All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Posted on January 18, 2016 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

It’s odd to wake up on a Monday morning, read through your local news and information and realize there’s a lot of change in the air. Deputy Chief Peter Sloly suggests a complete overhaul of our approach to policing. Former city council candidate and Better Budget TO co-founder Alex Mazer raises the possibility of some ‘fiscal honesty’. Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat has plans on completely re-imagining King Street from Dufferin all the way east to River.

Oh my. I think I just gave myself a case of the dizzies. So much… possibilities!

This comes after a weekend of occasional contemplation on what seems to be the inevitable strategic retreat by Mayor Tory on his heavily touted (by he and his team, at least) SmartTrack transit plan. On Friday stories began to emerge about scaling back and spending less on it. The always dubious ‘western spur’ dropped and replaced (Fingers Crossed!) by the westward extension of the Eglinton Crosstown to the airport. The eastern branch north of the Kennedy subway station quietly binned. Leaving some sort of expanded GO train-like service tracing the much more desirable Relief Line route, the slightest impression acknowledging SmartTrack even once existed as a concept.

I wondered what the campaign architects of SmartTrack were thinking now. Was this pretty much how the saw things happening? They knew, along with a solid majority of everybody else, that the plan was wholly unworkable. Just get their guy elected, go through the motions, not to mention millions, pretending he was serious about building SmartTrack. When it hit smack dab into the wall of reality, revealed to be the sham it was, stitching together a couple good ideas into an ill-fitting and grotesquely expensive cloth, walk it back, on the advice of the experts that weren’t, apparently, available during the 10 month long campaign.

SmartTrack was an election scheme in no way meant to refute the heavy-rail, off-road transit vision of John Tory’s main rival for the job, Rob-then-Doug Ford. That’s why it was referred to as ‘Surface Subway’. That’s why John Tory backed the Scarborough subway. John Tory refused to confront the political pandering that sat deep in the heart of the Ford approach to transit planning. Instead, he chose to wrestle it into his own image.

So, I look at today’s news, the transformative opportunities, and temper my immediate enthusiasm. Just how willing is John Tory, essentially, to buck the status quo, to grapple with the ghost of the Ford administration? Little so far would indicate his willingness to do so. Every restoration of TTC service he announces is more than equaled by expedited expressway repairs, Gardiner hybrids and traffic flow announcements. Do we really expect him to stand strong in the face of the inevitable outrage at the chief planner’s plans to de-emphasis car travel along King Street and in the downtown core?

Fiscal honesty? I write this as I’m following along with the budget chief’s lunchtime presser. “We did not have to use revenue tools on this budget,” Councillor Crawford told reporters. All the while keeping property tax rate increases impossibly low, raiding reserve funds and insisting on line-by-lines cuts to office supplies and travel costs in order to try and plug the inevitable holes in the operating budget. Sound familiar? It should. That’s what’s been passing as ‘fiscal honesty’ at City Hall for the past 5 years or so.

And as mayor, John Tory sits on the Police Services Board that passed over the opportunity to appoint reformer Peter Sloly as Chief of Police, all the while holding the door open for the similarly reform-minded chair, Alok Mukherjee, to make an early exit. He’s already had the chance to help affect much needed change and dropped the ball. Well into his second year in office, it’s difficult not to see Mayor Tory as anything but an obstacle, no less than his predecessor.

Of course, it’s hard to look forward when you’re constantly checking back over your shoulder to see what your competition’s up to. Ultimately, it’s of cold comfort that John Tory defeated Doug Ford to become mayor if, in the end, there’s little to differentiate between the two in matters of policy. Maintaining the status quo is maintaining the status quo even if you can’t see the gold chain around somebody’s neck.

If John Tory really wants to establish an enduring legacy during his time in office, he could do so by challenging the Ford city building and governance mystique head on, bury it six feet under the ground where it belongs. The possibilities in doing so are in evidence in today’s news. But, for me, the mayor’s motivations remain opaque. Like with SmartTrack, he seems more intent on a simple redesign, keeping a uninterrupted message, only delivered by a different messenger.

— not anticipatingly submitted by Cityslikr

Pissants

Posted on December 14, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

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’. Mayor 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.)

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. That’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

That’d Be What Uber Do

Posted on October 1, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

I vowed not to write about Uber or cabs or taxi reform ever again. I did. Because I just don’t care. I can’t muster the interest or… the energy to even finish that sentence.

But then something happened yesterday at city council which presented me with a situation I never thought I’d find myself writing. Rob Ford, Councillor Rob Ford, I’m writing, still donning his Sopranos track suit for whatever reason, stood up to ask questions of Mayor Tory, and the councillor – are you ready? – actually made sense.

Paraphrasing here, the councillor riddled the mayor this.

Does an Uber car and a taxi do the “exact same job”?

To which Mayor Tory responded: “You know full well that is a complicated question.”

To which I thought: Is it? Is it really that complicated a question?

The mayor did later admit that, yes, an Uber car and cab both provide a service of picking customers up, dropping them off where they want to go and charging for that service. How they go about delivering that service is different but it is basically the same service. That’s really the crux of this debate.

No doubt this is pure bullshit politics on Councillor Ford’s part. Ideologically speaking, he should be an Uber champion. Down with regulation! Slash the red tape! The customer is always right! Let the market, the FREE market, decide!

But since Mayor Tory has displayed a certain friendliness to the corporation, the councillor must stand against it. You can never agree with an adversary unless it’s on your terms, unless it’s them agreeing with you. That’s just how you play politics according to the Ford doctrine.

The fact is, by every measure immediately apparent to me, Uber is a livery company, “A business that offers vehicles, such as automobiles or boats, for hire.” How you go about summoning someone to come and whisk you away to your destination, whether it’s a concierge whistle, a street corner hail, a telephone call or smartphone app, doesn’t alter the kind of business you’re doing. A livery business. A business that offers vehicles, such as automobiles or boats, for hire.

Councillor Rob Ford was right. Uber and the cab companies do the “exact same job”. Does Uber do the job better? Hundreds of thousands of Uber allies will zealously tell you it does. Is the taxi industry in this town monopolistic and in desperate need of reform? Again, hundreds of thousands of Uber allies (and general all-round not-fans of the industry) will zealously tell you, yes. Yes, it does.

I’ve got no opinion either way on that. Like I said, I can’t find two fucks to rub together to flint a spark of interest about it. That we’re spending so much time on an issue that is of such importance to people who apparently can’t make their way around this city without paying someone to chauffeur them is galling. Our sense of civics has shrunken to little more than Can I Get This Cheaper and I Want It To Be More Convenient. For me.

All politics is personal, as they say.

Whatever.

But this is what Uber does. The corporation imposes itself, city by city, sucking up all the political oxygen. With heavy lobbyist clout, it becomes important, vital, a mayor’s key item.

It’s anything but. Uber’s just another livery business, picking people up, dropping people off, charging a fee to do it. The model may be different, it may be better. It still does the “exact same thing” any other taxi business does. Rob Ford was right.

So do the rest of us a favour and at least own it. Stop pretending it’s about anything other than that. Technology changes everything. The “sharing” economy. The 21^st-century. The future! Progress!

And can we please start talking about something else now?*

(*Apparently not. Actual regulation of Uber, and Uber-like services won’t be put on the table now by city staff until early next year. Much more waste of time, energy and breath to come.)

— unenthusiastically submitted by Cityslikr