All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

A New Generation Of Suburban Resentment

Posted on March 25, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

How would you best sum up Councillor Michelle Berardinetti’s (Ward 35 Scarborough Southwest) first term in office? is a question nobody’s asked me until now.

Hmmm. Councillor Berardinetti, huh? Ward 35 Scarborough Southwest, eh?

Elephants, bike lane hatred and other terribly misguided public transit views.

Yeah. That about sums it up.

As to the elephants, I can’t offer up much in the way of analysis. Something about moving them from an unhealthy environment at the Toronto Zoo to a nicer place more conducive to the elephant lifestyle. How best to do that. Bob Barker. Different coloured t-shirts in the council chamber.

I remember Councillor Berardinetti being all up in that debate. No judgement from me about it. Wasn’t high on my list of things to be concerned about. Kudos to the councillor for making it one of hers.

While she seemed to love the elephants, Councillor Berardinetti had little time for bike lanes. During the 2010 campaign, she claimed that some residents living along Pharmacy Avenue had moved because they could not “get out of their own driveway”, and within a year of taking over as councillor in Ward 35 had the damn bike lanes torn up along with those on Jarvis Street. In fact, run through this list of council votes from July 2011. Councillor Berardinetti pretty much came out against every pro-biking measure.

We get it, councillor. You represent a suburban ward. Everybody likes to drive there. Bikes have no place in your vision of how a city moves people around.

Or LRTs, for that matter.

Between she and Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38 Scarborough Centre), they played point for the 7 other Scarborough councillors who eventually helped then TTC Chair Karen Stintz flip the planned Bloor-Danforth LRT extension to a subway. Not so much good cop-bad cop, the two traded off on being perpetually outraged and indignant. World class transit! Scarborough is owed! Selfish downtowners!

“You can’t go to residents with revenue tools and not even deliver a subway,” Councillor Berardinetti pronounced. Subways are the only mode of transit worth paying for. Nothing for nothing. Something for subways.

Yeah so, pretty much stamp their feet, whine loudly and hold their collective breath until they got their way.

To give her full marks, at least Councillor Berardinetti had been consistent in her opinion that Scarborough deserved a subway, any subway. She went along with Mayor Ford when he sought to bury the Eglinton crosstown and agreed that his Sheppard subway folly didn’t need any of the Dr. Gordon Chong suggested revenue tools to proceed. The councillor was an early and eager adopter of the Scarborough LRT/subway swap, even voting for an additional property tax increase to fund it, an inclination she didn’t show a lot of on almost any other issue so far during her time at City Hall.

Throughout much of this term, Councillor Michelle Berardinetti has proven herself comfortably in line with Mayor Rob Ford, especially on fiscal matters. She’s voted to keep taxes low, freezing and eliminating important sources of revenue. Just this year, as a member of the Budget Committee, she pushed a motion to ignore the staff recommended property tax increase, lowering it by .25% and making up the difference with any surpluses from the projected Land Transfer Tax revenue. Credit where credit’s due, the councillor didn’t then turn around and vote in favour of a report looking at any possible reduction in the LTT rate.

She pretty much reflects the arc of the city council story during the Ford era. As an original member of his powerful Executive Committee, Councillor Berardinetti enabled all his destructive instincts early on. But as he pissed away his power to influence the agenda, she slowly changed course, jumping from the Executive Committee during the mid-term shuffle. She had also left the Budget Committee for a while from March 2012 until January of the following year. A trendsetter, let’s call her. Totally comfortable with his policies but unhappy with his politicking.

Maybe this might play well for her constituents.

In 2010, she handily beat incumbent Adrian Heaps, concluding a bitter struggle that had gone back to the 2006 election that resulted in lawsuits and all sorts of legal wrangling. Ward 35 went strongly pro-Rob Ford in that election, so maybe she’s tapped into a certain ambivalence toward the mayor amongst her residence, loving the message, just not the messenger. If that’s the case, she may be hard to unseat.

But if anybody were to run against her based on her record, take her to task for her habit of underfunding the city’s ability to pay for programs and services, call her out on her subway love taking priority over common fiscal (not to mention transit) sense, Councillor Berardinetti would have a lot to answer for. She’s been very much at the epicentre of a couple of the city’s most divisive debates over the last three years, and has not provided a particularly cooperative voice, opting instead for the us-versus-them, suburban-versus-downtown tone of anger and resentment that has plagued Toronto since amalgamation. Having been put into a couple positions of leadership as a first time councillor, with an opportunity to change that tone, she failed to provide much leadership at all.

It’s hard to imagine she’ll grow into the role going forward, having adopted the familiar position of Scarborough councillor with a chip on their shoulder that seems to be the commonplace feature with many. Why change? It’s an approach that’s been working since long before Councillor Berardinetti came to Toronto City Hall.

— unimpressedly submitted by Cityslikr

Go, Go, Go Giorgio

Posted on March 18, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

STOP THE (WORD) PRESSES!!

Breaking news in our Wards To Watch 2014!

Yesterday, Keegan Henry-Mathieu registered to run for city councillor in Ward 7 York West.

Why is this so newsworthy? Two words. Giorgio Mammoliti.

In our very first post of this series, we implored voters of Ward 7 to rid our city of this clown prince of municipal politics. Along with the Ford Brothers and Councillor Frances Nunziata, Mammoliti makes up one third of the unholy triumvirate of City Hall’s masters of divisiveness, discord and dysfunction. I know much of the campaign focus has been and will continue to be on the mayor’s race with an eye to ending the current reign of error but I cannot stress enough how chasing Giorgio Mammoliti from council would contribute to restoring much calm, decorum and civility as well.

As the councillor likes to point out regularly, in an attempt to deepen the urban-suburban fault line to his advantage, his ward never gets anything. And exactly whose fault is that, Giorgio? In his capacity as both an MPP and then city councillor for the area since 1990, more than a little of the blame should rest on his shoulders. He made it clear repeatedly throughout this term that it was a subway or nothing along Finch Avenue even if his residents had to wait a 100 years. His constant motions to freeze property taxes would also serve to provide a whole lot of nothing for Ward 7 residents.

Councillor Mammoliti also appears to hold the adherence to rules in as much disdain as he does his constituents. During this term, he’s been dinged with some ethical taint not once, not twice but three times. There are those 2010 campaign spending charges. There’s that questionable fundraiser now under investigation by Toronto’s Integrity Commissioner. Last fall, it was suggested that the councillor was paying below market rent owned by a developer that does business with the city.

It all adds up to a big ol’ bucket of What the Fuck? Just whose interests has Councillor Mammoliti been serving at City Hall?

While no official endorsement at this point, I will say that Keegan Henry-Mathieu appears on the tattered political landscape of Ward 7 like a refreshing breeze. I’ve met him a couple times in passing. He is some engaged, having spent time at City Hall as part of the Toronto Youth Cabinet, with an interest on issues like poverty, priority neighbourhoods, nutritional programs and equity. He would represent a much needed new voice on council and for Ward 7.

Along with Lekan Olawoye who is challenging long time Ward 12 York South-Weston incumbent, Frank Di Giorgio, maybe Mr. Henry-Mathieu represents a new wave rising up against the old guard in the former city of York. If we could get somebody willing to step into the ring with Ward 11 York South-Weston councillor, Frances Nunziata, it might just be a movement stirring. A new generation of politicians, truly representing a post-amalgamated Toronto.

First, they take York. Then, they take Scarborough…

A guy can dream, can’t he?

— hopefully submitted by Cityslikr

Is Not Bad Good Enough?

Posted on March 4, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby (Ward 4 Etobicoke Centre) seems like a nice enough person. In the current toxic political atmosphere at City Hall where ugly Tea Party conservatism sits at the seat of power (at least, it did for awhile) and the opposition to it rabid, she comes across like a moderating voice. Soft suburban centre right with a smiley face. All southern-like charm and mint juleps.

Anyone who has drawn the indignant ire of the Ford clan as regularly as Councillor Lindsay Luby has – A waste of skin, anyone? – is alright in our books.

Still…

She is a self-proclaimed conservative. She is from Etobicoke. There are times when her biggest concerns seem to revolve around lawn care and road maintenance. A throwback to an earlier era. Something of an anachronism and somewhat out of place on a big city city council. Mayberry meets Metropolis.

The councillor’s not a big fan of taxes but she does like her mechanized curbside leaf collection. Free plastic bags are an absolute necessity. A fully staffed environmental office? M’eh. There is such a thing as too much funding for student nutritional programs. Consider cutting the size of city council in half? Nope. Ranked ballots and permanent resident voting? Nope and nope.

It’s pretty much steady as she goes government for Councillor Lindsay Luby. Let’s not shake up the status quo. This is a nice town. That’s never been the demographic in these parts.

Granted, there have been times when the councillor stands up to speak at council and you think, oh wow!, she’s going to do something unexpected. She reasons through an issue, sounding convinced that it’s time to alter course, that we’re going to see a different Councillor Lindsay Luby. And then, boom. She doesn’t and we don’t. Concern expressed but not resolve.

A glance through Matt Elliott’s council scorecard for this term also shows something of a higher rate of absenteeism for votes by Councillor Lindsay Luby. Admittedly, it is a small sample size, only some 105 of the votes cast over the past 3+ years. The councillor has missed 19 of them, which is only 18% but that puts her right up there with serial vote skipper, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7 York West), and he actually missed some of the votes due to illness. Even compared to the likes of Councillor Mark Grimes (Ward 6 Etobicoke-Lakeshore) who, on the best of days seems like he’d rather be anywhere else other than sitting through a city council meeting, Lindsay Luby’s absences are noticeable.

While it may be unfair to the councillor to truly judge her performance based on this term alone, it has been, frankly, nothing more than a series of one distraction from governance after another, she hasn’t stood as a champion of anything notable. At least not in any sort of forward thinking direction. She really wanted the 5 cent fee for plastic bags gone. And she was point person for the fight against the Humbertown redevelopment in her ward. A fight that, to her credit, didn’t wind up going to the OMB, proving that you can fight City Hall if you’re an affluent neighbourhood with the money to draw up your own set of alternate plans.

But we already knew that, didn’t we.

Councillor Lindsay Luby is a long time Etobicoke city councillor, dating back all the way past amalgamation to 1985. Her toughest fight came last election when the Ford juggernaut tried to finally take her out. That opponent, John Campbell, is back for another run at her this time out but if nothing else, Ms. Lindsay Luby has shown a scrapper’s instinct and will not be easily unseated.

Ward 4 could do worse, I guess. Certainly compared to the hideousness of some of the right wing representation thrown up at us from Etobicoke, Councillor Lindsay Luby is something of a cool breeze. But ‘could do worse’ is hardly a ringing endorsement. The flip side is it could also do better. Until Etobicoke starts trying to do better, starts electing local politicians prepared to meet the demands and challenges of the amalgamated city in a 21^st-century way, it will continue to be a soft spot in Toronto’s governance model. A recalcitrant partner in shaping the city in the ways it needs in order for it to perform in any sort of fully functional manner.

— so-soly submitted by Cityslikr