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Rob Ford's Toronto

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More on the #gravybus story. Toronto Star: No need for bus for Mayor Rob Ford’s football team, opposing player says

There was no need for police to call a TTC bus to rush Mayor Rob Ford’s Don Bosco Eagles away from the Father Henry Carr football field on Thursday, a Carr player says.

A police spokesperson, Mark Pugash, has said that officers asked for the bus because they were concerned about the possible “escalation” of a dispute between an agitated Carr coach and the game referee.

The player’s account, however, largely corroborated the account of a school board spokesperson who says there was never any reason to fear a brawl or worse — and that the Carr players had already left the field as the Bosco players waited for transportation.

* * *

Catholic school board spokesperson John Yan has repeatedly said that the cold and wet weather was the only reason the bus was called; the players, he said, were “exemplary.” Another police spokesperson, Const. Tony Vella, also said the weather was the primary factor. And Brian Riddell, executive secretary for the Toronto District Catholic Athletic Association, said that there was “no confrontation between the two teams whatsoever.”

But Ford said the situation “could have gotten really ugly” had he not been present to “control” his own team. “We had to get out of their field, and the police made that call,” he said Thursday. He refused on Monday to explain why the team needed the bus, saying that is a question for the police.

The police and the school board also disagree on why eight officers were at the field at the end of the game. Pugash said the two school officers who were present prior to the dispute grew concerned enough to call for reinforcements. But Yan said the six extra officers happened to be conducting “community outreach” work nearby and were invited by Don Bosco’s principal to speak to residents at the field.
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What about all the non-mayoralty functions he's doing? He skips council meetings to coach football. What about his family company? Is he still working at it, full-time or part-time? Other politicians put their holdings in a trust and do not get involved in their company's function directly. Is he micromanaging his company as well when he asked the city to do the repairs outside the company business?
 
It strikes me as pathological.
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The heavily engrained victim mentality that Ford constantly expresses is but one part of what is obviously some serious mental illness issues. And at this point, this will never change.

He's chock full of all kinds of weird behaviours, but in the video, notice how he closes his eyes while speaking all the time...a tell tale sign.
 
Another odd thing about Ford, to put a still finer point on it, is that even if one assumes that he bears no responsibility for this most recent fiasco involving the TTC, he's actually still blameworthy in another way.

Instead of a) insisting that he bears no responsibility for this fiasco and then b) playing the role of 'angered politician who needs to look into the bureaucratic boondoggle between the TPS and TTC,' he makes matters worse by just dodging the entire issue.

In other words, this man is so woefully goddamn ignorant and stupid that he can't even see a political opportunity when it's right in front of his face. He could have turned this whole thing into an opportunity for 'anti-gravy train' leadership.

Then again...he did make that phone call. And that all suggests that in fact there's far more to this story than we currently know, and he's probably deeper in it than we might even find out. And that explains his cowering behaviour: he has too much to hide.

Regardless--the man is offensively inept (really, I mean it, offensively). It's disgusting.
 
Probably no one is responsible for the gravybus fiasco. Ford's influence could have been more in spirit than in direct order or request. More a case of stupid following stupid. We all have experience working in organizations where absurdly extra effort is expended meeting what is viewed as the desires of supervisors, even when most everyone thinks it misdirected. At City Council, they recorded every vote for speaking extensions because that is what the Mayor wanted, because he believed he made a promise to do so, even though it took five times as long as the prior process for what was always polite, near-unanimous assent. And Toronto Police seem particularly adept at directing effort towards supporting conformity or power structure (see their recent pedestrian safety initiatives). I will hereby entitle this the Emperor's Clothes Principle.
 
typezed said:
Probably no one is responsible for the gravybus fiasco. Ford's influence could have been more in spirit than in direct order or request.
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Okay, I take that back after seeing part of Byford's press conference where he revealed that there was a direct misunderstood phone conversation with Ford prior to the voice mail. The question I'd like asked of Byford: "We know that the Mayor has called your cell in this instance and when he had a conflict with a streetcar driver. How many times does he call your cellphone to discuss non-personal TTC matters, for example, financing plans for subway development? Do you feel it's appropriate, or professional, for the mayor to call you directly in these instances?"
 
Peepers said:
On top of that, his assertion that the TTC could have turned down the request is an insult to our intelligence. Under no circumstance would the TTC second guess a request from Police for an emergency shelter.
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I agree that the TTC could not turn down a shelter bus, but how could the first bus get lost! Is there no way for the driver to contact a supervisor once they are on the road? If a bus breaks down, do they only find out about it when it doesn't show up at the station, or when the following bus reaches a supervisor to tell them personally of the problem.

If this was a real emergency (which TTC had to assume it was), another issue is how the first bus got lost.
 
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BurlOak:

I agree that the TTC could not turn down a shelter bus, but how could the first bus get lost! Is there no way for the driver to contact a supervisor once they are on the road? If a bus breaks down, do they only find out about it when it doesn't show up at the station, or when the following bus reaches a supervisor to tell them personally of the problem.

If this was a real emergency (which TTC had to assume it was), another issue is how the first bus got lost.
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How it got lost is an operational issue that is irrelevant to the topic at hand - which is the appropriateness of the mayor using his power to contact the head of the TTC to inquire/expedite/bitch about the missing bus. No one present at the time would have been able to do except him, and it is certainly wasn't for city business.

AoD
 
Andy Byford now admits that Ford made two calls about the bus, and says he would like Ford to not call him about personal matters.

Andy Byford revealed on Tuesday that he had received not one, but two calls from Mr. Ford last Thursday when a game between his Don Bosco Eagles and Father Henry Carr Crusaders was called early after a coach for the opposing team got into an argument with a referee. The incident prompted a Toronto police sergeant to request a so-called shelter bus to ferry the Don Bosco players to their home school, triggering a chain of events that saw riders kicked off a 36 Finch West bus.

The first call, placed while Mr. Byford was preparing for a city council debate on an $8.4-billion agreement for four new transit lines, was garbled. “[The mayor] made some reference to a football team, to a potential brawl, to a bus. I was very clear, I said to him — because I thought he was asking me for a bus — so I said to him there was no way I was providing him with a TTC bus, [and] the call dropped off. I didn’t really know what he was talking about,” Mr. Byford told reporters. “I phoned transit control and asked them for a number for a school bus, because I thought the best I could do is phone him up, here’s the school bus, you phone them.”

It was only after he listened to a voicemail left by Mr. Ford, where he referenced the Toronto police, that the “penny dropped.”

“He wasn’t asking me for a bus. He was trying to say that the TPS had asked for a bus, where the hell was it?” said Mr. Byford, who described the mayor as “not happy” on the message. “He wanted to know where his bus was.”

* * *

... Mr. Byford also informed the mayor’s office that “in future, any matters that can be construed as being personal to the mayor, I would rather he did not call me.”

George Christopoulos, the mayor’s press secretary, said “I don’t think the mayor calls him on personal things.”

He said as far as the mayor sees it, the matter with his football team “was strictly business.”
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Juan_Lennon416 said:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/art...-ford-s-attendance-better-than-david-miller-s
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Okay, but what was Miller missing these meetings for? Was it for other city business? Was it to play cricket?

This article is tremendously lazy because it ignores what these two men were doing when they were and were not at Council. One was putting through policy, crafting a transit plan, and doing other USEFUL things for this city while he was there. The other blusters about 'damn streetcars that nobody wants' (and is roundly ignored) while his trained monkey gives a thumbs down. It's not just about the quantity of time spent, it's about what was done with it.
 
typezed said:
Okay, I take that back after seeing part of Byford's press conference where he revealed that there was a direct misunderstood phone conversation with Ford prior to the voice mail. The question I'd like asked of Byford: "We know that the Mayor has called your cell in this instance and when he had a conflict with a streetcar driver. How many times does he call your cellphone to discuss non-personal TTC matters, for example, financing plans for subway development? Do you feel it's appropriate, or professional, for the mayor to call you directly in these instances?"
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Byford was at the city council meeting. The meeting that the Mayor skipped. If Rob was at the meeting, the two could have talked face to face (without the wind making the talk over the cell phones difficult), but then Rob would have missed the game.
 
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