Tag Archives: Core Services Review

Disorder In The Ranks

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(On a lazy Sunday, we post our piece from this week’s Torontoist. Think of it as the director’s cut.)

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Mayor Ford emerged from his waterfront cash grab gambit (or maybe it belonged to his renegade councillor sibling – Sorry, bro. Did I get any on you?) with his brand new consensus suit a little ill-fitting. On Monday after last week’s fiasco, he stood before council at a special Core Services Review meeting more than a little feisty. Spit and vinegarish even

Clearly over the weekend he and his advisors, with the first real debacle of his mayoralty in place and favourability numbers dropping precipitously, decided that the taxpayers of Toronto preferred candidate for mayor Rob Ford to the actual Mayor Rob Ford. So he reverted back to campaign mode, all vitriolic rhetoric and new pithy catch phrases. In introducing the Core Services Review items to kick off the proceedings, he stood and called out the ‘loonie left’ councillors who dared to defy his wishes. Stay The Course was a brand new mantra, chanted over and over again. Under questioning, he blustered, rambled, frequently contradicted himself within a single sentence. Just like the glory days out on the hustings in 2010.

The mayor even cited some new, unofficial polling data. According to people he met everywhere, 90% told him, begged him, exhorted him to Stay The Course. Suck on that, Ipsos Reid. Maybe you need to take your random samplings from the line ups at Tim Horton’s.

But for all the chest beating, name calling and bully boy posturing, the tone at council had shifted noticeably. While never exactly orderly, Team Ford had been able to deliver a rough hewn obedience, always managing to wrangle a majority of councillors into its corner on important issues. This week? A sense of disarray descended. Tried and true allies tested the waters of independence. Items and amendments came fast furious, some from very unexpected corners. I’m sorry, was that Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday introducing an item on road tolls? Yes, yes. I get that it was nothing more than an attempted poke in the eye of Councillor Josh Matlow who had put forth his own motions asking for a review of a road toll idea but it put the mayor on the defensive, having to explain (idiotically, IMHO) his opposition to the concept of generating revenue through this particular type of user fee.

The biggest eye-opener, however, was Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby. A fellow Etobicokian and self-proclaimed right of centre suburban politician, she openly stood up and questioned the mayor about the entire process they were being asked to undertake. “Flying blind”, she called it, having to make consequential choices without any numbers in front of them, sounding almost Perksian at times. She didn’t wilt under the withering but ineffectual show me the money line of questioning from the budget chief. When it came time to push through the items she had introduced, Councillor Lindsay Luby gleefully flashed a thumbs up, sitting right next to Team Ford QB-clown, Giorgio Mammoliti and his downturned thumb of mayoral disapproval.

That said, Mayor Ford suffered no devastating setbacks during the two day meeting. There was no knockout blow, as the pundits like to say. Yes, the cuts he was hoping to inflict in the process fell woefully short of the intended mark. The $28 million or so he did get doesn’t even rate as a drop in the bucket. And in my darker moments, I might view the fact the Voluntary Separation Program – a “coerced” retirement offering to city staff as Councillor Gord Perks suggested in an unfriendly environment with a threatened 10% across the board reduction to all departments hanging in the air — moved on relatively unscathed gave the mayor a jump on the budget process, initiating cuts by stealth under the guise of attrition rather than layoffs or firings.

Still, as the mayor insisted somewhat disingenuously to quell fears of the slashing and burning taking place no decisions were being made at this point. It was all about reviews and studies. In other words, he remained in place, knocking down the easy to reach, low flying fruit. But now, Team Ford was bleeding support and the tough choices remain to be made.

Not only were stalwarts like Councillor Lindsay Luby drifting, so were Executive Committee members Councillors Berardinetti and Robinson. The mushy middle stopped being cowed. As Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler pointed out to me, even more worrisome for Mayor Ford, the already soft but principled conservative Chin Lee representing heavy, heavy Ford friendly Ward 41 in Scarborough quietly but decisively voted against the mayor on a surprisingly large number of items over the last couple days.

Support jumping overboard even before the ship hits really choppy waters. An already tenuous majority grown skittish. A summer of discontent turned to an autumn of disregard. All the ingredients for a disastrous budget process and a severe blow to the tattered mandate flag Mayor Ford keeps trying to hold high.

— resubmitted by Cityslikr

Waterfront Waterloo

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It’s far too early to write off the Ford administration. So early that I really, really wanted to write, It’s way too early to write off the Ford administration. But I really, really detest that adverbial use of the word. You sound like a teenager. Or sportscaster.

More formally, reports of the Ford administration’s death are greatly exaggerated. Premature ejection from the seat of power. I think what we’re witnessing is a wheel coming off their ride, maybe two. It’s broken, just not beyond repair.

For the first time probably since Rob Ford announced his intentions to run for mayor back in March of 2010, he has lost his ironclad grip on the narrative. Reality is no longer bending to his will. Facts pile up, making it increasingly difficult for Team Ford to frame the debate to their advantage. The story they’ve spun to great success so far is crumbling, the scaffolding upon which it was built, too flimsy to bear the weight. Thin air and pixie dust prove to be fickle, unstable elements.

This often times happens when a protest movement assumes the reins of power. As anyone who’s ever taken an improv class knows, the easier option is always to say no. It also leads to the least interesting outcome.

A protest movement coalescing around a faulty premise is especially prone to an early flame-out. The mayor campaigned against out of control spending, waste and gravy. Turns out he may’ve been exaggerating just a smidge. Even outside consultants, KPMG, couldn’t uncover much of the stuff. Certainly nowhere near the amount the mayor removed from the city’s revenue stream by axing the VRT and freezing property taxes.

So cuts became efficiencies became nice to haves. The plain speakin’, tells it like it is, looking out for the little guy persona that the mayor had expertly cultivated begins to lose its populist sheen. The more he tries to plug the holes in his story, the more he starts to sound like a seasoned insider. Macbeth like, he’s now knee deep in the blood from the corpses of lies he’s had to kill in a vain attempt to stop them from turning on him.

Oddly, it’s the waterfront, an issue the mayor barely expressed any interest in while campaigning that seems to have caught him most effectively with a shot to the chin. Perhaps he and his brother made their move too soon when Doug started calling Waterfront Toronto unflattering names back in the spring. It left ample time and space for its advocates and defenders to mount their defense. And these weren’t the usual suspects that Team Ford could easily dismiss. The downtown elite. The left wing kooks and unionists. The statistically invalid.

No, these were players. Urban planners. Respected academics. Richard Florida is set to break his silence about governance in his adopted home town in defence of Waterfront Toronto. David Crombie. David Fucking Crombie.

So strong has the pushback been, the barricades so robustly manned, that once mute and pliable allies are now emerging from their hovels to speak out against the mayor’s plan. Councillor Peter Milczyn did so meekly, referring to the Ford waterfront idea as ‘a visionary exercise’ that, unfortunately, ‘blew up in our faces’. Councillor Jaye Robinson was much more forceful, stating outright her confidence in Waterfront Toronto and that she would not be supporting the mayor when this item goes to council next week for a vote.

A close vote, Councillor Robinson predicts, but frankly, I don’t think it’s going to come to that. This is not the hill Mayor Ford is willing to die on nor will he want to see his brother hung out to dry on a losing end of an issue he was so front-and-centre on. No, before council gets to knock this one out of the park, it will be amended to the point of meaninglessness, tossed under the bus of further staff review and committee study where it will die a quiet, unnoticed death.

The mayor has bigger fish to fry and is now stepping into the fall of our growing discontent, the haunting spectre of budget battles looming, weakened by a terrible, terrible summer. But it is early still. Much political capital has been expended yet the mayor has powerful tools at his disposal. In fact, if he plays this right and can back off gracefully, be seen to concede and bow to the will of public support, it could ultimately help him continue to push his agenda through. See? I listened. I made concessions. I’m a reasonable guy. I can play along nicely with others. What are you going to do for me now?

It could happen although that doesn’t seem to be part of the mayor’s constitution, to admit he was wrong and to backtrack. Instead he will probably attempt to change the channel, lumber forward having learned almost nothing from this set back. This administration does not blink, we’ve been warned.

What the mayor’s opponents need to take away from this show of democratic muscle is that it’s not simply enough to stand up to the mayor and say no. There needs to be a plan in place to counter each and every one of his ill-advised proposals. Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Mayor Ford has succeeded in sucking all the air out of the room. It is now a race to fill it back up again. By virtue of the powers of his office, the mayor still has a leg up against his competition. The self-inflicted wound he’s just administered, though, has hobbled him and added a new bounce into his challengers’ step.

— elbaly submitted by Cityslikr

Toronto Is Speaking

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Having missed the marathon Executive Committee meeting a couple weeks back, I’ve been following Matt Elliott’s Toronto Spoke series at Ford For Toronto. The impression that immediately springs to mind is that this city is full of intelligent, well-spoken, engaged citizens who are very concerned about the direction we’re headed. Yes, ideologues like Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong may write them off as statistically invalid or whatever other nonsense comes from his gob and not part of the hardworking, taxpaying Ford Nation Councillors Doug Ford and Giorgio Mammoliti assure us are fully behind their ongoing experiment in de-governmenting. But they came. They spoke. They delivered their part of the bargain in what is called participatory democracy.

One such deputatant was Henry Faber. A self-described small business owner, Mr. Faber delivered a thorough thrashing of KPMG’s Core Services Review. The numbers. The methodology. The whole enchilada. In about 2 and a half minutes. Watch it and cheer wildly.

The key point for me came when, after the deputation was done, councillors were allowed to ask questions of the deputant. It is a familiar pattern to those who follow such things regularly. Visiting councillors are almost exclusively not part of the mayor’s crew go first and their task seems to be to assist deputants in navigating the process and further explain their views after the original 3 minutes has expired. (Usually 5 minutes but shortened during this particular Executive Committee meeting to accommodate the demand if you’re looking at the glass being half full). Then it is the turn of councillors sitting on the committee to rise from their slumber and make an effort to dismiss, diminish or discredit a deputant if they’re perceived to be speaking against the mayor’s plans.

With Mr. Faber it was Councillor Norm Kelly speaking up to do Mayor Ford’s bidding. At the 8’46” mark Councillor Kelly piped up with the question: “Do you believe that there is a systemic indebtedness in the budget process for the city of Toronto of between a half billion to three-quarters of a billion dollars per year. Do you believe that?” the councillor asked. “I’m confused by the number…” Mr. Faber answered.

Ain’t we all, Henry. Ain’t we all.

Let’s grant Councillor Kelly that notion. It does seem that come every budget cycle, the city must grapple with a shortfall that is initially in that range. So yes, Toronto does face an annual ‘systemic indebtedness’. As does every other city in this province, country, continent. Municipalities are woefully underfunded, the majority of our tax dollars going in an inversely proportional degree to where they are needed to be spent. They then come, trickling down, from the feds and provinces in discretionary dribs and drabs in wholly inadequate amounts. If fiscal conservatives truly wanted to deliver taxpayers bang for their bucks, this would be where they’d start. Fixing an antiquated and broken system of taxation.

Instead, what the likes of Councillor Kelly seem to be intent on is using this ‘systemic indebtedness’ to scale back municipal governance to its barest of bones and beyond. To pretend that our ‘systemic indebtedness’ is the result of profligacy on the part of previous administrations at City Hall. This, despite the fact that the very report Team Ford commissioned from KPMG points to the exact opposite of that make believe scenario. Toronto is run in a highly efficient manner and is already — for anyone looking for real answers – a lean operation.

No matter. The likes of Councillor Kelly want to make it more lean, more efficient even if it means starving the city. Enforced ideological anorexia where the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us bear the heaviest burden and the real culprits get off untouched. If the radical right wingers on council were really as tough and hardnosed as they claim, they’d be taking our fight to the true bullies. Our elected representatives at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa. But they couldn’t do that to their new fishing buddies. BFFs. Best Fishing Friends.

What’s even more galling about all this is that Team Ford keeps spouting its Government Run Like A Business mantra. Would they really run a business like they’re attempting to run this government? Cutting revenue streams? Cutting services? What kind of business does that? A business that doesn’t plan on staying in business for too long, I’m thinking. Which is becoming glaringly apparent as we head toward the budget battles of 2012. Like true neoconservatives everywhere, Mayor Ford and his gang are determined only to drive the city of Toronto into the ground.

— spoken wordily submitted by Cityslikr