All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Scarborough Unfair

Posted on April 30, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

I can’t even.

If Scarborough is not going to get any benefits from enhanced revenue tools, why would we support it? We’ll put our money where our mouth is as long as we get to benefit. If we are not going to benefit, then we see no reason to support either the downtown relief line or any other expansion of transit in the city of Toronto. Councillor Michael Thompson.

It’s times like this when, if asked about the notion of de-amalgamation, I just throw up my hands and say, yeah, fuck it. Let’s do it. Such noxious self-serving toadying will be the death of any good transit planning anyway. So if a majority of Scarborough councillors want to stamp their feet and hold the entire process hostage by stirring up sub-regional resentment, good riddance to them.

(Although the transit file was dealt with on a 416 wide level long before amalgamation. But since we’re swimming in a spite pool, allow me to dip my toe in.)

It’s not that I even believe a further Scarborough subway extension of the Bloor-Danforth line is necessarily a bad idea. As Tess Kalinowski and David Rider point out in their Star article, there are compelling arguments for doing so. But councillors Michelle Berardinetti, Glenn De Baeremaeker and Thompson don’t bother putting them forward, choosing instead to wallow in the cheap, petulant politics of misinformation that’s usually the speciality of Mayor Ford.

Only in the minds of those more interested in grandstanding than in reason and fact based governing would getting an LRT be seen as some sort of slap in the face. By dismissing LRT technology as of no benefit and somehow getting less than other parts of the city, the Scarborough 7 have internalized the Ford Administration’s baseless and entirely uniformed transit views. It’s legitimizing them and foisting them back into the debate.

So what if there’s a subway going up into Vaughan? (And I’ve only been out of town for a couple days. When did I miss Markham getting a subway?) Why compound one mistake – if the University line subway extension up past York and into Vaughan was a mistake – by making another? Mississauga seems content to build an LRT. Why does Scarborough think it’s better than Mississauga?

You see where this discussion might go, right?

It’s the destabilizing effect in opening up this debate once again that could be the most damaging. As the only rational seeming Scarborough representative, Councillor Paul Ainslie points out it simply signals the city’s unpredictable and impulsive attitude toward transit building. Why should the rest of the city and the entire GTA region bother being serious if a group of Scarborough councillors are willing to scupper a deal to score cheap political points?

The increasingly Machiavellian (and I say that in the most non-complimentary way possible) Councillor Josh Colle believes that even if it throws the transit debate wide open to a pie in the sky wish list of options, it’ll be worth it to finally air out the Scarborough LRT-versus-subway for good. Uh huh. Maybe if we were actually going to have an honest debate about the issue, I could fully get behind that sentiment. But it doesn’t appear as if that’s going to happen, given the re-opening salvo from the Berardinetti-De Baeremaeker-Thompson triumvirate. Instead, we’re going to get full on crass pandering and pitting one region against another rather than region wide transit building.

Nobody “deserves” a particular form of transit especially based purely on what a nearby neighbourhood or area of the city has. You should get the transit that best fits the built environment within the budget you’re willing to spend. So let’s have the debate based on that premise, if we haven’t already, and not the politics of petty parochialism.

It’s that that’ll kill any chances we have of getting a GTHA-wide agreement on the proper funding tools needed to get started on the Big(ger) Move. And if we fail to do so, we’ll know where to point the finger of blame. I hope all the Scarborough councillors who are now beating their collective chests demanding their subway will be prepared for that kind of exposure.

— annoyedly submitted by Cityslikr

Strictly For Wonks

Posted on April 9, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Government Management Committee.

Yes, it is as dry as all those words on their own might suggest. Put together? Well, the Sahara fucking desert.

Yet, this committee deals with the nuts and bolts of how City Hall functions both inside its curved walls and outside. Why, just yesterday the agenda was full of such diverse items as property tax shirkers and parking ticket miscreants to building a bike station at City Hall and TTC pension plan mergers. Most of it isn’t headline grabbing stuff but it’s all got to get done for the place and the institution to function properly.

Or, in short, from the city website: This committee has a focus of government assets and resources, with a mandate to monitor, and make recommendations on the administrative operations of the City.

From a City Hall watcher’s perspective, this Government Management Committee got council chambers and committee rooms wi-fied up and there’s talk of installing more electrical outlets for ease of keeping computing devices charged. It just pushed for extending live streaming of all committee and community council meetings before 2014. And word is, they’re pondering granting media accreditation to council social media types which, from our very subjective viewpoint would render the process meaningless. I mean, come on. It’s bloggers we’re talking about. Those people are hacks.

As committee chair, Councillor Paul Ainslie was quick off the mark to embrace many of the electoral and civic reforms that came out of Dave Meslin’s The 4^th Wall project including looking at using ranked ballots in municipal elections. Clicking through the committee’s agenda over the last little while, it’s hard to tell exactly where those items are sitting right now and it’d be nice to know that they haven’t simply been buried. But I’ll give Councillor Ainslie the benefit of the doubt because, well, he seems like a sensible guy who knows better than to get on Meslin’s bad side.

Councillor Ainslie also seems to run an affable meeting. He doesn’t huff and puff, is courteous with staff, fellow committee members and deputants. If I were writing copy I’d say something like Committee Chair Ainslie makes boring Government Management stuff fun! Maybe even with two exclamation marks.

He does get some help from Councillor Doug Ford in the fun department, although the mayor’s brother does provide a different sort of fun. More of the laughing at than laughing with kind of fun. In many ways, the Government Management Committee is the reason the councillor came to City Hall. To Lean Six Sigma his ass all over procurement practices and squeeze out every ounce of gravy he can find.

The committee also offers up Councillor Ford the opportunity to rail about out of control spending like the budget of the Nathan Phillips Square revitalization. Or the construction of a bike station at City Hall in place of perfectly unused parking spots, complete with, and get this…”Vince! You gotta come here, they’re building showers!” Showers! For bikers! Can you get any gravier than that?

But with the chair siding with the lefties on the committee, councillors Mary Fragedakis and Pam McConnell, Councillor Ford and his buddy Vince (Crisanti) did not win the day. That may have to wait until the one missing committee member, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, returns from the DL. His presence at the meetings must change the dynamics somewhat.

Would I recommend a visit to the Government Management Committee to take in the proceedings?

I don’t know. Did I mention it covers a lot of dry terrain? You have to really love watching people cross their t’s and dot their i’s to get caught up in the action of a Government Management Committee meeting.

Theirs are many of the thankless tasks that must get done, and very much subject to the whims of the much higher profile Budget Committee. (Given the overlap of many of the items, it would’ve made perfect sense for Councillor Ainslie to seamlessly transition into the role of budget chief. Alas.) Government Management Committee might not be the place to start your journey through the committee meetings but be secure in the knowledge that six councillors are dedicating their time to getting `er done.

— appreciatively submitted by Cityslikr

Her Master’s Voice

Posted on April 7, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

You might almost start to feel sorry for Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy if it weren’t for the fact that she has to be the luckiest newspaper columnist around. Seriously. She must wake up every morning, look into the mirror and just cackle to herself.

A terrible writer of words, she gets paid to write terrible words that oftentimes include heavy doses of union/leftist bashing, all the while being safely ensconced inside a union. It doesn’t get any better than that, really. Sanctioned and handsomely rewarded sanctimonious hypocrisy. Talk about your sweet deals.

Not only that but she’s risen to the ranks of official court reporting, the Ford Administration’s go-to print mouthpiece. Sue-Ann Levy, the voice of the mayor of Toronto. Who could’ve seen the stars align in such a way for that to happen?

Still, partisan hackery isn’t all bons bons and caviar. Sometimes there’s real work to be done. All the moving parts of this Rube Goldberg contraption that is the Rob Ford mayoralty have to work just so for it to function properly, and god knows there’s been some seizing up of the machine for a while now. It takes some resolve to continue tinkering in order to keep the wheels from coming off completely. Less loyal apparatchiks would (and have) simply walked away from what they view as the smoldering remains.

But not Sue-Ann. She’s not willing to give up on her spot in the sun, her position of power. Do you know the chances of this situation ever arising again? She’s been on the outside looking in for too long to simply slink back now and resume yapping at the moon. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say.

So there she was, spilling ink over the mayor’s hollow Hero Burgers victory at city council this week and vilifying those who dared interfere with the sacred process of proper procurement. Her shit-list grows longer – overlapping seamlessly with the mayor’s list — now including ‘rogue councillor’ Paul Ainslie. A recent addition, there’s no patented SAL schoolyard nickname for him yet. Something catchy that makes a 10 year-old laugh like she’s honed for the TTC Chair. Councillor Stunts. (Get it? Her name’s actually Stintz). La TTC Turncoat. (Remember? Councillor Stintz backstabbed Mayor Ford and thwarted his chances of building a make-believe subway on Sheppard Avenue).

You see, anyone disagreeing with or defying Mayor Ford is dead to Sue-Ann Levy. It’s not about partisanship. It has nothing to do with left and right although Sue-Ann does especially hate her the Silly Socialists. Since she’s thrown all in with Team Ford, anyone who doesn’t is going to find themselves on the business end of grade school nickname a la SAL.

That is the mark of a true a flak. Never question your meal ticket’s actions. It’s always the other guy’s fault. Haughty ambitions or weak constitutions are to blame for any falling outs with the mayor. Never is he or his brother or the third Etobicoke amigo, Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday in the wrong. Suggesting as much could lead to some unwelcomed introspection or, even worse, unreturned phone calls from the mayor’s office.

It’s called ‘Knowing Which Side Your Bread Is Buttered’. Politics as blind allegiance not good governance. You got to dance with the one that brung ya. And Sue-Ann Levy has danced with Rob Ford.

Any hint of desperation in Sue-Ann’s outbursts – and it’s hard to detect since it sounds like her usual ravings – is because she’s hitched her little red wagon so firmly to Mayor Ford’s star. A star that’s dimmed significantly over the course of the last year to 18 months. If Sue-Ann and the Toronto Sun can’t keep the Team Ford super nova from flaming out entirely, they’ll find themselves once more in the power shadow, no longer the mayor’s official paper of record and just another rag with a Sunshine girl and sports scores.

Being so closely aligned with the current administration and lashing out at any apostate, regardless of political stripe, Sue-Ann Levy risks being relegated deep into the bleacher seats again. Having been granted access to power, she’s showing her true colours and they’re not conservative blue. It’s a shade you turn when you give up reporting or even opining, and just start typing out p.r. memos from head office. What’s that look like? A buttery yellow?

Sue-Ann Levy refers to herself as a ‘general s— disturber’. Actual shit disturbers don’t say s— disturber. They say shit disturber. And real shit disturbers don’t simply regurgitate talking points and pick fights as a proxy for those in power. That’s called sy—phancy.

Such lack of self-awareness would be sad if it weren’t on display by the likes of Sue-Ann Levy. In her, it’s more pathetic but in a funny kind of way.

— almost sympathetically submitted by Cityslikr