Who Will Challenge Rob Ford?

[ibhattac]

Greenleaf,

That's a very interesting take. I hadn't considered it from that perspective. Sadly, I find myself agreeing with the sentiment "it's just words". And the more time I spend doing what I do, it's easier to believe that. Sometimes it's all too easy to imagine a controversial study was undertaken against the better judgment of staff at the behest of an elected official solely so that the same elected official could come against it during the election in order to appear to be a 'savior' and hold off a challenger. Long story.

Regardless, my head's stuck in a place where I am starting to see all the invective and vitriol directed virtually solely against the brothers Ford, while cathartic, as ultimately of limited value. As someone with an urban planning background who's had the opportunity to work with/around elected officials, I guess I see the idea of getting people organised and thinking critically in Toronto as being more about being able to apply pressure on the Councillors and create the environment in which big picture investments by government can take place help draw in the private sector and get those 'better' jobs and so on and so forth. This, instead of the usual, we need to get other levels of government to pay for our needs. It hasn't happened in two generations, it isn't about to happen now. That said, maybe the Ford BBQ for Harper might change all that. Who knows. Moreover, short of a magical quintupling of the City's planning department with the best and brightest, there's a critical disconnect between the official plan and its realization through neighbourhood plans and zoning by-laws. If people were to organize and create these plans and approach their Councillors and City staff with them, things would get done. This is something that's being done in New York from what I understand.

That said, there's also the question of why should ordinary citizens have to do the job of the planners. by doing the job of the planners, it's further delegitimizing the role of government, etc, etc. For me, that's the normative concern with KWT's work. It's great in that the community is coming forward with a plan. But it's concerning that the City does not have the resources to proactively address one of the most important commercial strips in the amalgamated-City while Council/Executive/Mayor rails on about the gravy train. And now City staff have been all but directed to shelve consideration of KWT + Yonge BIA's work and instead allocated already limited resources to a 'downtown transportation plan' which will likely never be implemented, but will be likely be used as a club to beat the downtown Councillors around the head in the next election and continue the already successful war on the car rhetoric.

It's tricky, isn't it, navigating these waters.

 

[jje1000]

The war on the car rhetoric has already been used up, I say. Ford won the election- now he's free to improve car travel. Will travel times improve? I doubt so, and the failure of Ford to truly address congestion will allow opponents to use this rhetoric against him.

 

[ibhattac]

jje1000,

let's hope so.

 

[typezed]

What I'm trying to suggest is that pocketbook issues are real, and for a very long time investments have flowed into the downtown (and I understand why) with very little flowing into the suburbs.

This belief seems untrue to me. I've lived in southern Scarborough (M1M) for a couple years. I'm not a property owner here - I rent from a relative - and would prefer to live downtown if it was affordable to me. In the time I've lived here I have seen in my immediate neighbourhood a major water main replacement project and many road resurfacings. Recently, Toronto Hydro has been erecting taller hydro poles and rerigging all the wires. Bus service to my street has been extended and is more frequent. An employment centre has been opened at the Cliffside strip mall in a space vacated by a grocery store, and a community meeting spot with health services and programs for the Tamil community was opened in a strip mall at Eglinton and Brimley. Down by the water there is a long term project building shoreline protection for the Bluffs and the fancy homes atop them. There were plans to pave paths on top the Bluffs to complete gaps in the Waterfront Trail, but these were set aside at the last council meeting at the request of local Councillor Crawford (it's the only thing I've seen him do aside from the stupid painted bike initiative). If less is done in the suburbs, perhaps it's because the residents are so quick to oppose anything that may open their area to people from away. Services are more expensive to provide to the suburbs due to low density and poor planning. Transit City and the Tower Renewal Program both focused on improving conditions in the outer regions of the city. If our political culture was focused on downtown to any degree close to what some want to spin, the DRL would appear much brighter on the radar, to the benefit of us all. Finally, I may presently live in the suburbs (I actually need to find someplace new to live this month), but I frequently go downtown to enjoy all the improvements, especially along the waterfront. I don't know why any sane person in any part of Toronto would resent these. This city is dependant on a healthy vibrant core area.

 

[ibhattac]

typezed,

I totally agree that the city is dependent on a healthy vibrant core area. And I know all too well about the challenges of NIMBYism. It is . . frustrating . . to say the least. But in a way wholly understandable. You've (not you specifically, but a general you) bought into a neighbourhood and its school and its your retirement plan, and now someone's about to do what to your hard-earned life? Bureaucrats don't do the best job communicating, and with Twitter/etc they're hopelessly outclassed when all communications have to go through senior managers and communications and legal and you have to make sure the local elected official is on-board with the language you are proposing to use in a public meeting. And then that elected official is all to eager to side with what they perceive to be the loudest voice once they're outside staff's offices.

Don't get me wrong, Tower Renewal is a brilliant initiative. I'd love to see some actual buildings receive the monies to sort themselves out. Transit City was a tremendous community investment/anti-poverty initiative that would have been more than sustainable. All I was suggesting was that pocketbook issues, in my professional experience, are real. I've seen them dismissed out of hand far too often or not acknowledged in the rush to caricature the brothers Ford. I've seen initiatives named and whatnot publicly, but the money just doesn't seem to flow to the frontline when the times comes. Incidentally, have you checked out Vital signs 2010 and the Three Cities Analysis by Hulchanski?

I'm glad to hear that monies were flowing into your part of the city. I'd be curious to know if the watermain and multiple road resurfacings were infrastructure money or critical repair monies (they had to do it and no choice) or general good repair investment from the City. Also, any idea if the employment and community health centre is specifically a Toronto thing? I know the Province was going around setting a lot of them up on a temporary basis with some federal funding and the City had nothing to do with them - there might be a placard on them identifying the funding source. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to diminish what you're saying - I'm just genuinely curious.

Anyway, hopefully people more than you have noticed in the M1M and the Councillor is ready to stick up for it all.

 

[typezed]

There's a Toronto Hydro reach truck outside my place right now. I know that TH isn't directly a municipal department, but I just wanted to point out that work is being done in the suburbs. I believe that the employment and health/Tamil community centres are branded as Toronto services. The one at Eglinton and Brimley is called The Hub and received media attention as a new social services initiative when it opened. When people say that few services can be cut, I think about these two places which opened in the last year. I'm sure they meet needs, but they were expensive expansions of service under Miller. They seem to be ways to fight against older strip malls in the outer suburbs becoming blighted and decayed as much as they're about providing community services.

In my first listing I forgot to mention the splash pad that is being built this summer in a quite isolated park in a neighbourhood overlooking the Bluffer's Marina.

I don't know who provided the money for the water main improvements or the road restructuring. The signs have been taken down. I don't recall thinking of them as anything but municipal projects. It's a fifty year old neighbourhood. I've read that many of these neighbourhoods outside the old city of Toronto have infrastructure that is beginning to creak and requires upgrading.

At the Executive Committee this past week Mammoliti was so intent on viewing every deputant as resident in a shared hippie house at College and Ossington. But I saw people from all areas of the city pleading for a more sensible approach to city building.

I wrote Councillor Crawford once, during the bike lane debate. I asked him how long his unquestioning support of Ford would continue, especially given the Mayor's sad behaviour during Pride Week. I received no reply. I don't feel that I can say a lot because I'm not a long-term resident in this area, and I'm not a property owner or someone who is contributing much to the tax base right now. I could be out of step with most of the residents of this area, but my landlord isn't a fan either. And the neighbour works for the library system.

 

[ibhattac]

typezed, You don't have to be a property owner to contribute to the tax base. I think arithmetically, a renter contributes 4x as much to the property tax base as an owner. I forget how those maths work, though. Moreover, your opinions/thoughts on the direction of a neighbourhood as a short-term resident are important, I think. Specifically, your reasons for moving instead of staying can be extremely illuminating as to the state of play in the community, i.e. what could have kept you in the neighbourhood and settle?

Yea, the exec meeting was something else. I only made it to 5am before my body gave out. Not sure it was the best use of my rare vacation days, but felt it had to be done. Cllr Mammoliti was . . . offensive. One of the exchanges that sticks out the most was when a deputant suggested that maybe the Sheppard subway expansion wasn't the best use of public monies at this time and the jump-down-the throat response from Mams was something to the effect of 'so you don't think that the people of Scarborough deserve a subway line, or do only people in Toronto?' The deputant, to his credit, wasn't having any of it and basically said that it should be up to the experts to decide where subway routes should go, not politicians. nd that's nothing to mention of Cllr Mammoliti suggestion to another deputant that maybe the suburbs are tired of paying for Toronto. That elicited gasps and groans as I recall. I have to say, I was astounded by the level of discourse that the deputants brought to the executive committee meeting. There's a lot of knowledge and awareness out there, its just a matter of harnessing it and fostering it to grow this City by leaps and bounds.

I wonder how September 19th, 26th, and 27th will turn out.

And on a planning point - strip malls are a challenge to say the least. Their blighted in part due to the lack of people around them, so its a struggle to keep the money coming in. And the landlords, assuming they aren't absentee, often can't get enough revenue going from the tenants to put anything back into them. It is a bit of a catch-22. The easy way out would be to zone the hell out of them and get point towers on podiums with two to three floors of office/retail/light-industrial/institutional going to get residents into the neighbourhood and make existing businesses more viable (more local customers) and to provide space for new enterprise. But to do/propose that kind of thing is exceedingly difficult. In my experience, no Cllr is ever going to come forward with that, or even a request for such a study, because it puts them square in the crosshairs of the residents' associations votes and monies upon whom they rely. No planner is going to propose it for study because they're just too damn busy. No strip mall owner is going to come forward with it because they need the support of the Councillor which they won't get because of . . .. Hence, the value of things like KWT's study where it's the 'community' coming forward with ideas on the shape of their community proactively rather than being reactive to a specific rezoning/(re)development application. Again, something like an alternative official plan undertaking by the UT forums might have great value in getting the ball rolling on something interesting.

On an aside, from what I've encountered, it's pretty common knowledge, and dare I say practice, to get political support first for a development proposal, then wait for a few other proposals to emerge in the ward, then submit all the applications together in order to overwhelm the planning department and trigger a automatic OMB reviews for everyone because there aren't enough staff or resources to commit to doing a proper study. Ironically, it's one of the good things about the OMB - it helps municipalities prioritize and allocate limited resources and keeps things moving along with a king of sober second clinical thought that is often far far removed from the community being affected.

Also, check out your neighbourhood: http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/profiles_map_and_index.htm

There's also the vital signs 2010 report: http://www.tcf.ca/vitalinitiatives/TVS10FullReport.pdf

And lastly, the Three Cities report: http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/curp/tnrn/Three-Cities-Within-Toronto-2010-Final.pdf

Now, try to place those in the context of a Toronto with a population of 3.3 million people with only about 1.7 workers for every retiree and child, instead of the current 2.4 workers or whatever http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demographics/projections/table10gta.html as suggested in Table 10.1.

 

[js97]

typezed, You don't have to be a property owner to contribute to the tax base. I think arithmetically, a renter contributes 4x as much to the property tax base as an owner.

How is that even possible? I'm not saying that a renter contributes more or less than an owner, but to say you can define the portion of rent is going into property taxes is absurd.

Tax increases are much more visible to owners than renters. Legislation controls the % of increases a landlord is allowed to levy annually. No protection is given to the owner from the municipal government. If the government was really fair, they would ensure property tax portion of rent was visible in lease agreements and was adjusted with any tax increase, pro-rata of course. Would wake up the renters in this city.

 

[ibhattac]

js97, Good question. I'm not sure how it breaks down exactly, but the argument is premised on the number of tax incentives available to owners that are not available to tenants, in addition to the difference in property tax rates that a multi-residential dwelling owner is expected to pay (2.09%) by passing it along to tenants versus residential dwelling owner (0.79%).

 

[MetroMan]

I see some hope. A certain councillor on the executive committee is getting a lot of flack from his own constituents about his alignment with many of Ford's policies. I see him being a good moderate conservative alternative to Ford should he decide to run against him in 2014. Michael Thompson may be our next Mayor if he plays his cards right.

 

[ibhattac]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/the-team-that-keeps-the-hordes-from-fords-door/article2121450/singlepage/#articlecontent

"calls to the mayor’s office are not formally logged into a centralized database, and Mr. Beyer throws his unofficial tallies away at the end of each day.

“It can be skewed because there is a huge silent majority out there and a lot of people who are in favour of what you’re doing, they’re not calling to say you’re doing a great job,” explains Mr. Beyer."

Thoughts?

 

[TonyV]

I see some hope. A certain councillor on the executive committee is getting a lot of flack from his own constituents about his alignment with many of Ford's policies. I see him being a good moderate conservative alternative to Ford should he decide to run against him in 2014. Michael Thompson may be our next Mayor if he plays his cards right.

So much water will flow under the bridge between now and 2014. Not that I wouldn't welcome this outcome but I am not certain Thompson has the ambition - let's see. It is an interesting possibility.

 

[TonyV]

Alas, my whole point of creating this thread:

So which CEO, community organizer, powerful person in the city can get the support, inspire Torontonians with a vision and pull off a rare outsider win of the Mayor's chair?

To answer succinctly, at this point in time I can see no one except Tory, but who knows what can happen in three years. One thing is certain about the last 6 months: the landscape has changed significantly and if Tory decides to run next time around he'll get respect. It all depends on who else surfaces.

 

[ibhattac]

For me, the bigger picture question is whether its enough to have someone else as Mayor, or is there a necessity for a different slate of Councillors as well?

 

[Admiral Beez]

If Toronto progressives want to get rid of Rob Ford they must present a single strong candidate. The conservatives will present just one; so there's no point in progressives splitting the voters' attention, focus and ballots.