Tag Archives: Auditor-General

Citizens Not Wanted

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I wanted this one to be positive, to sing with the upraised voice of a vibrant, participatory democracy. Citizens, not taxpayers or stakeholders or customers, taking time out of their schedules, out of their lives to engage with their elected local representatives. Volunteer members from the city’s various communities, be it cycling, pedestrian, tenant advocacy, aboriginal support, those whose hobby it is to restore the Don River… yes, while you and I spend our free time on the Twitter or however else it is you spend your free time (but doesn’t everybody spend all their free time on the Twitter?)… there are dedicated groups of people who go and pitch in to help bring the Don River and its immediate surroundings back to life. All coming together to have their say in how business is being conducted at City Hall.

At issue yesterday (among other items) was a staff report from the City Manager brought before the mayor’s Executive Committee recommending the dissolution, decommissioning or reconsidering of 21 of the city’s 23 citizen advisory and working committees. “Advisory bodies are generally composed of a combination of Council members and members of the public. Working committees are composed solely of Council members to assist Council and its standing committees to accomplish specific tasks.” Now, this move is not out of the ordinary, as such committees are designated for the term of each council and these were from the previous term.

But the breadth of the suggested cuts and the lack of any replacement bodies gave the appearance that this administration isn’t all that concerned with citizen engagement. An administration dedicated, at least while the mayor was out on the campaign trail last year, to more transparency, more accountability, more respect for us, the taxpayers, Joe and Josephina Q. Public. Why the need to reduce the presence of citizen advisory committees? The report itself notes that there is no financial impact of this decision. So eliminating these committees wasn’t due to fiscal restraint although Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday has pointed out that there would be savings. “… [Citizen advisory committees] do cost something because we’re involving a lot of staff time that might be better off doing something else.” You see, it’s all about making the government ‘leaner’ according to the Deputy Mayor and apparently ‘leaner’ means less citizen involvement.

And nothing that happened at the committee meeting yesterday did much to dispel that notion. The room was packed for the meeting’s 9:30 start. Some 80 mailed submissions had been sent in from the public and there were over 40 deputants scheduled to speak. The first wrinkle came when the committee decided to deal with some other business first – the issue of the advisory councils was due up 3rd but Budget Chief Mike Del Grande asked for and got the votes to move an item with Section 37 benefits and development charges up.  “We dealt with a couple of items we were told were going to be quick,” said Deputy Mayor Holyday, “and they weren’t.” He admitted that the move had been a mistake.

Now, I’m willing to give the Executive Committee the benefit of the doubt on this and not think they deliberately pushed back the item to take the wind out of the speakers’ sails. To make people wait and wait for their turn to be heard, perhaps a few of them with other things to do, other commitments, would be forced to leave before they had the opportunity to have their say.  I’ll take the Deputy Mayor on word that that was not their intention. But it sure looked that way.

The quick items weren’t and the actual one that was scheduled to go before the advisory committee item, the Street Food Pilot Project, certainly didn’t wrap up swiftly which, frankly should’ve been expected. The fiasco that was the A La Cart program absolutely needs to be examined in depth to find out exactly what happened, how and if to compensate those who got caught up in excessive red tape and a not entirely well thought out process. This items shouldn’tve got short shrift and it didn’t.

By the time the committee took a break for lunch at 12:30, those still waiting to give their deputations on the advisory council item were told not to rush back, they probably wouldn’t be getting around to it until 3 p.m. 5 and a half hours after the meeting had started. Needless to say, there was some eye-rolling and grumbling in the crowd about intentions on the part of the committee to dampen their voices.

Those who did return after lunch or at 3, noticeably fewer than had left, discovered that estimate too was grossly off. There was more A La Cart discussions and then a timed item which had to dealt with before the committee could get the advisory council item. Which timed item, you ask? You’re going to love the double irony of this.

Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) – Response to Auditor General’s Report titled “Toronto Community Housing Corporation – Controls over Employee Expenses are Ineffective”.

That’s right. Now the Executive Committee had to hear from the Auditor General about the TCHC not 6 weeks, 2 months ago before the board was turfed, management dispatched and Case Otis installed as the supreme being. The urgency was all after the fact, long past when questionable decisions had been made.

The double irony? So urgent was this matter that the meeting had to be temporarily halted because there was no quorum. Yes, more than half of the Executive Committee were so desperate to hear what the Auditor General had to say about the TCHC spending scandal that they left the room. So speakers still present were further delayed as someone had to go off and drag an Executive Committee member back to the room to re-start the meeting.

Just before the stroke of 5, nearly 7 and a half hours after the meeting began, the first speaker to item EX 5.3 Council Advisory Bodies and Working Committees sat down in front of the Executive Committee.

Now, I am a cold-hearted bastard by nature. Very few things bring a tear to my eye or hope to my heart. There’s kittens and then there’s… yeah, kittens. That’s about it except when I witness plain, ordinary folk nervously take a seat in front of a group of politicians and civil servants just to let them know what they think. To get involved. To engage in the political process. It is a glorious thing to behold.

Yes, there were some smooth operators, lawyers and consultants among them, who were clearly comfortable in the spotlight. Those who had done this kind of thing before. But consider this. No one was there yesterday defending their piece of the pie. These were all people giving over their time and effort in hopes of persuading the Executive Committee to keep citizen advisory committees going on a volunteer basis. They weren’t asking for money. They were offering the city their help. For free.

People taking time off work to speak. People not at home to cook dinner for their family. People, in the words of one deputant, “… not against change” but who just “want to be a part of that change.”

I could go on at length but I’ll spare you my maudlin blubbering. The reception most of the speakers received was perfunctory at best. The members of the Executive Committee asked few questions, most of their attention turned to making sure enough of them were present to maintain a quorum. I don’t believe Councillors Mammoliti (probably off figuring ways to defund Pride) or Shiner were ever in the room during deputations. Councillor Kelly left early and Councillor Thompson, when he was present, spent most of it away from his chair talking to members of the press and the mayor’s staff. Citizen democracy wasn’t foremost in their minds.

Unsurprisingly, the City Manager’s report was passed and it will now be up to council to decide the fate of the advisory committees. It was a big fuck you to engaged citizens from the Ford administration. If you still believe that the mayor is listening to the little guy, you are clinically delusional.

Not all was doom and gloom, however. Just before the vote was held to adopt the staff report, after all the deputants had spoken, Councillor Jaye Robinson used her 5 minutes to speak to express concern about the details of the report. It was ‘light’, I believe she called it, meaning not fully thought out or explored. She then offered up a motion requesting a further review and exploration before proceeding with a decision. (Not being a journalist I’m scrambling to get a copy of the councillor’s motion. Will update as soon as I do.) This was significant for a couple reasons.

One, Councillor Robinson has not yet proven to be the most independent minded of councillors. A rookie on council, the perception so far has been that she operates under the mayor’s thumb, whipped into siding with him on important votes. That she offered up this motion running contrary to the mayor’s wishes at Executive Committee is a hopeful sign that she’s rankling under the weight.

And her motion last night was clearly flying in the face of what the mayor wanted. Once she put it forth, there was a behind the scenes scramble by the mayor’s staff, mainly Mark Towhey, the mayor’s Director of Policy and Strategic Planning. We watched as he coached Councillor Cesar Palacio (worth the price of admission itself) through an amendment to Robinson’s motion. But it didn’t appear to sit well, so the mayor called a quick recess where he huddled with the city clerk and some of this team. They came back, pulled Councillor Palacio’s amendment before going to a straight vote on Councillor Robinson’s motion.

It was defeated and the staff report was then passed as is but here’s the second significant point. The vote on Councillor Robinson’s motion was very close. Again, my non-journalist roots are showing through and I don’t have the exact numbers (will update when I get them) but I believe the vote went 6-4 against the motion. At the Executive Committee. The mayor’s handpicked team that, to date, has basically served as a rubber stamp for whatever it is he wants to do. Special commendation needs to go out not only to Councillor Robinson but also Councillors Denzil Minnan-Wong and Peter Milczyn (two of my least favourite councillors) who both stood firm in the face of the mayor’s icy stare in voting for Robinson’s motion.If there is this kind of split showing at the Executive Committee level, then the fissures under pressure for the mayor’s wider coalition at council must be immense. A close watch should be held on this item as it goes to council next month. If the mayor doesn’t have his way, it may be an indication that he simply can’t bully his agenda through and might be forced to start resorting to such tactics as negotiation and compromise, neither of which is his strong suit.

So maybe out of the ashes of yesterday’s Executive Committee soiling of civic engagement will come a new found democratic spirit at City Hall. Or at least, the autocratic tendency that Mayor Ford has displayed since coming to office will be just that much more difficult to wield effectively. If so, active citizen engagement will have played a large role in bringing that about.

— hope springs eternally submitted by Cityslikr

The Double Life Of Mayor Rob Ford

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I had a sleepless night last, I must confess. At the centre of my disquiet was a brewing disagreement in my head with our (virtual) friend over at Ford For Toronto, Matt Elliott. I don’t think we’ve ever disagreed on anything and it wasn’t lying easily upon my sleepy head.

Yesterday Elliott linked to a Spacing article written by John Lorinc examining Mayor Ford’s campaign expenses that were submitted last week, stating: I’m no fan of the mayor, but I still don’t see much newsworthy re: Ford, Election Expenses & Deco Labels. But as I read through Mr. Lorinc’s piece, I kept thinking, not newsworthy? How not newsworthy?

Is it because it’s all old news, the mayor’s complicated relationship with his family business, Deco Labels and Tags, and his role as former city councillor and now mayor? A business he’s still actively involved with, apparently? A complicated relationship that for years plagued many of his council colleagues as Ford made his name crusading against office expenses which he rarely-to-never used, and instead paid for such things out of his pocket. This put whatever expenses then Councillor Ford’s actually made out of public view. Say what you want about the bunny suits and taxi fares that made such a big splash in the press, not to mention provided heavy cannon fodder for Rob Ford’s mayoral campaign against waste and corruption at City Hall, but at least those things became public knowledge. How Councillor Ford funded his office endured no such transparency.

That is not to say he was doing anything illegal or unethical. Council set the Auditor-General and Integrity Commissioner upon Ford back in 2007 to investigate his lack of office expense claims. Their report found Ford (and Councillor Doug Holyday) were not adhering to council policy in terms of reporting expenses but suggested no punishment. So there it remained, with Ford able to continue his battle against wasteful councillor spending right into the mayor’s office while keeping his own financial dealings in the murky waters of non-compliance.

At the heart of the issue is Mayor Ford’s use of his family business while acting as a public servant. We know Deco does work  for the city and has been before Ford was first elected to council back in 2000. The amount seems insignificant and distanced enough from the mayor and his now councillor brother, Doug, to be only mildly unsettling. There is the whole sole sourcing contract in one aspect of the deal that seems more than reasonable and only rankles because the mayor has often railed about sole sourcing regardless that it sometimes is the best alternative.

More disturbing, however, is the mayor’s use of his company to supply his office with materials and services that he doesn’t claim as official expenses. Even if he does actually pay out from his own pocket, he’s paying a company that he co-owns and operates with his family. Doesn’t this represent an unfair advantage for the mayor over his council colleagues who don’t have access to a family firm? Does he get a family discount? If so, wouldn’t that constitute some sort of gift or donation from the private sector? These are questions we aren’t able to fully answer because the mayor as a councillor didn’t claim expenses from the city, so didn’t have to publicly declare where and how he spent his money. Not exactly the transparency he pledged to deliver if elected.

The quagmire further widened and deepened when Mayor Ford went public with his expenses for his successful mayoral run last year, disturbing on a number of levels. Firstly, the mayor blew $400,000 past the $1.3 million spending cap with seemingly no penalty for doing so. Why bother having a limit if candidates can simply ignore it by just assuming the overages? That doesn’t really level the financial playing field.

Secondly, the mayor got elected on a platform of vowing to bring sound fiscal management to City Hall but went into debt doing so. To the tune of anywhere between $640,000-$800,000 before post-election fundraising cleared out most of it. Isn’t that a little unnerving? Or do we just chalk it up to making a personal sacrifice for the common good? Like another fiscal conservative, Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, who is now asking council to pay his legal fees for a case he brought against the city back in 2008 in order to stop it… wait for it, wait for it… paying the legal fees of two other councillors. Initially, Holyday said he was footing the bill but when the city pushed back and strung the case out with an appeal process, well, it all became a little too rich for the deputy mayor’s tastes. Rest assured, good people of Toronto, we’re still saving money in the long run as Councillor Holyday will have finally put this nonsense of paying councillors’ legal fees to bed, once and for all. After, of course, we pay his legal fees.

Even if legitimate, the optics of this are horrible. Just like Kyle Rae’s $12,000 retirement party. Completely legitimate and above board but arguably the image the mayor and all the fiscal conservatives rode into power on.

And then there’s the $150,000 in costs to Rob Ford’s mayoral campaign charged by again… wait for it… wait for it… Deco Labels and Tags. That’s in the neighbourhood of 10% of the campaign costs going to Rob Ford’s company. Legitimate and above board but stinking to high heaven.

Think about it for a moment. Rob Ford pays $150,000 to his own company for election related expenses. Expenses that are then (hopefully) covered by donations from the public. Donations that are then subsidized up to 75% by the city. So indirectly, 75% or so of the $150,000 Deco Labels and Tags made from the Ford campaign is paid by taxpayers. Is that what passes for respect in the Ford era?

The mayor cannot continue to hold the moral high ground on fiscal matters of this city, to scream Gravy Train every time he spots what he deems to be wasteful spending, while he actively participates in the family business that does business with this city, that profits from its business with the city. Regardless of the amount involved or the arms length distance he might have from the deal as mayor. It reeks of hypocrisy and a conflict of interest. The mayor is either a public servant or a private business man. If those two worlds overlap as they do with the city of Toronto and Deco Labels and Tags, he has to decide which one he’s going to be.

It’s time to shit or get off the pot, Mr. Mayor.

— decidedly submitted by Cityslikr

Our Liberal Media Bias

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At the risk of revealing myself to be a downtown pinko elitist (ha, ha), I have to ask the question: who the fuck listens to AM radio? Outside of sports fans, that is, and I think it is sports coverage sensibilities that define the presentational style of the whole band. Strongly held opinions expressed vehemently, often times with little to no evidence backing up said opinions and rarely rising above the level of You Suck/They Suck.

I ask because I found myself yesterday afternoon listening to Councillor Josh Matlow’s regular 1 hour spot on Newstalk 1010’s Sundays with John Downs. As we have written here previously, the good councillor from Ward 22 is an intriguing new face at City Hall, bright, articulate and, as of yet, politically amorphous. He comes across progressive minded when he speaks on all the various platforms he has, and he has a lot of platforms especially for a new councillor. Yet when he votes, he more often than not falls in line behind the mayor’s agenda. Slippery or open to compromise? An opportunist or pragmatist? Time will tell.

This dichotomy was on display as Councillor Matlow took to the airwaves to question the $3 million on offer for outside consultants to come in and uncover all the wasteful spending that Mayor Ford as a candidate claimed he could easily find on his own. There were systems already in place at City Hall, according to Matlow, like the Auditor-General looking into spending like it had at TCHC. Handing over an extra $3 million to have another entity do what could be done for a fraction of that price smacked a little like the gravy the mayor was so intent on eliminating.

So far, so good but this thought was bandied about in the midst of jokes about crazy councillor spending, the TCHC ‘scandal’ and Councillor Matlow’s pronouncement that Mayor Ford was right about one thing. The city’s budget did balloon under David Miller. End stop. The intimation being that it ballooned because of wasteful spending. No other explanation need be discussed although there are plenty of other plausible, laudable reasons even, why the budget numbers rose. (h/t Ben Bergen.)

Councillor Matlow was able to appear that he was critiquing the mayor while accepting whole-heartedly the narrative framework that there was plenty of gravy still flowing at City Hall. Commence the slow clap. Well played, Mr. Matlow. Well played indeed.

More than that, however, my concern is, if John Downs gives over an hour of his show per week to talk to a councillor, why just Josh Matlow? Why not throw it open to all comers? For a diversity of opinion, from the far right to the far left and all points in between. Let Toronto (or at least the portion of Toronto who spends their Sundays listening to AM radio) hear a whole range of views.

Unless, of course, that isn’t your intent. Unless what you’re really trying to do is narrow the debate so it ranges from A all the way to B. But why would a media outlet do that? It makes no business sense, limiting your audience reach like that, undercutting any possible growth…

Yeah, yeah. I’m being facetious. Liberal Media Bias? What Liberal Media Bias? Point me to all those leftie councillors with their own outlet to deliver their thoughts on the goings on at City Hall? Where can I get my weekly dose of Janet Davis, Gord Perks or Shelley Carroll? Adam Vaughan used to be a television journalist. You’d think his former employers over at CityTV would jump at the chance to give him 30 minutes a week to opine on the state of municipal affairs. Remember before he was mayor, how Rob Ford had his regular spot over on 680 with John (Johnny to his good friends) Oakley?

And before you start screeching about George Smitherman and the $1billion eHealthscandalexcessivelyhighenergycosts and all the other offal you involuntarily vomit up every time his name is mentioned, for those of us actually over here on the left, the George Smitherman who ran for mayor was never one of us. The fact that Newstalk gave him a show is akin to Fox News hiring former Indiana senator Evan Bayh, arguably one of the most conservative Democrats ever to serve the party since the collapse of the Dixie Democrats way back when. Empty proof of their objectivity as they claim to deliver news and information from both ends of the political spectrum.

No, it seems when it comes to how they spend their Sunday afternoons, left leaning councillors can only hope to listen to the radio not have their own shows on it. Or, like Councillor Joe Mihevc, they can go out into the community and talk to people, face-to-face, as they did in the old days before the advent of new-fangled contraptions like the wireless. After enduring an interminable hour with John Downs and friend, I wandered up to catch Councillor Mihevc talk about “City and citizens…How the city sees its citizens and how citizens perceive its city. How do we talk to each other? What counts?”

Me, 10 other people and the councillor in the community gallery at the Wychwood Barns for the third of four scheduled St. Clair Salon Sundays. Not the glamour (or reach) of AM radio but an actual give-and-take between engaged community members and their elected representative. I have to admit, I’ve never found Councillor Mihevc to be a forceful speaker at council meetings and the like but one-on-one, up close and personal, he really is quite charming, thoughtful, gracious and well-spoken.

And passionate. Especially about transit. Councillor Mihevc didn’t give up his Sunday afternoon for self-promotion or to score political points. He sat down with a small group and led a discussion on how to encourage further citizen participation beyond just voting. “Deepening democracy,” Mihevc called it. We didn’t solve that particular equation but it’s reassuring to know that there 10 people out there who think that it’s an important enough issue, that of voter/civic apathy, to come out on a brisk weekend day and discuss it with other like-minded people. *Cliché Alert! Cliché Alert!* What’s that saying about big things starting with small groups? No, seriously. What is it? I can’t remember.I know Councillor Matlow isn’t purely a media hog and he too goes out into the community. I know this because he never fails to tell me that’s what he’s doing.  And this isn’t intended as a slag of him. Entirely. Councillor Matlow bad, Councillor Mihevc good. It’s just that for every active, hands-on engagement with citizens Councillor Matlow does, he undercuts it by participating in the pretense of informed dialogue that is AM talk radio. You can’t be fully informed if you’re only hearing one half of the debate.

— submitted by Cityslikr