, I can’t guarantee it, but we’ll try to get rid of that five-cent bag tax.”

via Ford targets bag tax | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun.

There’s something almost endearing about this. The mayor feels, six months into his term, that he’s coming to the end of his mayoral to-do list. His vision achieved, he’ll turn to the “small stuff” like the Jarvis Street bike lanes and the five cent fee on plastic bags.

And after that? Well, I guess there’s still the land transfer tax and the fair wage policy. And, if there’s still time: Moving marathons to parks, replacing streetcars with buses, eliminating 22 city council seats, and getting us that NFL team.

But first: removing the so-called bag tax. Priorities.

link — Comments Off on The mayor’s bad day
18
May 11

The mayor’s bad day

At The Grid, Edward Keenan writes a great summary of yesterday’s garbage vote. Most media outlets ran with the “big victory for Ford” story today, but I’m more and more convinced that it was a very bad day for Rob Ford and his allies:

By day’s end, the mayor’s main item passed, yes, by a large majority. But the effect of the amendments, in my opinion, is that it will make it very difficult for staff to craft a bid request conforming to council’s demands that will also stand up to a lawsuit. (And note: if the city is tied up in litigation with potential or wannabe bidders, they will likely be unable to award a contract—though, of course I’m not a lawyer…)

They also place some unattractive restrictions on the contract for potential contractors, and ensure that the whole thing has to come back to council for another fight later (if and when a winning bid is identified), and the bid has to bring with it actual numbers that show that the contract will save as much money and be as environmentally sound as Ford and staff have claimed it will be. The result of that possible vote is very much an open question.

via The Grid TO | Rob Ford gets trashed.

Royson James has a decent summary as well: “The vote, coming just six months into the mayor’s term, shows he may have to compromise more than he imagined. This was supposed to be the easiest service to privatize, and yet it took so much effort.”

The bottom line: the changes Ford will need to make — be they cuts, or privatization, or sales of assets — to successfully balance the coming budget will be far more contentious than what was debated on Tuesday.

link — Comments Off on The Fort York Bridge: it’s now or never
16
May 11

The Fort York Bridge: it’s now or never

At Spacing, Luca De Franco has an interview with activist Richard Douglas, who’s been working to save the proposed pedestrian/cycling bridge that would span the rail tracks near Fort York.

The mayor and his allies have presented their opposition to the bridge as simple fiscal prudence. The bridge is over-budget, they say, so we must study cheaper alternatives. The reality is a bit more complicated, as Douglas explains. If we don’t build this thing on the planned schedule, it’s essentially never going to happen:

The returning of the Fort York Bridge project to Committee at Council effectively eliminates this project. The situation becomes even more time-sensitive when you consider that Metrolinx has provided a small window of opportunity to build this bridge.  Once that window closes, surrounding communities and the City of Toronto will have lost out on a tremendous opportunity.

via Headspace: The Fort York Pedestrian Cycle Bridge « Spacing Toronto.

A commenter to the article also shares an automatic response sent to him by Councillor Mike Del Grande, received after he emailed the Budget Chief regarding the bridge:

I now have too many e-mail messages to read each and every one. So my answer will be automatic. Bridge yes but not at any cost. But… does not carry the day. This kind of thinking has caused a great financial problem for the City. We spend more than we bring in and I have to find $774 million.

Post Script- Sat May 14th I visited the area. This bridge will cost 22 + the opportunity to gain 25 million from proper usage of the site. So it will really cost 47 million at the end of the day. Sorry, that is very poor use of limited funds the City has. I also noted that there were a total of 2 people in City park and a few people in the dog park and on the other side of King there was one person. Does not strike me as demand usage, at least not for today.

In addition there is concern about City land which if the bridge is built in a certain fashion will increase the value of City Lands by millions and this cannot be ignored. An overage of 4+ million and other planning considerations does not justify the just spending because it is a nice bridge. What I am more open to is how about a special levy on all those properties to pay for the overage?

I added some paragraph breaks for clarity. Also added some emphasis.

Councillor Del Grande recounts visiting the area where the bridge will be built on Saturday, May 14, which was not a particular nice Saturday in Toronto. At best it was overcast and drizzling. Regardless, he feels observing the area for a brief window on an unpleasant day is enough to declare that there is no “demand usage.”

As Richard Douglas puts it in a follow-up comment to the article on Spacing, “Aside from the poor weather conditions and the muddy, water logged parking lot as deterents did he really expect to see citizens standing at the roped off opening of the parking lots waiting for the bridge to be built?”

If this is the way Del Grande is going to judge the necessity of infrastructure projects, I’d hope he’ll soon pay a visit to Sheppard Avenue to gauge the need for a multi-billion dollar subway project.

Councillor Mike Layton has put a motion on the agenda for this week’s City Council meeting that would, if passed, essentially reverse the earlier decision by the Public Works & Infrastructure Committee to kill the project. It will require a two-thirds majority, which I initially dismissed as an impossible requirement. Layton has been working really hard to get the votes, however.

feature — Comments Off on Police contract sets the tone, 2012 budget hole gets deeper
09
May 11

Police contract sets the tone, 2012 budget hole gets deeper

The Toronto Star’s Robyn Doolittle:

Mayor Rob Ford’s “rookie mistake” of awarding the police association a 3.19 per cent salary hike could end up costing the city more than $50 million annually, his critics charge.

“This is going to drive every single essential service contract in the city. The city has said it can afford to pay 3 per cent a year. Not only are the firefighters going to get it, but who else is going to now that they’re an essential service? The TTC,” said left-wing councillor Adam Vaughan.

“This will have a ripple through the largest employee groups in the city.”

via Ford’s costly police deal a ‘rookie mistake,’ critics say – thestar.com.

In 2008, an arbitrated settlement between the Police Services Board and the Union saw a new contract with awarded pay raises of just about 10% over three years. 2005 was similar, with a three-year raise of 9.85%. This contract, which didn’t go to arbitration, comes in at about 11%.

Lots has been said about this already — notably by the Posted Toronto Political Panel — but I think it’s important to point out how this deal will highlight the folly that was essential service legislation for the TTC. We have now told transit workers — operators, ticket takers, all of them — that we can’t live a single day without them. As a result, they’re worth more now. Probably a lot more.

That sound you hear is the 2012 budget hole getting deeper.

Is the agreement with the police union necessarily a bad deal? It’s hard to say. An appointed arbitrator may well have awarded the same contract, or an even better contract. With some of the lowest residential property taxes in the GTA, an impartial observer is unlikely to accept that the city can’t come up with the money.

But, coming on the heels of the TTC essential service designation, it definitely makes for a bad situation.

It also will screw with other police boards as they negotiate with their unions. The Ottawa Citizen’s Randall Denley writes about the ripple effect the Toronto deal will have not only in his city, but also provincially when the OPP contract comes due:

The Toronto deal will cost Ottawans more at the provincial level, too, because it will drive up the OPP contract cost. The provincial police have an unusual deal that gives them a raise of 5.075 per cent in the first year, followed by a two-year wage freeze. That doesn’t sound too bad, but there is a special clause for the fourth year that ensures that the OPP will be the province’s highestpaid police service at the end of the contract. The Toronto agreement will add roughly six per cent to the OPP deal.

In Ottawa, every one-percent increase in police wages adds $2 million in costs, so a deal like the one signed in Toronto would cost taxpayers more than $22 million a year by the end of a similar contract.

via Toronto police increase costs us | Ottawa Citizen.

Conservative politicians often talk about how they will get tough with unions, but that rarely materializes. It is far easier to quietly concede, avoiding the damaging political impacts that result from protracted labour disputes. The added cost of the new labour contracts will be partially recouped through service cuts later this year.

feature — Comments Off on 70% of Toronto loves Rob Ford
09
May 11

70% of Toronto loves Rob Ford

From last week, The Globe & Mail’s Patrick White:

As Mayor Rob Ford heads into a contentious period of labour strife, spending cuts and possible job losses, a new poll suggests he has political capital to burn.

The survey of 913 Torontonians, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for the Toronto Real Estate Board, found that 70 per cent approve of the mayor’s performance and 65 per cent support the way city council is handling tax dollars.

via Mayor Rob Ford’s approval rating rises to 70 per cent – The Globe and Mail.

A couple of points about this.

First, while not invalidating this poll’s methodology, this whole thing was commissioned by the Toronto Real Estate Board with an intent to show public support for repealing the land transfer tax. Their press release practically drips with excitement: these people are downright jazzed at the thought of the mayor eliminating this tax:

“The public’s support for Mayor Ford and the current direction of Toronto City Council is high, and it is clear that moving forward with repealing the Toronto Land Transfer Tax will help to keep it there,” said [TREB President Bill] Johnston.

via Realtors Take Public’s Pulse on GTA Issues, Including Toronto Land Transfer Tax.

That 68% of the public wants to repeal a tax isn’t surprising. Nobody likes taxes. But it’s hard to be sympathetic to the TREB when there’s not really much to indicate that the Land Transfer Tax has had a negative impact on home sales. We still have a healthy market.

Second: I don’t know how anyone could reasonably expect Ford’s approval rating to be much lower. As far as the public is concerned, he’s done only a handful of things as mayor, most of them popular proposals he laid out when campaigning last year. He’s killed the car tax, frozen property taxes for the year, eliminated the threat of TTC strikes, ‘cleaned up’ TCHC, and started the process of privatizing garbage collection, eliminating that threat as well.

It’s actually surprising his approval rating isn’t higher. That he’s not riding David Miller-style approval numbers in the 80% range shows that the mayor is still fairly divisive.

Council-watching nerds know that Ford’s record since taking office is more complex. There have been TTC route cuts, attempts to eliminate oversight and consultation, a bizarre campaign to sell the waterfront, short-sighted fiscal maneuvers and just downright embarrassing moments.

But the general public is unlikely to have felt any of these things. Many of them are still largely conceptual: ideas that have been floated to the media or voted on, but not implemented.

Will the public ever tire of Mayor Rob Ford? I think so. Eventually. The Ford Team has shrewdly — if somewhat short-sightedly — removed the two major obstacles that hurt David Miller: transit and garbage strikes. That should help him. But I don’t believe Miller ever faced budget circumstances as tough as what we’re looking at for 2012.

We’re just getting started.

feature — Comments Off on What does the Mayor want from the Federal Government?
06
May 11

What does the Mayor want from the Federal Government?

So the federal election happened. I’m over it. Municipal politics are way more fun and important anyway. How interesting can a government chamber be when you always know how everyone is going to vote?

But before we can move on, we’ve got to acknowledge the Ford Nation, and whatever impact it is they had in Monday night’s outcome.

Here’s what Doug Ford, presumably speaking for his brother, had to say about the results:

“What is good for Toronto is good for Canada,” Ford said Tuesday, adding that for the first time in a long time, Toronto will have a say in the federal government.

“We have a friendly voice in Ottawa right now,” he said. “We never had a voice in Ottawa for a number of years…we have numerous strong voices now to represent us in Toronto and Ottawa knows we are going to be a strong voice coming from Toronto now.

“It’s always nice to be able to pick up the phone and have a direct line to Ottawa, day in and day out.”

via Election good for Toronto, Councillor Ford says | Decision 2011 | News | Toronto Sun.

Okay — but what is it that the Ford Brothers want from the federal government? The line in the endorsement was about the Public-Private Partnership Infrastructure fund, but that at most represents a $300 million dollar commitment and isn’t going to be anything close to the magic bullet the city needs to actually make this Sheppard subway extension happen.

So what is it? What should the federal government do for Toronto? Ford had a laundry list of demands for the provincial government earlier this year. And other mayors across Canada have certainly made it clear they need more direct funding for infrastructure.

But so far Toronto’s mayor hasn’t asked the prime minister for much more than a handshake. He voted against sending a letter to the federal government that would condemn cuts to immigration services in Toronto, something that negatively impacts thousands of people, including many who supported Ford. At the last council meeting, the mayor was one of a group of five councillors to vote against asking the federal government to provide support to businesses who suffered damage or lost business during the G20 weekend.

If the mayor is so sure that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to be good for Toronto, he needs to define what “good for Toronto” is. It has to be more than token support for a P3 subway line and the meagre funding the city gets from the gas tax.

We’re facing an 800 million dollar hole in our operating budget next year and our combined capital budget requirement for transit and other infrastructure over the next decade totals into the tens of billions of dollars. Surely the federal government — who receive more than 50 cents of every tax dollar you pay — can do something about that.

Wouldn’t that be good for Toronto?

feature — Comments Off on The mayor wants to sell the waterfront
17
Apr 11

The mayor wants to sell the waterfront

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/DenzilMW/status/59215129186795520″]

On Friday, in a scrum following another community clean-up photo op, the mayor confirmed that the city was looking at pulling out of Waterfront Toronto. “I have a problem with the money we’re spending and the results we’re getting from them,” he said.

Here’s the short version of what I believe is going on with this story: there is an attempt to ignite a debate about the speed and relative quality of Waterfront Toronto projects. The hope is that this debate will inspire a populist desire for reform which will, in turn, lead to an opportunity to sell off city-owned assets and use the proceeds to balance the city’s operating budget.

How else to explain the all-out assault we’ve seen toward Waterfront Toronto this week from the mayor, his brother, and their assorted hangers-on? Why did Denzil Minnan-Wong take to his Twitter account (seen above) to publicly bash communications staff at Waterfront Toronto for having the gall to defend their work?

The narrative we’re starting to see here is actually very similar to the one that marked the TCHC story: demonize an agency as wasteful, whip up populist support for reform — without actually conducting an investigation or working through the necessary processes — and, finally, enact policy that makes it easier to sell-off or privatize things.

The difference, of course, is that the TCHC narrative began with an actual scandal.

Doug Ford’s conversation with the Globe & Mail’s Marcus Gee about his “vision” for the waterfront is worth reading, as it’s completely off-the-wall ridiculous:

Doug Ford has a vision: a football stadium on the waterfront. He says the NFL stadium might be built on the site of the abandoned Hearn generating plant in the underdeveloped Portlands.

The stadium would be the anchor for a massive redevelopment of the Portlands that would “turn this dump site into a wow factor.” It would include dramatically designed residential buildings and high-end retailers such as Macy’s department store. A monorail elevated transit system would link it to downtown.

via Doug Ford sees stadium in waterfront’s future – The Globe and Mail.

He also proposes a giant Ferris wheel. Because how better to define our city on the world stage than to steal that thing that London has?

Any discussion of the relative quality or progress of Waterfront Toronto’s projects only serves to distract from the real intent. If the Fords wanted to put their own stamp on the future of these projects, they would have at least attempted to meet with Waterfront Toronto. To talk about their issues with timeline and scope. Instead, Rob Ford has missed every meeting the agency has held.

Worse, the conversations we’ve had this week have spooked the private sector developers who are involved.

The big not-so-secret about development in areas currently controlled by Waterfront Toronto is that these are former industrial sites, in many cases built on landfill. The soil is contaminated. Flooding is hugely problematic. Engineering and construction work are challenging in the best of cases.

Without public sector involvement and support, the private sector is not going to build the kinds of things we’d like to see in these areas.

Anyone who looks at the history of these sites knows as much. In the 1980s, the provincial government had a plan to take the land they owned in the West Don Lands — a very similar area to the Port Lands — and build an affordable housing neighbourhood modelled after the successful one in the St. Lawrence area. They called it Ataratiri, because vowels are great. The money required to clean up the area never materialized. The Bob Rae government put the land up for sale to the private sector. (For about 30 million — a far cry from the hundreds of millions we’ve heard the private sector would pay.) No buyers materialized; no one wanted to take on the responsibility of cleaning up the land and making it developable.

In 1997, the Mike Harris government got desperate and did find a buyer. Without any consultation, negotiations began to sell the land to a developer who would use it for a horse racing track. Only after a wave of opposition was this sale halted.

This is the kind of thing the private sector is willing to do if we sell this land on the open market: build cheap, achievable projects that can turn a quick profit. We can help them do that, or we can continue on the sensible track we’re on, which is already beginning to pay dividends. Using public investment to make these lands more appropriate for neighbourhood development and working with the private sector to design and build world-class projects will see a return on investment that could define this city for decades to come.

The alternative, I suppose, is to go with the private sector and bet it all on the horses.

You can read this 2006 story from The Bulletin for a decent summation of the history of the West Don Lands and the provincial government’s attempt to sell the land to the private sector. Resident Cynthia Wilkey was one of the leaders in opposing the development, and it was her message to the Corktown Residents Google Group that partly inspired me to research and write this story.

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