Tag Archives: Councillor Justin Di Ciano

Everything’s Fine!

Posted on by
1

These days, this council.

With the provincial government dangling the prospect of ballot reform, tantalizingly, and today’s announcement of the ward boundary review recommendation, giddywe here in Toronto should be giddy with excitement at the opportunity to reshape our local democracy. It’s something that hasn’t been done for 16 years since Queen’s Park pretty much unilaterally aligned all the city’s wards with the federal and provincial riding boundaries. So, we’re overdue, to make an understatement. Seize the moment to try and iron out some of the parochial wrinkles that have accumulated. Sweep out the dust bunnies and moldy odors that have collected in the cupboards.

It’s just… You know…

These days, this council.

With Councillor Justin Di Ciano, as city council’s woefully underwhelming representative, taking his anti-ranked ballots clownshow up University Avenue to speak to the standing committee overseeing voting reform initiatives, there’s some serious concern that Toronto voters won’t get a crack at using ranked ballots. dampenHell, if the councillor has his way, we’ll be robbed of even having a debate about it. His argument against moving from the current First Past The Post system is so full of shopworn bullet talking points, it’s impossible to tell what his real motives are with this antediluvian quest.

Equally unclear are the reasons our mayor, John Tory, seems determined to curtail debate on the ward boundary review ahead of the final recommendation going public. Earlier this year, when five possible new ward alignment options were outlined, he stated his position, which was pretty much as dismissive as you could be. “The last thing we need is more politicians.” Over this past weekend, his rhetoric had ossified into place, suggesting Mayor Tory hadn’t put so much as another thought into the matter.

I’ve maintained my position, which is, first of all, I don’t personally see the need for an expanded number of politicians, and secondly, I have yet to meet a Toronto citizen who has told me that their top priority — or any kind of priority of their’s — is to expand the number of politicians. I think we can make arrangements by reorganizing the boundaries a little bit.

The bottom line is I don’t think we need to have more decision makers at City Hall.

That there? That’s the sound of the door slamming on any sort of serious discussion about the size, shape or reorganization of city council. Maybe ‘a little bit’, John Tory’s incrementalism on full display. draggedIf it ain’t broke, amirite?

Rather than take the opportunity to show some civic leadership, and begin a discussion that might inject some new ideas and life into the governance structure at City Hall, Mayor Tory is intent on belittling the debate to nothing more than the number of councillors. Just like his predecessor did. As if numbers, and numbers alone, are the sole determinant of good, solid and proper political representation.

While it wasn’t part of the ward boundary review mandate to look at the structure of city council, the mayor and councillors could make it theirs, take the initiative and start talking about ways to improve how council functions, how to better represent the residents who’ve elected them to office. One of the biggest glitches plaguing governance in Toronto is the seemingly intractable urban-suburban divide that engenders division instead of cohesion. (Something I suspect is going to be a lightning rod of contention surrounding the ward boundary recommendation today.) Could a move toward at least some at-large, ward-free councillor positions help address that?

Maybe. Maybe not. It’s at least worth some sort of examination, isn’t it?notlistening

Whatever the outcome and final decision city council makes determining new ward boundaries, it’s going to be in place for the next 4 election cycles, 2018, 2022, 2026, 2030. During that time span, the city is projected to see huge population growth – 600,000 new residents by 2031 — and significant demographic changes. Is this Mayor Tory led city council really going to look at that and pursue a redrawing of wards only through the lens of a head count? Will it also brush aside the chance to give voters in the city a new way to elect its local politicians, maybe even in a new type of arrangement that might help reduce the type of harmful geographic divisiveness that has dogged it pretty much from the beginning of amalgamation?

You’d hope not but… well, you know…

These days, this mayor, this council.

— same-ol’-same-olly submitted by Cityslikr

2016 Budget Launch

Posted on by
1

So yesterday, led by the new city manager, Peter Wallace, staff delivered its 2016 Preliminary Budget presentation at a special meeting of the Budget Committee. My impressions? lookoverthatwayYou’ll have to find out here at Torontoist. While you’re at it, give a read to Neville Park and Sarah Niedoba and Catherine McIntyre. Rather hear words than read them? Brian Kelcey talks about the 2016 budget with Matt Galloway on Metro Morning.

While city staff seemed to be offering up the opportunity to finally have an adult conversation about the kind of city we want to have, and how we’re going to pay for that, early signs coming from the mayor’s office and the point people on his team are not encouraging. Budget Chair Gary Crawford pushed a paper clip motion at committee to see if they can find enough coins under the cushions at City Hall to pay for various initiatives. “Council can make investments and still keep increases at [the] rate of inflation,” Crawford insisted at a press conference after the budget presentation. No, it can’t. That’s pure budgetary fiction.

Councillor Justin Di Ciano, a member of the budget committee, perhaps summed up this approach best and emptiest when he essentially strung together meaningless words and spun a meaningless anecdote for 2 minutes, absolutely devoid of any substance, and echoing Mayor Tory’s campaign chant of ‘prudence’. These people, the mayor’s people, are zealously determined not to have any sort of serious conversation about the direction the city has to go.

The reality on the ground may have other ideas. Mayor Tory (and other so-called ‘fiscal conservatives’ on city council) may have finally painted themselves into too tight a corner. Things cost money. That money has to come from somewhere. Empty rhetoric has been tapped dry. Big investments and ever shrinking revenue sources simply don’t add up.

Councillor Gord Perks begins the conversation this city needs to start having.

— ominously submitted by Cityslikr

Pissants

Posted on by
2

One vote.

That’s how close Mayor John Tory came to inadvertently winning Councillor Rob Ford’s business travel expense item for him at last week’s city council meeting. One vote.

I say ‘inadvertently’ since I’m giving the mayor the benefit of the doubt on this one. He spoke out forcefully against it, seconding Councillor Justin Di Ciano’s opinion that the item was nothing more than ‘grandstanding’ on the former mayor’s part. He just pushed the wrong button, green instead of red. Understandable, since in the back of your mind Councillor Ford pretty much always votes ‘no’, so if you’re standing opposed to the councillor, you reflexively vote ‘yes’. redandgreenbuttonMayor Tory did, and narrowly avoided the embarrassing situation of speaking against something and turning around to vote in favour of it.

The mayor wasn’t alone, it seems, in his confusion. During the revote — permitted on the mayor’s behalf because it wouldn’t change the outcome of the vote — two other members of council, Frank Di Giorgio and Mary-Margaret McMahon, also flipped sides. What had been a nail biter the first time around (one vote), turned out to be a more comfortable 19-12 defeat of Councillor Ford’s motion.

(Let it be noted here, by those who think me overly hyper-critical of Mayor Tory, how I cut him some slack on this gaffe. I didn’t go to the darker place of thinking maybe he was trying to  play both sides, have his cake and eat it too, speak out against but vote for, hoping no one would notice. No. Flubbed votes happen to the best of them.)looktheotherway

The mayor’s goof, and the subsequent prolonged process in his taking a mulligan on the vote, only served to add credence to Councillor Ford’s motion when all it really deserved was dismissive contempt. Was it all about grandstanding? You betcha. But add to that, counter-productive nitpicking that probably cost more to debate than it would ever save the city if implemented.

Do you know what the number was Councillor Ford’s motion entailed? The total amount city councillors’ claimed for business travel expenses? Total? In 2014, it came to $42,672.09. $42,672.09. That’s under $1000/per city council member/year.

Or, in terms of an almost $11 billion annual operating budget, 0.0000039 of that. Not sure I have the right number of zeroes, there are so many of them. pickingupapennyThat’s not even rounding error.

Councillor Ford didn’t necessarily begrudge the $100 per diem. He just wanted receipts to prove a city councillor travelling on business spent that amount. If they didn’t, they’d only get reimbursed the amount they did spend. We’re now wading into the Fordian weeds of infinitesimally small savings but symbolically charged tubthumping. Never mind the time lost to staff tallying up receipts rather than just signing off on established per diems.

But we already knew that. That’s always been this councillor’s schtick. Rather than take time questioning his motives, time would be better spent running those numbers by him. It was a nuisance motion, ultimately endorsed by 12 city councillors who should be ashamed of themselves for contributing to the myth Rob Ford needs perpetuated in order to remain relevant.

Given Councillor Ford couldn’t be at the meeting to personally defend his item, why not just let it slide by pretty much unnoticed instead of breathing life into it and, on Mayor Tory’s part, almost passing it into law by accident? Sure. The councillor was grandstanding. No surprise there. But grandstanding back is still grandstanding, giving more notice to it than it ever deserved.

— contestedly submitted by Cityslikr