Tag Archives: Budget Chief Michael Del Grande

The Mayor’s A Bit Player In This Drama

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Enzo Di Matteo’s NOW article this week, Bill Blair witch hunting, is what the kids today are calling ‘speculative non-fiction’, isn’t it? A sprawling yarn, more episodic police procedural than actual real life, rife with blackmail, intrigue, betrayal with a healthy spicing of violence bringing it all together. It’s not that what he writes couldn’t be possible but the dynamics of the situation just don’t ring true to my ear.

The piece tries to convince us that Mayor Ford retains control of the helm enough to have his way with Chief Blair and/or the Police Services Board. Di Matteo did see what happened with the TTC commission, didn’t he? It’s one thing to want “…to replace Blair-friendly Scarborough councillor Chin Lee…” and another thing entirely to have the political heft to pull the manoeuvre off. If the chief’s grip on the board is ‘tenuous’, the mayor’s would have to be considered tenuous-er.

Di Matteo seems to suggest that Mayor Ford’s ‘point guy on the police file’, TPSB vice-chair Councillor Michael Thompson, is doing the mayor’s bidding in plotting against Chief Blair. I just don’t see it. In fact, one could jump to the exact opposite conclusion.

From the NOW article:

“…[Councillor] Thompson, who’s made no bones about wanting to challenge the status quo at 40 College, or ‘the brotherhood,’ as he likes to call it, since he took over as vice-chair of the Police Services Board.

Ask Thompson if he has confidence in Blair and you’re likely to be met with a long pause followed by the kind of laugh that might be provoked by a trick question.

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ he says.

That’s not the scuttlebutt at police headquarters, where Thompson has been busy inculcating the everybody-challenge-everybody culture.

The two got off on the wrong foot when the Ford administration tried in the early days to strong-arm the chief into a 10 per cent budget cut that would have meant laying off 500 cops.

Thompson was hung out to dry by the mayor on that one, and it’s been mano-a-mano ever since.

While Councillor Thompson may not have confidence in the police chief and has ‘made no bones about wanting to challenge the status quo of the brotherhood’, I’d say that being ‘hung out to dry by the mayor’ with the proposed budget cuts last year makes him an unreliable ally of Mayor Ford. Anyone who is unafraid to say this out loud — “I’m interested in being part of the problem if problems are the way to get to solutions.” – should not be taken for granted by either side. In fact, it suggests to me Councillor Thompson isn’t even sure what he’s up to.

In reality, the mayor’s biggest foe on this issue has to be the mayor himself. There is no easy circling of the square on this for him. If he’s using budget cuts to force a showdown with Chief Blair, it would be a classic case of shooting yourself in the foot, cutting your nose off to spite your face. Any significant cut to the police budget will result in layoffs. It has to since the police budget consists of nearly 90% labour costs. What else is there to cut?

For all the budget chief Mike Del Grande-standing last week in front of the TPSB, it really was just about the long-hanging fruit. Paid duty, overtime pay for court appearances and, of course, the absolute pablum of finding further efficiencies. Of the really big questions, Councillor Del Grande offered little in the way of ideas.

“One of the fundamental questions I ask is: How many police do we need in the city of Toronto?” Del Grande said to the board. “What’s the right number? No one has been able to tell us definitively how many police officers does it take to police the city of Toronto.” The budget chief claimed ‘he has never seen an independent study justifying the current Toronto police uniform complement of about 5,600.’

Fair enough. But there we are. If this administration wants to cut back on police officers shouldn’t the onus be on it to say with confidence that it won’t be detrimental to the safety of the city? Rather than just this blanket across the board budget freeze, shouldn’t the budget chief be the one providing the independent study justifying the number of police he thinks Toronto can get by with?

Any number he can come up with, however, is going to be less than the one Mayor Ford touted a couple years ago while campaigning for the job. He promised 100 more police officers on the street. According to the police union head, Mike McCormack, owing to the budget constraints of the last two years, a hiring freeze has resulted in 178 fewer police officers. If another one is instituted for 2013, Di Matteo suggests the force could be down 400 officers. How does the mayor reconcile his passion for cutting government including the police with his love of never hug-a-thug, law-and-order?

He votes to cut social programs. He votes to cut the number of police officers. It’s kind of his everybody-for-themselves libertarianism laid bare.

More than any 9-1-1 audiotape Police Chief Blair may or may not have under lock and key to use in a political knife fight with the administration, I think Mayor Ford’s main vulnerability is his own glaring lack of credibility. More police=more money. Less money=less police. Try as he might, he can’t make that math work in his favour. His opponents know that. His leverage is almost non-existent. Whatever happens with Chief Blair or the TPSB, my bet is the mayor won’t be the one calling the shots.

— plottingly submitted by Cityslikr

The Big Freeze

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Good news, Toronto!

Looks like the city’s not going to face a what-the-hell-let’s-just-go-for-a 10% cut across the board in fiscal year 2013. Nope. Things are looking up. We’re just going to have to deal with a 0% budget freeze. So already put upon departments, services and programs will merely grind to a further halt through attrition and more sprung leaks rather than amputations and major blood loss.

Along with a spending freeze, the Globe and Mail reports that city manager Joe Pennachetti has also called for ‘a ban on new service initiatives’. So, it’s all stand pat and hope for the best. We just can’t be too sure how big our surplus is going to be next year.

It’s difficult to keep your head above fiscal choppy waters when you insist on swimming with only one arm. Mayor Ford’s proposed 1.75% property tax increase barely covers the rate of inflation, never mind any of the wage settlements various city workers are scheduled to receive. Instead of exploring other sources to generate more revenue, it’s all about further reducing services until…

Well, that’s the $123 billion infrastructure deficit question.

You see, fiscal conservatives on council will tell you that we need to reduce the $400+ million spent annually on paying down our debt principle and interest. When we get rid of that, well then, the sky’s the limit. We can start dishing out for all those nice-to-haves everybody loves so much but doesn’t really want to pay for.

Like a properly operating public transit system. Serviceable roads. Bridges that don’t fall down in chunks. Libraries with computers and books other than trade paperbacks.

Until such time when this city is debt free, we’ll all have to just get by. Make do with less. Show the kind of discipline the likes of Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong is so proud of when he votes to cut everything Mayor Ford says needs to be cut.

Discipline and courage.

“I am doing this for everybody’s future,” fiscal warrior and city budget chief, Mike Del Grande proclaimed. “Unfortunately, they want me to be the bad guy.”

No, that’s not true, councillor. What we really want you to be is a better budget chief. One who realizes that miserly penny-pinching and refusing to have a sensible discussion about the true costs of maintaining a healthy city now doesn’t in the least leave a prosperous future for the coming generations. It just leaves a mess that they have to clean up and you don’t have to pay for.

In reality, it’s kind of the exact opposite of courage and discipline.

I don’t know how much latitude senior bureaucrats like Mr. Pennachetti have with the elected official they deal with. Certainly the fate of Gary Webster must serve as a cautionary tale about dealing with the Ford administration. But this budget freeze/no new service initiatives mode he’s adopted for the upcoming year is at odds with the city manager I saw speak at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance this spring about Toronto’s fiscal health. He boasted about our double-A credit rating. He suggested there was probably no more than $100 million still to find through efficiencies. Further cutting wasn’t going to solve any looming crisis that may be waiting up ahead for us.

And make no mistake, Mr. Pennachetti is now proposing further cuts to departments and agencies that he has already taken a knife to in the past couple years. Zero increases mean less money. Even our current budget chief can do the simple math from that.

As long as the city manager insists on making these kinds of austerity demands, he continues to play accomplice to those who aren’t really all that interested in being fiscally responsible. He offers cover to their claims of being brave and disciplined. He’s insisting on further hardship for those already hard hit by previous cutbacks for the sake of those operating under the faulty premise that they’re hard done by.

Our city manager’s already done much dirty work for Mayor Ford. It’s time he starts looking out for the best interests of those who’ve paid a hefty price for their collaboration.

— impatiently submitted by Cityslikr

Mayoral Learning Curve

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Things Mayor Rob Ford just seems to be learning since becoming mayor of Toronto:

1) It isn’t really a part time job.

2) How to properly negotiate driving a vehicle past a stopped streetcar.

3) Anger is a great campaign tool but not so much a good governing tool.

4) Public transit is a tough nut to crack.

4a) 3-peating a word like an incantation doesn’t always make it happen.

4b) The private sector is fickle about what it’s actually willing to pay for.

4c) Never underestimate somebody just because they’re a girl. Even a blonde one.

5) He isn’t the least politically astute politician in his family.

6) Making a public spectacle of your weight loss program doesn’t really help you cause. (Refer back to point 5.)

7) Probably should’ve followed my true dream, like a football in football or sports broadcasting. “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.”

8) A bylaw prohibits street vending of hot dogs and sausages in Etobicoke.

9) Probably should’ve paid a little more attention to what was going on around City Hall during previous 10 years as councillor. (See point 8.)

10) Your public behaviour matters a little more now that everybody knows who you are.

11) Oh yeah. Being a cop would’ve been cool too. (See point 7.)

12) It’s easier getting things done when you’re popular.

13) Adam Vaughan really, really gets under my skin.

14) Can’t punch Adam Vaughan every time he pisses me off. (See point 10.)

15) Dougie can’t kick box Adam Vaughan every time he pisses us off. (See points 10 & 5.)

16) Toronto Star reporters scare easily. Especially the smaller ones.

17) A lie really does get halfway around the world before truth even has time to put its shoes on.

18) Lies are a little more difficult to manage afterwards, though.

19) Not using a cell phone while driving is a really dumb law especially since it’s rarely enforced.

20) A mayor can only vote on an item at council once and his vote only counts as much as everyone else’s even if he has a mandate from the people.

20a) A strong mayor system would be good for me but bad if someone like Adam Vaughan were ever to win. As if. (Refer to point 5.)

21) Being mayor does give you a better seat for council meetings.

22) Rather be hated by everyone at the Star than Sue-Ann Levy. She kind of scares me.

23) Always keep your eyes on Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong. He really, really wants my job.

23a) Sometimes can’t tell Councillor Minnan-Wong and Kristyn Wong-Tam apart. Their names are so close.

24) Giorgio uses great smelling cologne. Like apple fritters. (That doesn’t mean I’m gay or anything.)

25) It’s easy to get distracted when you don’t really understand the bigger issues.

26) Having just 3 numbers in 9-1-1 makes it too easy to call.

27) Taxes pay for roads.

27a) Taxes pay for police.

27b) Taxes pay for snowplowing.

27c) Not sure all taxes are evil. (See point 5.)

28) I’d really like to get rid of that Land Transfer Tax.

29) (See point 25.)

30) Besides widows and orphans, the budget chief doesn’t think anything’s funny.

31) Scarborough is really far from Etobicoke.

32) Some people actually choose to take public transit even if they can afford not to.

33) Two years in mayor time is like eight years in councillor time. It never ends.

34) It really is a cyclist’s fault, at the end of the day, if they get killed. The roads were made for cars, trucks and buses. I’ve won a cycling award so now I can say that with authority.

35) All I really want during my time as mayor is for the Argos to win the Grey Cup. Leafs or Blue Jays winning would be good to but less likely than Adam Vaughan becoming mayor.

36) Don’t really get basketball.

37) Oh. And one more thing. As mayor I’d really like to take a ride on a police horse.

— compiledly submitted by Cityslikr