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Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

spacing.ca

How did Toronto the Good become Toronto the Slow? - Spacing Toronto

Here’s an interesting chronological footnote about this week’s much-hyped GTA-wide “One Fare” integration announcement, which will allow commuters from 905 municipalities to transfer onto both Metrolinx lines and TTC routes free of charge and cost $117 million per year. Had the assembled VIPs —...
spacing.ca
The norm in Toronto is that it takes decades to finish projects that should take half the time. But is Olivia Chow's first budget a sign on how to get things moving?
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One reason why Chow has made such a deep impression right across the political landscape is that she’s emerged as a doer of the first order — a leader animated by a desire to clear away roadblocks instead of erect more of them. It feels like she’s delivering a master class in politics as the art of the possible.
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Our self-inflicted problems aren’t merely the result of inter-governmental sparring, policy reversals following elections, lead-footed bureaucrats, economic ups and downs, etc. Every big city faces precisely this constellation of pressures, yet not every city is so adept at getting in its own way.
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The compulsion to re-litigate earlier decisions, often in the name of fiscal probity, is perhaps the most pernicious source of our inability to get important stuff done, but this habit is, in my view, a cultural problem, not a structural one. By cultural, I mean political culture, which is to say the culture of public discourse and decision-making, both of which encompass a huge variety of stakeholders but often a rather narrow set of parameters.
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Perhaps the thing that could wake them up to the vicious cycle in which we find ourselves is a clear-eyed recognition of the relationship between endlessly delayed infrastructure and a housing system that moves with all the speed and agility of a snapping turtle. The molten pace of rapid transit construction has helped throttled development and intensification.
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Chow is showing both voters and the political classes how to get stuff done quickly but not carelessly. Here’s hoping her refreshingly impatient pragmatism will be contagious in a city-region that had forgotten how to get to yes.
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I was looking at Matt Elliott'a coverage of today's council meeting. What's up with Brad Bradford asking to look at exempting "cultural organizations" from noise permit fees? It just seems a little odd when all of the other noise related items seem to be about enforcing noise complaints.
 
toonderly said:
I was looking at Matt Elliott'a coverage of today's council meeting. What's up with Brad Bradford asking to look at exempting "cultural organizations" from noise permit fees? It just seems a little odd when all of the other noise related items seem to be about enforcing noise complaints.
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Report not until fall...

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Amare said:
To the residents of Etobicoke Centre: Please for the love of God vote this clown out of office at the next soonest opportunity. He is not his father, nor does he have 1/5th of his intellect.
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Truth be told, back in the first term of Megacity Council a quarter century ago, his father would likewise have been all by his lonesome (Robert Bruce Ford wasn't elected yet)
 
Northern Light said:
Look at lonely Holyday......living to be the contrarian. Left to his own devices he'd vote against Christmas.
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It feels like he's thinking to himself, "Rob Ford voted no to everything for a decade as councilor and then got elected mayor, so that will be my path to glory too!"

Only problem is, as much of a complete buffoon and dullard Ford was, he still had a certain aw shucks, schlubby low-brow charisma about him. Stephen Holyday has nothing.
 
Northern Light said:
Look at lonely Holyday......living to be the contrarian. Left to his own devices he'd vote against Christmas.
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“Sometimes it’s important just to say no" -Holyday
https://twitter.com/x/status/1755353837840257075
One more bike item. Councillor Holyday rises to announce he’s opposed to making cheaper Bike Share memberships available to people with low incomes. “Sometimes it’s important just to say no,” he says. Only sometimes?
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This article by Keenan in Star is sad. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/be...cle_d8144b2e-c5e3-11ee-bddc-2f9117178b1d.html

Before the legality of tobogganing came up at council on Wednesday, things were already going downhill​



I had really hoped for better from Chris Moise but the Perruzza amendment is simply bonkers!

2 - Motion to Amend Item (Additional) moved by Councillor Anthony Perruzza (Withdrawn)
That:

1. City Council request that any paper copies of agenda materials provided by the City Clerk be 3-hole punched.

Fortunately the whole thing was defeated but do these people REALLY have nothing better to do?
 
I promised back when to deep dive the Mayor's budget proposals, beyond the headlines; frankly, beyond what's been discussed here, and in the media, up to now, there hasn't been much to add.......but I see this has been snuck in.......

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This is the first of the Gardiner/DVP dividend we're seeing.

Also this:

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Also of note is where the TTC found funds to build the Scarborough Busway:

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Not sure about that.......

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Where else is the money coming from? Mostly where you'd expect, the Federal monies (Housing Accelerator, Shelter supports), Provincial monies (Building Faster fund); Reserve Funds and Assessment growth......

But there is this too:

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Note that this money will not be available next year!

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There's also some user fee adjustments that seem .........ill-conceived.

A 24% increase if you want a Liquor License through the Clerk's Office (presumably for an event on City property).

A lot increases for ice rink time, including youth, upwards of 8%

A wedding at City Hall (permit) just got 14% more expensive.

Minor Variances (as in C of A or staff approved) up 14%

Curiously..............Permit Parking is up only 4%
 
I've been hearing Brad Bradford on the radio quite a bit lately. He seems like he hates Chow. First it was about tobogganing and then today it was about the police getting more money. He seems like an angry guy.
 
EagleEye said:
I've been hearing Brad Bradford on the radio quite a bit lately. He seems like he hates Chow. First it was about tobogganing and then today it was about the police getting more money. He seems like an angry guy.
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Bradford's motion on toboggans was seconded by Chow; and he's got the police budget bumped up, details coming tomorrow.

His political theater is odd as it doesn't benefit him, certainly in his ward, and I would argue at all.

But his working relationship w/Chow seems to be going fine for him.
 
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