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Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

Less than 25000 voter turnout is pretty sad. But it's 1) municipal and 2) a by-election, both of which typically have low turn-out.

On my commutes through Don Valley West, it seemed recently that fewer Furey signs were out on lawns. Furey said there was an "ugly voter suppression campaign". I'd argue Progress Toronto hammered him on his record, and those that supported him weakly didn't bother to vote.

Edit: clarity
 
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Northern Light said:
Well, Olivia had a pretty decent grip on Council; more than I thought she might, to be honest; this is 100% an added vote in her column, which should be good news for progressives.

Its now on the Mayor to demonstrate that that is so.
Click to expand...
Yes, I expect Chernos Lin to be on Team Chow on most issues.

Given the high amount of development in her ward, and its many influential residents associations, I’d be surprised if she gains many fans from Team UrbanToronto. 😆
 
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^^^ I noted that one a couple of days ago in the High Park thread.

It sounds like the operation has funding in the upcoming budget...........we will see soon.
 
That would be a big improvement. I love High Park being car-free, but it's not practical to take the subway to High Park with a toddler if you're planning on going to the playground and the zoo. An every 20 minute bus doesn't really cut it.
 
evandyk said:
That would be a big improvement. I love High Park being car-free, but it's not practical to take the subway to High Park with a toddler if you're planning on going to the playground and the zoo. An every 20 minute bus doesn't really cut it.
Click to expand...
Or the cherry blossoms, of course. (And not just toddlers, but elders w/limited mobility)
 
adma said:
Or the cherry blossoms, of course. (And not just toddlers, but elders w/limited mobility)
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Yup. Other than the pool, most of the stuff people go to High Park to do is a solid walk from the subway. We don't go to High Park if it's not nice enough to bike for that reason. But some sort of frequent loop shuttle would solve that problem easily.
 
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Agenda Item History 2024.CC23.1

Agenda Item History 2024.CC23.1
secure.toronto.ca

Respecting Local Democracy and Cities​

Report from the Mayor
The recent provincial Bill 212 seeks to overturn the decisions and work of our locally elected Toronto City Council. If passed, the Bill means one government would, at tremendous cost to the taxpayer and without collaboration, undo another government's work.

As Mayor, it is my responsibility to stand up for the decision-making authority of City Council and the expertise of our professional public service which supports that decision-making. As such, I am working with City Staff to review the City's options and will provide recommendations on this item prior to the City Council meeting on November 13, 2024.
 
Since we previously discussed the audit of Parks Branch in this thread, I'll pick up that discussion here.

At Council this week, supplementary information on this was posted, including Parks Management's response to the Auditor's findings.

The high level link (to all the reports and attachments is here):

Agenda Item History 2024.AU6.1

Agenda Item History 2024.AU6.1
secure.toronto.ca

The presentation of the Management Response is here:


From that:

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* this last one I could do in 2-3 days.......2 weeks if you wanted the prettied up report with charts, and graphs..... just sayin...

****

Of note, one of the attachments is confidential.

The report that breaks down the Audit results by Ward.

The argument is clearly that this will attribute blame to one or more supervisors, and the policy is to treat that as a confidential HR matter.

I'm frankly not sure why that information should not be public. Accountability is accountability.

I should add here, that front-line staff in each ward could, in theory, also be identified from the information, but that is not a given, insofar as, those staff names are not listed on any public-facing document so far as I am aware.
But Supervisor names are available publicly.
 
Northern Light said:
Since we previously discussed the audit of Parks Branch in this thread, I'll pick up that discussion here.

At Council this week, supplementary information on this was posted, including Parks Management's response to the Auditor's findings.

The high level link (to all the reports and attachments is here):

Agenda Item History 2024.AU6.1

Agenda Item History 2024.AU6.1
secure.toronto.ca

The presentation of the Management Response is here:


From that:

View attachment 611953


View attachment 611955
View attachment 611956
View attachment 611957
View attachment 611958

* this last one I could do in 2-3 days.......2 weeks if you wanted the prettied up report with charts, and graphs..... just sayin...

****

Of note, one of the attachments is confidential.

The report that breaks down the Audit results by Ward.

The argument is clearly that this will attribute blame to one or more supervisors, and the policy is to treat that as a confidential HR matter.

I'm frankly not sure why that information should not be public. Accountability is accountability.

I should add here, that front-line staff in each ward could, in theory, also be identified from the information, but that is not a given, insofar as, those staff names are not listed on any public-facing document so far as I am aware.
But Supervisor names are available publicly.
Click to expand...
A few years go I worked quite often with a Parks Supervisor (now retired) who was clearly a bit afraid of his staff and was reluctant to ask them to do things they did not want to do. I suspect these Parks Supervisors are not sure Management will support them if they push their staff too hard!
 
DSC said:
A few years go I worked quite often with a Parks Supervisor (now retired) who was clearly a bit afraid of his staff and was reluctant to ask them to do things they did not want to do. I suspect these Parks Supervisors are not sure Management will support them if they push their staff too hard!
Click to expand...

Possible. I've never encountered that myself, but most of the supervisors I've known through the years were old-school, came up through the ranks, men.

That, of course, has changed in more recent years. (and I'm not saying that's a bad thing).

But in earlier years, I think many staff would not have wanted to tangle with the supervisors I knew.....

But times have changed.

Its not just the supervisors either...........its that there are so many less of them.......covering much wider areas and with far less direct control of their own parks and teams. The department has been re-org'ed so many times I've lost count.....virtually every one of them for the worse.
 
A report to the next meeting of Toronto's Infrastructure and Environment Ctte, seeks to empower additional divisional staff to enforce by-laws around trees..........

I don't think most here will find the details terribly exciting.........


What is risible however, is that the above is needed because the City corporate has decided to shift the Forestry Branch of Parks, Forestry and Recreation, out of said division and into the Environment and Climate Change division of the City.

This is, for the record, a completely unnecessary move, which is highly disruptive and costly.

There are multiple staff devoting their energies right now to figuring out how to disentangle Forestry from Parks.

The two divisions have been together since before amalgamation, which is to say, several decades, at least.

A very large percentage of the trees planted, pruned, maintained, or removed by Forestry are located in Parks.

Those trees and Forests will remain, physically, within Parks, but Parks will no longer have much to do with them.

This one giant organizational headache that will produce not tangible gain, just costly bill.
 
No right turns on red laws seem to be becoming more common in US - there were discussions about it here a while ago but..

"Beginning January 1, 2025, motorists in Washington D.C. will be prohibited from making right turns at red lights, while cyclists will be permitted to treat stop signs as yield signs if the intersection is free from pedestrians and motorists. The changes will come about due to the Safer Streets Amendment Act of 2022, put forth by the Council of the District of Columbia.

By way of background, turning right on red was introduced in the 1970s as a fuel savings measure. In 2018, The D.C. Department of Transportation (“DDOT”) launched an initiative to research whether there were safety benefits to prohibiting right turns on a red light. In Phase I, it evaluated 100 different intersections in the District, all of which were approved for no turn on red after it was found that the restriction resulted in safer intersections with reduced conflict."

Of course, Council did not increase police budget so the DC police say the new restriction will not be enforced!
 
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