Tag Archives: Sue Ann Levy

A Return To Form

Posted on by
5

There was a moment at yesterday’s special TTC commission meeting called to determine the fate of the organization’s Chief General Manager, Gary Webster, we’d all been banished, visiting councillors, media, the public, and had gathered across the hall in committee room # 1. It was pretty much a done deal, the firing of Mr. Webster. Everyone appeared to have accepted that. What was happening was a mini-rally of sorts to save the transit plan city council had given the nod to a couple weeks earlier. (In truth, a plan approved and apparently settled on back in 2007 or so, but unilaterally cancelled by Mayor Ford upon taking office in 2010 and, mysteriously, sort of signed off on by the province which led directly to the events of yesterday and the dismissal of Gary Webster. That’s another story for another time.)

At some point of time during the nearly 3 hour wait for the TTC meeting to return from in-camera and announce its foregone conclusion, somebody asked for a show of hand, either to see who thought the CGM shouldn’t be fired or who was in favour of the transit plan council was trying to push ahead with. Unsurprisingly, Webster received nearly unanimous support as did proceeding full steam ahead with LRTs. Nearly unanimous support. The lone hand up in favour of canning the CGM and for Mayor Ford’s subway plan was the Toronto Sun’s Sue Ann Levy.

With that, she rolled from the room, babbling about incompetence and the like, hoots, hollers and derisive laughter following her out.

But this is not to heap scorn on Ms. Levy. No, no, no. Anything but.

You see, it was at that moment, Sue Ann Levy’s defiant up yours to a room full of adversaries, I had a dreadful epiphany, a low in the gut, sinking feeling, not a bright light striking me on the road to Damascus so much as the god lord’s very stream of urine. Oh my god, I realized. That’s it, man. The answer you’ve been looking for.

As many of you regular readers will know, I’ve been trying to figure out Mayor Ford’s angle for a while now. What’s the end game, I’ve asked as recently as yesterday. It can’t be just some willy-nilly, catch-as-catch-can, random bit of thunder and roar, you will do my bidding or else, meting out retribution to any and all naysayers, Cody Jarrett in White Heat, purely reactive plan, right? There’s got to be something more than just petulance at the core of the mayor’s agenda, doesn’t there?

And here my answer was, masquerading as a journalist who masquerades as a journalist.

The mayor’s going rogue. Again.

You see, he successfully ran for mayor as an outsider, an outsider who’d been at City Hall for 10 years. All those years, almost exclusively on the losing end of council votes, many times very, very lopsided losing votes, had qualified him as an outsider. A determined lone wolf who vowed to curb all the excesses, all the backroom dealings, all the downtown elitist chicanery that had made this city the hell hole it had become.

Upon assuming office, he set about doing his business. Slash councillors’ office budgets and take away their snacks. Eliminate the VRT. Waste Transit City. Partially privatize waste collection. Steamroll municipal workers. Smite, smote, smought. In your face, Howard Moscoe. Rob Ford was passing gas all over City Hall.

Then, he plateaued.

Or did he?

Watching Sue Ann bask in her underdoggery, it struck me that Mayor Ford too operated best as the put upon little guy. The renegade flying in the face of vested interests, opposed at every turn by special interests. Hey. I may not be perfect but I’m indomitable, indefatigable in my efforts to fight City Hall.

One little problem now? As mayor, Rob Ford kind of is City Hall. He’s got the big office, that big-assed chain going around his neck, the mandate. Being mayor ran contrary to the image of being the outsider. The grubby everyman tarnish under threat of gaining lustre.

So what if, what if, and I’m just spit-ballin’ here, Team Ford decided to ease themselves out of pole position? Lose a vote here and there, do and say outrageous things in order to eventually force mass defections, generally act like a dickish 14 year-old with a monstrous sense of entitlement, all in order to alienate yourself from all but the imbeciles and most power hungry on council. A self-inflicted splendid isolation, as Warren Zevon once sang.

Once more, the outsider. Mayor Outsider. Standing up for the good taxpayers of Toronto but besieged from all sides by the usual suspects, the unions, the bureaucrats, left wing loons and teatsuckers. Even as mayor, he pits himself as the lonely voice in the wilderness, trying to do right by the little guy but he’s only one man. The outsider. Remember?

With that, he’s able to again embrace the spirit of victimhood right wing politicians and pundits so love to use in order to inflame outrage, resentment, division. The very thing that propelled him into the mayor’s office. No criticism is sound enough to be anything but self-interest. Disagreements are simply mean spiritedness. If you oppose Mayor Ford, you hate the suburbs.

It’s like wrestling water. A win no matter if it’s a loss. Failures on the mayor’s part have nothing to do with his shortcomings, lack of understanding or inability to arrive at a consensus. It’s all because of some nefarious plotting and underhanded dealings by those more plugged in to the power grid, the mainstream media, those with a hidden agenda, those with the subways. Not the little guys.

He’s endeavouring to go to that well once again by deliberately sabotaging his own performance as mayor. I didn’t fail. They didn’t let me succeed.

A plan so crazy, it just might work.

— on to youly submitted Cityslikr

I Decreed. What’s To Discuss?

Posted on by
3

Is it just me or is everyone beyond curious about how the Brothers Ford imagined Rob’s time as mayor of Toronto was going to play out? Did they really expect no challenge to their authority, no serious opposition? Like, ever? Was there no plan B in place when plan A (which consisted of little more than chest-beating and bullying) stopped working its magic?

Certainly doesn’t look like it at this juncture. Digging in their heels, closing ranks and perpetuating disarray seems to be their limited range of preferred options now that they are facing concerted resistance at city council. They’ve taken on an almost high browed tone of offended imperiousness at the sheer nerve of a majority of councillors finally assuming their rightful place as ultimate decision makers at City Hall. Well, I never… Of all the nerve. How dare they. Guards!! Off with their heads.

Perhaps that’s not a surprise, coming from Councillor Doug. He is new to the place after all. His experience is more top down business management, do as I say because I sign your pay check. Besides, having spent much of his time out Chicago way with its strong mayoral system, he may’ve got the impression that at a municipal level, we vote for a king every four years. Keep your eyes averted, plebes.

But the mayor’s been around the block a time or two. He was a councillor for ten years before becoming mayor. You’d think he’d know which way the wind blows at City Hall if you want to get things done.

But then comes this:

“It’s like winning an election. So if they voted me in, that means I don’t win an election? It doesn’t make sense.”

You’re right, Mr, Mayor. That makes absolutely no sense. You were elected mayor along with 44 others who were elected as councillors. Your job now is to convince, by whatever democratic means are at your disposal, at least 22 of those councillors to vote along with you. Every time. Or risk losing those parts of your agenda that you can’t sway a majority of councillors on.

But it seems as if Mayor Ford and his brother can’t get past their winner-take-all mindset. Politics as a football game as James Harbeck tweeted yesterday. “In football, if you win, you win. Ford seems to think politics is just like that too.” After a big setback on the waterfront debacle and a lesser but optically symbolic one with the budget, he’s refusing to accept the reality at City Hall. “Someone needs to tell him that the election isn’t the game, it’s just getting onto the team.”

Tell him again and again, over and over, as it just doesn’t appear to be sinking in as Matt Elliott over at Ford For Toronto points out today. On the Eglinton LRT, the wagons have circled and the indignant language from the mayor and his supporters has risen to a hysterical level. One time Team Ford strategist, Nick Kouvalis, has returned from the Death Star to point fingers, unearth enemies and beat the monosyllabic drum of group chant that worked so beautifully during the election.

We. Have. A. Mandate. Subways. Yes. Streetcars. No. Unions. Bad. All. Dalton’s. Fault. We. Have. A. Mandate. We. Have. A. Mandate. We. Have. A. Mandate.

As always when conservatives feel under siege, there’s a bleating tone of triumphal persecution in their counterattack. We won. We won. Stop picking on us. We don’t have to compromise. It’s our turn to rule the roost.

Through that lens, any criticism is nothing more than the salty bitterness of sore losers. It doesn’t even merit serious discussion. That’s how it is to be sidelined because you don’t agree with the mayor. Just like they were under Miller. Just like they were.

Councillor Peter Milczyn can’t seem to speak out without listing some sort of injustice inflicted upon him at the hand of the Miller administration. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong is the official aggrieved archivist of those hard done by in the years 2003-2010. And the budget chief, woe was me, the budget chief.

“I mean, look, when the NDP came into power,” Councillor Del Grande allegedly claimed during an interview, “I was a white male, I paid a very severe price because it had nothing to do with ability any more, it had to do with male versus female.” Conservatives like him “were beat up brutally” at the hands of Milleristas. But fortunately, it left none of them bitter and/or vindictive.

While Councillor Del Grande, the mayor et al the poor, wittle put-upon conservatives may believe that they were sidelined and ostracized because of their political ideology might I suggest that, based on their performance in power, it had more to do with them being bereft of any good or constructive ideas? The budget chief eviscerates revenue streams and then complains that the city’s broke. As chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, Councillor Minnan-Wong costs the city hundreds of thousands of dollars leading the charge to tear up the bike lanes on Jarvis Street. And just yesterday, he joined fellow TTC commission member Councillor Milczyn in helping to vote down a request for a further report on the best course of action for the Eglinton LRT, precipitating the culmination of a clusterfuck of a TTC meeting that you need to read Steve Munro’s account to believe.

No, gentleman. The reason your views and opinions weren’t sought out before Mayor Ford assumed office was that your views are a serious detriment to the city. It’s got nothing to do with your gender, ethnicity or political persuasion. You’re just terrible elected representatives.

Any pushback that you are receiving isn’t payback. It’s simply called governance. Maybe you’re mixing that up with the word petulance.

— regally submitted by Cityslikr

Tough Choices

Posted on by
1

It seems like just yesterday when we put Budget 2011 to bed, safe in the knowledge that we’d have a respite before its younger sibling… Budget 2012, we’ll call her… made an appearance. But then, KPMG’s Core Services Review kicked off and it seemed as if all we ever talked about was Budget 2012, Budget 2012, Budget 2012. Remember? She was going to be a beast. $774 million of unmitigated disaster if not properly housebroken. There were all night deputations, and then more deputations. Toronto just couldn’t get enough of Budget 2012 talk.

And now here we are. Sometime by late this week, Thursday very likely, we will officially be in 2012, budgetarily speaking. They do grow up so fast, don’t they?

We already know that in whatever form the budget emerges after running the city council gauntlet beginning this morning, it won’t be as draconian or Dickensian as the one initially floated by the mayor’s office. The public pushback saw to that. The non-ideologues in and around Team Ford blanched, deciding it might be political suicide to be seen going after children so directly. So things like nutritional programs were spared as were libraries, sort of, although how exactly the TPL is going to cut its budget by a full 10% without closing branches or reducing hours is a bit of a mystery. The math if fuzzy but comfy enough for centre-right councillors like Jaye Robinson to abide.

After that certainty – that the budget won’t be as nasty as it could’ve been – it’s anybody’s guess how it’ll all turn out. What we do know is, at least from the perspective of those in favour of a more cut-y, less revenue generating-y budget, whatever form Budget 2012 takes it will all be because of David Miller. The last of his administration’s surpluses – one time savings, I should say – spent, the only thing left for him to contribute is being the scapegoat.

To whit, half-wit, the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy yesterday: Blame Miller for city’s mess! [Exclamation point added. I mean, how could they run that headline without an exclamation mark?] It’s not so much a new column as it is a Best of Sue-Ann compilation of favourite catchphrases (“Socialist Silly Hall”), numbers and percentages devoid of any context whatsoever ($400 billion! 250%!!) and long since dead horses, dug up to beat on the decomposed remains (yep, the St. Clair right of way.) Two budgets on, when push comes to shove, and supporters of the mayor are still burning David Miller effigies.

Stopping the buck by passing the buck. As if an increase in spending is the anomaly for a city that continues to grow. As if infrastructure needs only exist in the mind of spendthrift governments. As if a vibrant and dynamic public transit isn’t necessary for a 21st-century big city.

The fate of Budget 2012 will ultimately come down to whose version of being tough prevails. The mayor, the budget chief and all those who fall in line behind them will try and convince enough of the council colleagues that being tough means saying no, and saying no often, to those they perceive as ‘special interests’. Unions, low income children, artsy-fartsy artists, the homeless and the marginalized. They’ve all been coddled too long and with too much of our hard earned dollars. Enough is enough.

The other side, the ‘silly socialists’ will try to convince a majority of councillors that being tough means standing firm in the face of adversity and not tossing the weakest of us overboard in order to keep afloat. Being tough means not resorting to fatuous scaremongering (Greece! Spain!) as some form of meaningful debate. Being tough means dealing with the hand that’s dealt you by the other levels of government – times are tough; you’re on your own – and not shirking your own duty to those who elected you to represent them.

Being tough is about crafting a budget that delivers both the most benefit and least amount of pain to the greatest number of people and not simply piecing together 23 votes by any means necessary. Regardless of your opinion of the former mayor, David Miller is not any part of that equation. This week is all about Mayor Rob Ford and the kind of tough he really is.

— …but sensitively submitted by Cityslikr