Mayor John Tory's Toronto

[Videodrome]

If you support a candidate who believes in the 14 words, you deserve to be exposed.

There is some bar called Shox where the owner donated to her and now they risk losing a lot of business.

 

[the lemur]

People who thought it was censorship that Goldy wasn't included in the mayoral debates (mostly because she didn't follow the rules for doing so) and generally tried to portray her as the only candidate telling the truth now suddenly don't want to the truth to be known that they voted for a bigoted grifter. Weird.

 

[Jonny5]

Meanwhile, Grace Yuhong Bi is still waiting for her donation receipt.
“That’s right, Faith Goldy, last year — $1,000,” the financial planner told PressProgress.
“She never sent me the receipt,” Yuhong Bi complained. “I even emailed her about the receipt she never sent me.”
After she was questioned about Goldy’s anti-immigrant and white nationalist views, Yuhong Bi rejected this description and abruptly hung up the phone.

You don't even get reciepts for donations to municipal campaigns, do you? I thought they are not eligible as income deductions on tax returns because elections are non-partisan, and instead the City pays you back a portion of the amount, tiered based on how much you donate, and that is only after a candidates returns are audited, filed, and reviewed by the City, which probably isn't until at least July.

It sounds to me like Grace Yuhong Bi was very naive, had no idea who Faith Goldy was, and was probably convinced by Goldy to make a donation thinking it would be like donating to a provincial or federal political party.

 

[adma]

There is some bar called Shox where the owner donated to her and now they risk losing a lot of business.

Toronto neighbourhood upset over political views of local restaurant owner

The owner of a well-known Toronto sports bar is coming under fire this week for his financial contributions to the failed 2018 mayoral campaign of a …

www.blogto.com

Y'know, looking at the hundreds of posts in the BlogTO FB thread related to this article--and mind the fact that I generally don't Twitter or read such comment threads for that reason--I've come to understand how Goldy managed what, to the left, was a "shocking" number of votes. That is, her "all the more reason to go to Shoxs!" supporters are so aggressively omnipresent: they're her viral campaign team, for those who casually gravitate to such social media. They're, like, to use modern parlance, "influencers"--and in a depressing universe where for many, the comment thread has usurped the alpha role of the article it accompanies. And the longer the comment thread, the more monolithic a mass they (and those who are trolled into "reacting") become.

Something to keep in mind whenever someone like BurlOak tries to alibi Goldy. But really; just existing within a universe of such comments is like living on a street of garish McMansions in York Region, where their omnipresence can kill off any positive affinity for what constitutes "taste" and "culture"...

 

[Towered]

Toronto neighbourhood upset over political views of local restaurant owner

The owner of a well-known Toronto sports bar is coming under fire this week for his financial contributions to the failed 2018 mayoral campaign of a …

www.blogto.com

Y'know, looking at the hundreds of posts in the BlogTO FB thread related to this article--and mind the fact that I generally don't Twitter or read such comment threads for that reason--I've come to understand how Goldy managed what, to the left, was a "shocking" number of votes. That is, her "all the more reason to go to Shoxs!" supporters are so aggressively omnipresent: they're her viral campaign team, for those who casually gravitate to such social media. They're, like, to use modern parlance, "influencers"--and in a depressing universe where for many, the comment thread has usurped the alpha role of the article it accompanies. And the longer the comment thread, the more monolithic a mass they (and those who are trolled into "reacting") become.

Something to keep in mind whenever someone like BurlOak tries to alibi Goldy. But really; just existing within a universe of such comments is like living on a street of garish McMansions in York Region, where their omnipresence can kill off any positive affinity for what constitutes "taste" and "culture"...

Couldn't agree more. We live in a time where pride in anti-intellectualism has become mainstream. It's a very disturbing trend that is irreversible. There is no acceptance of facts anymore that do not support personal biases and agendas.

Before the internet, most of this idiocy was contained.

 

[adma]

Couldn't agree more. We live in a time where pride in anti-intellectualism has become mainstream. It's a very disturbing trend that is irreversible. There is no acceptance of facts anymore that do not support personal biases and agendas.

Before the internet, most of this idiocy was contained.

Though when all is said and done, it's still the fringe of the mainstream--after all, all that comment thread spamming on behalf of Faith Goldy was good for only 3.4%. It's just that, uh, snowflakes on the left get hot and bothered because it's a lot bigger than 0.34%, and might as well be 34% as far as they're concerned...

 

[Videodrome]

At least it wasn't over 10% like that Johnston idiot in Mississauga got.

 

[adma]

At least it wasn't over 10% like that Johnston idiot in Mississauga got.

Though it *could have been*, were Keesmaat not in the race and John Tory facing virtual acclamation a la Bonnie Crombie. (Though somehow, I have my doubts, unless there was more of an active Worms media bloc in her camp.)

 

[jje1000]

Knock-on effects from years of cuts and deferred maintenance (remember how the street cleaning budget was cut by Ford?), and failures by Tory to restore said level of service.

Toronto's streets are getting dirtier, and the city doesn't have the sweepers to keep up

The City of Toronto is struggling to clean its expressways and local roads due to ongoing maintenance issues with its fleet of aging street sweepers, leaving residents breathing in dirtier air and more road waste flowing into Lake Ontario.

Transportation staff confirmed that on a typical day just 28 of the city's 43 sweepers — white trucks equipped with big yellow vacuums that suck up dirt while also filtering the air — fan out across the city. On one April day, nearly a quarter of the city's entire fleet was in for maintenance.

Worse, this problem is expected to continue throughout the busy summer construction season as replacement vehicles won't be available until the end of 2019 at the earliest.

But since 2007, when councillors purchased 50 top-of-the-line sweepers and voted to require any new sweeper technology to meet strict environmental standards, the city hasn't purchased a single new machine.

A new deal was just signed at the end of 2018 to buy 30 new sweepers for some $12.4 million, but most of those vehicles won't arrive until 2020.

Health research has shown the human respiratory system is negatively affected by the airborne mix of lead, aluminum and aromatic hydrocarbons.

"We have more hospitalizations and premature deaths in our city than we ever should because we're not dealing with our air pollution," Marshall said.

That claim is backed up by the city's own health board, which reported in 2014 that some 1,300 people died prematurely and 3,550 were hospitalized due to air pollution.

The city's street sweeper fleet has been hampered with maintenance issues for years, and the woes are well-documented.

Current Auditor General Beverly Romeo-Beehler found this month that from 2015 to 2018 there were lengthy vehicle downtimes due to repairs. One of her most striking findings was that nearly one in three of the city's heavy duty vehicles — which includes sweepers — was out of service daily in January and February of this year.

But despite the successful start, the city's former auditor general, Jeff Griffiths, found many of sweepers were poorly-maintained in the following years, and in some cases damaged by the use of after-market parts.

By 2012, the average tonnage collected was down to 8,720, and city staff, raising concerns about the sweepers' performance, sought to acquire more mechanical sweepers.

Even now, the city's new purchase isn't for DST-6 machines.

Instead, Toronto is buying Tymco 600 sweepers, a lower-grade model that has not been verified by ETV Canada, the organization that certifies green technology in this country (the DST-6, on the other hand, was recertified in 2017).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-street-sweeper-shortage-1.5135124

From the comments section:

Parts and maintenance were outsourced in 2012, the private company used knock-off parts and didn't do preventive maintenance. Efficiencies folks, efficiencies.

The idea of aftermarket parts was a $2.4-million cost-saving measure conceived in 2012 by a north Etobicoke Toronto Councillor named Doug Ford, then a member of the City's management committee.https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/gm/bgrd/backgroundfile-46451.pdf

 

[toonderly]

You don't even get reciepts for donations to municipal campaigns, do you? I thought they are not eligible as income deductions on tax returns because elections are non-partisan, and instead the City pays you back a portion of the amount, tiered based on how much you donate, and that is only after a candidates returns are audited, filed, and reviewed by the City, which probably isn't until at least July.

It sounds to me like Grace Yuhong Bi was very naive, had no idea who Faith Goldy was, and was probably convinced by Goldy to make a donation thinking it would be like donating to a provincial or federal political party.

The campaign sends you a form that you have to submit in order to receive the rebate. Maybe she was anxious to receive the form (or thought she needed it to file her taxes like a charitable donation). But it does take months from the time you make the donation to the time you get the form and then weeks or months from the time you submit the form to when you get the rebate. If Grace Yuhong Bi misunderstood it would have been helpful for the campaign to give her a timeline for when she should expect to receive the form from them.

 

[MetroMan]

Knock-on effects from years of cuts and deferred maintenance (remember how the street cleaning budget was cut by Ford?), and failures by Tory to restore said level of service.







https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-street-sweeper-shortage-1.5135124

From the comments section:

Not just street sweepers but garbage collectors. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed overflowing bins everywhere. I’m particularly attentive to this because I have a dog and am always looking for bins to throw out poop bags. Maybe it’s the combination of a rapidly increasing downtown population that is not only not being kept up with increased collection but in fact having a lowered budget for collectors.

 

[christiesplits]

Not just street sweepers but garbage collectors. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed overflowing bins everywhere. I’m particularly attentive to this because I have a dog and am always looking for bins to throw out poop bags. Maybe it’s the combination of a rapidly increasing downtown population that is not only not being kept up with increased collection but in fact having a lowered budget for collectors.

I've definitely noticed the overflowing bins, especially in those horrendously ugly bins in parks.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

I've definitely noticed the overflowing bins, especially in those horrendously ugly bins in parks.

Hopefully the city "cleans up" their act, and starts cleaning out the overflowing garbage bins on a regular basis.

 

[jje1000]

Article on the increasing flooding in Toronto:

City hall politics, Saxe said, have led to “gross under-investment” in green and stormwater infrastructure, such as permeable surfaces in parking lots, holding tanks and landscaping that directs runoff toward trees and greenery built into the hard cityscape.

The “most egregious” political decision, she said, is the city’s refusal to charge property owners for stormwater runoff that their homes or businesses create when paved property blocks the natural absorption of rain.

“A stormwater charge does two critical things. Number one, it gives property owners a financial incentive to keep the water on their property instead of just dumping it into the public realm at public expense,” she said.

A nice vivid depiction of what's in those murky brown waters:

When those rains overwhelm sewers, their contents can explode onto the streets and into Lake Ontario. Pedestrians could walk through a mix of human urine and excrement, bodily waste like hair, toenails, blood, vomit and mucus along with pharmaceuticals, condoms, tampons and chemical waste washed down the drain by local industries. Sometimes it is just stormwater. It can include anything the rain or snow washes down, including salt, petroleum products, fertilizers, pesticides and wildlife or domestic animal feces.

Toronto keeps flooding when it rains hard. Here's why

Rising temperatures that accompany climate change can increase the odds of intense rainfall. But those heavy rains fall on Toronto neighbourhoods serviced by sewers built a century ago.

projects.thestar.com

 

[Northern Light]

Article on the increasing flooding in Toronto:




A nice vivid depiction of what's in those murky brown waters:

Toronto keeps flooding when it rains hard. Here's why

Rising temperatures that accompany climate change can increase the odds of intense rainfall. But those heavy rains fall on Toronto neighbourhoods serviced by sewers built a century ago.

projects.thestar.com

To me, this fact stood out:

the Toronto Green Standard mandates that commercial buildings along with mid-and high-rise condos collect 5 mm of water for every storm, a sizeable difference from say, the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, which requires the retention of 60 mm of rain.