All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

MOAR RANKED BALLOTS!!!

Posted on October 7, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

… just one more thing, and I don’t mean to bother you… but about ranked ballots…

Look. I don’t think ranked ballots are the be all and end all. Yes, there are far more pressing problems this city faces than how we elect our local representatives. Problems ranked ballots won’t help solve, at least not directly. Hell, ranked ballots aren’t even going to cure our democratic deficit that keeps our city council from truly reflecting the demographics of this city.

But here’s why I’ve been harping on it for the better part of the past week since city council tried to trip up debate on the issue with Thursday’s successful vote on Councillor Justin Di Ciano’s motion, requesting the province not “proceed with amendments to the Municipal Elections Act to provide for Ranked Choice Voting”. It’s about our current state of governance and its glaringly apparent lack of resolve to even discuss, let alone embrace, change. Such paralytic aversion to new ideas and new ways of thinking adversely affects every aspect of our daily lives in this city, far and beyond than how we cast a ballot.

Yesterday, I highlighted the clown show that was the rookie councillor segment on ranked ballots on Sunday’s Mark Towhey 1010 radio program. I think it could be argued convincingly that the slate, featuring councillors Jon Burnside, Christin Carmichael Greb and Stephen Holyday, skewed rightward. So, you might infer from that that anti-ranked ballot sentiment is a conservative thing.

Not so fast.

A skim through the names of the 28 councillor voting along with the like of Justin Di Ciano, John Burnside, Christin Carmichael Greb, Stephen Holyday et al reveals that it isn’t simply a matter of right versus left. A handful of what would be considered variations of the colour pinko wound up on that list. Maria Augimeri. Glenn De Baeremaeker. Mary Fragedakis. Anthony Perruzza. They all helped give the motion a wider margin of victory than you might’ve expected, lending it a bipartisan feel to this assault on voting reform.

Joining in from the left side of the political spectrum, Councillor Paula Fletcher, addressing her constituents in a letter explaining her rational for giving thumbs down to ranked ballots, proved to all of us that left wing, progressive voices on council can be as equally dishonest and fatuous on the issue as any from the right.

Thanks so much for your email and your advocacy for voting reform. I want to assure you I also support electoral reform

I agree that ranked ballot voting is an exciting concept. So are other voting reform concepts like proportional representation. Meaningful reforms that get more people engaged and out to vote should be a priority for all governments.

I hope you agree that any transformation of our democratic electoral process should only take place after a rigorous democratic process. Unfortunately, when the motion regarding ranked ballots came up in 2013, City Council (then in the throes of the Rob Ford crisis) did not take the standard steps to bring the idea out for thorough, City-led public consultations. In comparison, the current Ward Boundary Review is undergoing a lengthy process with City staff, consultants, and public updates before any decision is made.

On a matter as important as voting reform, I rely on the same level of staff study and public consultation as I would when considering a major planning application like the 629 Eastern StudioCentre application coming to Council, a transit proposal like the Relief Line or an affordable housing renewal plan like Regent Park. This is the only way a Councillor can make a truly informed decision on your behalf.

I really appreciate that you have taken initiative to be very informed and active on this issue, however some residents were surprised to learn voting reform is being contemplated and have not had that chance.

When we change our voting system, I believe it has to be based on thoughtful, considered debate and best advice from City officials after broad City-wide public consultation.

Sincerely,

Paula

As I have said previously and repeatedly, the June 2013 vote was a request from city council to the province to allow municipalities the option of using ranked ballots (among other initiatives like permanent resident voting) in future municipal elections. The option. All the other stuff – ‘considered debate’, ‘best advice from City officials’, ‘broad City-wide public consultation’, ‘a rigorous democratic process’ — would follow, presumably and if councillors like Paula Fletcher pushed for them, as the city council decided whether or not to implement ranked ballots.

In her letter, Councillor Fletcher delivers the impression that once the province gives us the go-ahead, ranked ballots are a done deal. By invoking the Ward Boundary Review currently underway, she suggests that ranked ballots are inevitable like the ward boundary changes that are indeed coming. Ranked ballots aren’t. At least not yet. And not at all if the likes of Councillor Fletcher has her way, apparently.

The ‘Rob Ford Made Us Do It’ claim is also as ridiculous as it is insulting. We was hyp-nah-tized! We had no control over what we was doing!

What’s even more embarrassing is Councillor Fletcher wasn’t in the room at the time. Her name is notably absent for this vote. Maybe she felt too traumatized by the ‘throes of the Rob Ford crisis’ to weigh in. Who knows?

I don’t know the councillor, so I can only guess at her motivation with all this. Maybe it’s personal. She had a squeaker of an election back in 2010. Perhaps had ranked ballots been in place the outcome would’ve been different. There’s this Labour Council letter from August, “Democracy and Civic Elections”, that full-throatedly denounces ranked ballots. Maybe Councillor Fletcher feels a greater allegiance to the Labour Council than she does residents of Toronto. It could just be that some progressives are as allergic to change as conservatives. I wouldn’t even dismiss the possibility the councillor simply doesn’t like ranked ballots for very legitimate reasons.

That’s fine. But as I said yesterday, be upfront about it. Don’t mask your opposition in misinformation and spin. If Toronto elects to proceed with ranked ballots, it will only happen after serious public consultations, staff input and considered debate. All of which Councillor Fletcher calls for in her letter. Supporting last week’s motion wasn’t necessary for any of that to happen.

All that motion served to do, with Councillor Paula Fletcher solidly behind it, was to fire an arrow across the bow. The option for ranked ballots appears to be coming, like it or not. Opponents of the issue just wanted to let everyone know, including activists who’ve been pushing the initiative with years of hard work, that it was still going to be a long, hard, uphill battle.

— sincerely submitted by Cityslikr

The Worst. The Absolute Worst.

Posted on October 2, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Just about a year ago (340 days or so but who’s counting?), as the results of the 2014 municipal election rolled in, I looked over the debris and carnage and declared that this may well shape up to be an even worse city council than the one that preceded it.

Impossible to imagine, I know, in the wake of the drunken, crack-laden, I’ve got enough to eat at home Ford years. But I held firm in my view that we did ourselves no favours with the new composition of council even with the new mayor we installed. Just watch, I said.

While I think there have been more than a few examples to back up my claim (the Gardiner east hybrid hybrid anyone?), a vote last night at council cemented it. In a 25-18 vote, our local representatives decided to reverse course and reject the notion of using ranked ballots in forthcoming elections. “A real setback for democratic reform and renewal,” according to Councillor Joe Mihevc.

How did such a turnaround happen? Aside from this simply being a worse city council, you mean? We have to go back to earlier this year, June to be exact.

The province is undergoing a 5 year review of the City of Toronto Act, the 2006 piece of legislation where Queen’s Park bestowed more powers and autonomy on Toronto’s city council. City staff struck up its own review process and the mayor’s office established a panel of 3 councillors, Norm Kelly, Kristyn Wong-Tam and Justin Di Ciano, to work with the staff in coming up with recommendations to pass along to the province for its consideration. The resulting report was before city council to vote on yesterday.

During the debate, councillors were putting forth ideas of their own to package off and send to Queen’s Park. They were flying so fast and furiously at one point that Mayor Tory stood up to lecture his colleagues on governing ‘on the fly’. Staff had worked with council for months to come up with this report. These slap ons were, to the mayor’s mind, going to muddy the waters and diminish the seriousness of the report’s intent. Two of the working group members, councillors Kelly and Wong-Tam, echoed that sentiment.

The third member of the panel, Councillor Justin Di Ciano, had other ideas. Despite apparently working throughout the summer with Kelly and Wong-Tam and city staff on the report council was now amending, plenty of time, you’d assume, for him to float the idea of tossing out the request for ranked ballots, he decided to pursue it ‘on the fly’, as the mayor said. What were his reasons? They were doozies. Real fucking doozies.

Voters found ranked ballots “too confusing” he said. Never mind that the Toronto Star’s Betsy Powell explained how they work in a couple paragraphs.

Under ranked balloting, voters select candidates in order of preference — potentially first, second and third. The candidate with the majority of first-place votes — 50 per cent plus one — wins, just as in the current system.

If nobody meets that threshold, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is knocked out. The second-place choices of that candidate’s supporters are added to the totals of the remaining hopefuls, and so on, until someone has a majority.

Hopelessly and utterly confused, are you? As the ranked ballot literature says, Easy as 1, 2, 3.

Under softball questioning from fellow council lightweight, Michelle Berardinetti, Councillor Di Ciano cited some study from California that said ‘low-income voters’ had trouble understanding ranked ballots. See? The poorz. They just wouldn’t get it.

The councillor went on to say that this particular council, you know, the one worse than the previous one, shouldn’t be beholden to a decision made late last term. The vote on ranked ballots happened in June of 2013, with almost 18 months left in the mandate. What point does Councillor Justin Di Ciano think should serve as a cutoff in the term of council when it needs to stop doing stuff that might impinge on subsequent councils? A year? Two?

What makes this line of reasoning even more fucking ridiculously vacuous is that the June 2013 vote from city council was a request to the provincial government for the power to decide to use ranked ballots. Even if the province grants the city that power, council would have to vote to enact it. So this city council would have the opportunity to vote against it, and no decision from the previous council would be forced upon it.

Instead, city council said yesterday, nope, don’t even want to consider it.

This boneheaded motion from a terrible, terrible city councillor, Justin Di Ciano, could’ve, should’ve died right there, in its infancy. All it needed was 7 councillors who’d voted in favour of requesting ranked ballots in June 2013 (and one who’d “missed” that particular vote) to vote against it. Amazingly, they didn’t. They did a 180. Like that. Killing months and years of advocacy that a whole lot of people had dedicated their time to. Just like that.

Who were those councillors?

Councillor Michelle Berardinetti (Ward 35 Scarborough Southwest). Councillor Gary Crawford (Ward 36 Scarborough Southwest). Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38 Scarborough Centre). Councillor Paula Fletcher (Ward 30 Toronto-Danforth). Councillor Mary Fragedakis (Ward 29 Toronto-Danforth). Councillor Cesar Palacio (Ward 17 Davenport). Councillor Anthony Perruzza (Ward 8 York West). Councillor Jaye Robinson (Ward 25 Don Valley West).

Had these councillors not cravenly flipped-floppped, the results of the vote would’ve been reversed, and the motion would’v died. They did and it didn’t. Yeah, this city council sucks.

Click on those links, get a phone number or email address. And start asking these councillors why they changed their minds on pretty much a moment’s notice. Why did they think ranked ballots were a good idea last term? Why do they think ranked ballots are a bad idea now? What changed?

Oh, and let’s not forget the architect of this clusterfuck and big ol’ fuck you to voting reform, Councillor Justin Di Ciano (Ward 5 Etobicoke Lakeshore). Remember this face. It is the face of a city council that makes you pine for the Ford years.

— angrily submitted by Cityslikr

We Knew. We All Knew.

Posted on January 27, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

We did.

Anyone following along with the “Great” Scarborough transit debate of Two-Ought-One-Ought to Two-Ought-One-Three couldn’t help but know that once city council reversed course once again and decided on the 3-stop subway plan over the 7-stop LRT, we would be on the hook for some money. Lots of it. Lots and lots of money.

So when news broke late last week that an amount had pretty much been settled on, an amount not far off of what had been bandied around during the aforementioned debate, somewhere likely in the $75-85 million range, it shouldn’t have caught anyone by surprise. We knew. We all knew. We did.

That we found out in the manner we found out, from the city manager, as done and done, it’s already accounted for and in the capital budget, whoah, wait, what?! “Yes, it’s in the capital plan,” Joe Pennachetti stated, perhaps a little too imperiously. “No, you’d not be able to see it.”

I think it’s fair to call that something of a surprise. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam said it was news to her, literally. She heard about it the first time everybody else did, in Jennifer Pagliaro’s Toronto Star article. “I think the public should be very concerned about the dearth of accountability and transparency,” Councillor Josh Matlow, perhaps one of the Scarborough subway’s most vociferous critics, said. According to him, city council was never fully briefed on the final costs of deciding to ditch the LRT.

Yet, there it is, now in the city’s capital budget plan, with none of our elected officials (as far as we know) sure of the exact amount.

It is a fitting, highly appropriate twist to this sad, sordid tale of malefic governance and shameful political self-preservation. Appropriate too that two of the most shameless proponents of the Scarborough subway, councillors Rob Ford and Glenn De Baeremaeker have gone silent on the issue, not a peep so far from either of them. This despite the fact Councillor Ford’s opinion has been sought out on almost every other matter going on at City Hall.

The fact of the matter is, actual support for the Scarborough subway has never been as deep or clamorous as the noise its supporters on council have made it out to be. Polls that set out the LRT and subway plans for respondents to see regularly came back showing a preference for the LRT. “If you get past all of that rhetoric and you get down to how much is it going to cost,” Dave Scholz of Leger Research said, “who’s going to pay for it and who’s going to be serviced by it, then people have a very realistic view of what they want.” Last February, just as the municipal campaign was kicking into gear, Leger showed that 61% of those asked, including a majority in Scarborough, favoured the LRT extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway.

Just think of what those polls might say if these sunk costs of $75-85 million are run up the flagpole for full public viewing. Which probably explains this attempt to bury them instead. Already putting ambivalent residents on the hook for an annual property tax increase to help pay for the subway, oh yeah, and **cough, cough, cough, cough** an extra $75-85 million. **cough, cough, cough, cough** I’m sorry. What was that again?

Subway supporter and TTC Chair, Josh Colle isn’t prepared to just simply take those numbers at face value. He wants some full accounting. “Absent of any construction happening, where is this supposed money?” he wondered.

A fair enough question from the councillor, and maybe one he should’ve asked before he voted in favour of the subway back in 2013. “I can show you my notes from City Council Oct 8/9 2013,” Councillor Paul Ainslie, the only Scarborough councillor who voted against the subway, tweeted last week in response to the Toronto Star story. “I wrote answers to my public questions [of city staff]…I wrote “sunk costs est. $85M” I did not make this number up. So I was not surprised by TO Star.”

The numbers were out there. Councillors who ended up voting for the subway did not make their support contingent on a full breakdown of the costs the city should be expected to pay for that decision. They collectively shrugged and pressed the ‘yes’ button. Their sudden demand for fiscal probity rings a little hollow now.

Councillor Paula Fletcher wondered why the city now should be on the hook for the entire amount of cancelling the LRT. “Let’s not forget the provincial government ran a by-election on the Scarborough subway, with their candidate, Mitzie Hunter, named as a subway champ for Scarborough,” the councillor said. “To come back and say the onus is all on the city is a bit disingenuous.” Ahhh, there’s that word again. Disingenuous. If there’s one word to describe this entire fiasco, the entire past 4 years, really. Disingenuous.

Still, it’s a legitimate question for the councillor, who, it should not be forgotten, helped bring the subway debate back to the floor of council in the convoluted transit vote of May 2013, to ask. A question that should’ve been asked over and over and over again until an actual answer was given before an actual vote with actual repercussions was cast. While Councillor Fletcher eventually wound up opposing the subway, 24 of her then-council colleagues pushed ahead, costs be damned! Scarborough deserves a subway!

And drip, drip, drip goes the money down the drain. At a budget committee meeting yesterday discussing the staff recommended 2015 budget, Councillor Gord Perks listed a bunch of council directives that staff were ignoring. “The budget drops 3 youth lounges from the Council directed 10,” he tweeted. “City turned down climate change and health funding proposal that the Board of Health approved.” “Budget ignored Council vote on playground repair funding. On average we repair once every 80 years. Council said get to 1 in 30. Cost $3M/yr.” “We have been told budget doesn’t achieve Council direction on planting trees. We don’t yet how short.”

We can’t blame all of this nickel and diming on the fact that without any debate on the specifics the city has to come up with some sum of 10s of millions of dollars to pay for the Scarborough subway. A below the rate of inflation property tax increase and a mayoral dictate to all departments to find 2% in “efficiencies” will contribute too. But in a largely zero-sum game of a municipal operating budget, money going somewhere has to come from somewhere. So, residents who may soon find themselves paying more to use city services and facilities can rightfully wonder if that Scarborough subway is actually worth it.

Trying to bury the evidence won’t change that fact.

— serves us rightly submitted by Cityslikr