All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Gardiner Conundrum

Posted on December 19, 2012 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Deep down in my bones, at the most visceral of visceral levels, I stand opposed to the selling of public assets to private interests. It always seems like some desperate measure and seldom turns out very well at the public end. Of course, that may just be the confirmation bias punching its way to the surface.

But then, Councillor Adam Vaughan, whom I nearly always agree with, floats the notion of selling off or leasing out the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway. What?! Yesterday on Metro Morning, the councillor went full on Ford and touted mysterious ‘telephone calls’ he’d been getting from ‘major investment firms’ and ‘consortiums’, apparently drooling over the prospect of gobbling up some crumbling infrastructure. What next, Adam? Folks in line at Timmies, telling you to go for it?

During the interview, Councillor Shelley Carroll, whom I nearly always agree with, calls Vaughan’s idea an ‘insane fantasy’. Exactly, Shelley. If we’re going to start tolling the roads, why not keep the profits instead of handing them to the private sector to make off with like bandits. An insane fantasy indeed.

Which is probably why Councillor Doug Ford agrees with Councillor Vaughan about it. Wait. What?! Get out of town! Those two guys?

“I’m glad that Councillor Vaughan is taking a page out of my playbook that I’ve been preaching for the last two years,” said the councillor and Mayor-brother, “maybe he got hit over the head over the weekend.”

For that reason alone, I now want to sell the roads to the private sector and watch as Councillor Ford slowly and inevitably realizes to his horror exactly how P3s work in the real world. Nothing comes for free. One way or another we will pay for the use of the Gardiner. I’m not sure the councillor fully understands that concept yet.

Of course, that’s not really all that constructive and might simply be cutting off my nose to spite my face. And when it comes to being spiteful, let’s leave that up to the master on the matter, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong. From Robyn Doolittle of the Toronto Star:

Public works and infrastructure chair Denzil Minnan-Wong said [Chief Planner Jennifer] Keesmaat needs to get on board with a staff recommendation to carry about $505 million of rehabilitation work over the next decade on two sections of the Gardiner.

“She’s in favour of spending the tens of millions that’s required to keep the Gardiner up while we could wait for six, seven, eight years to get an environmental assessment done, then flushing all that money down the toilet and maybe tearing the Gardiner down,” he said.

Ms. Keesmaat’s transgression? Suggesting before throwing a half billion dollars blindly at the problem of the Gardiner, how be we go back to that Environmental Assessment that we were already $3 million into before Mayor Ford came to power and Councillor Minnan-Wong took over at Public Works. You know, that one that got mysteriously shelved. The one that might’ve already been completed and on the table to give us some educated direction going forward.

If you could indict someone for disingenuous douchery, the Public Works and Infrastructure chair would be up to his eyes in legal paperwork. Unfortunately, that’s not illegal behaviour. Just terrible, destructive politics.

Not only was Ms. Keesmaat being quite reasonable in her suggestion that we think before we spend but she said out loud what road warriors like councillors Ford and Minnan-Wong refuse to accept and those like Vaughan and Carroll can only nibble around the edges of. According to Robyn Doolittle again, Toronto’s chief planner said she is opposed to spending massive sums on infrastructure focused on “moving more cars.”

That’s what this all comes down to.

The future of transportation services in this city.

Single rider, private vehicle use is the least efficient, most expensive way of moving the biggest number of people. We’ve been heavily subsidizing it for over half a century now. Now’s the time to pay the piper. That bill’s come due.

The best way to go about achieving that? I guess that’s what this current tussle is about, at least among the politicians who are looking ahead and not back. Councillor Minnan-Wong is fighting yesterday’s war and should be treated accordingly.

It’s all well and good to think that if tolls are the way to go, why don’t we just start tolling and reap the profits. But in governments’ hands, it’s always political and subject to the whim of the day. Just like Rob Ford came to power vowing to kill the Vehicle Registration Tax, it’s easy to imagine another candidate pledging to kill tolls.

So sell it smartly to the private sector and be done with it. Let those who want to drive, bitch and moan at the major investment firms and consortiums not City Hall. And if you think you’re going to avoid paying by taking another, ‘free’ route? We’ll keep that congestion fee option tucked in our back pocket.

And hey, if Councillor Vaughan is right and engaging in a P3 will kick in federal infrastructure funds and ‘regionalize the cost’ of maintenance, why not? Cities should not be solely responsible for roads that serve the greater area.

Still… there’s that nagging feeling, deep in my bones. Lost revenue. Loss of control. Enriching the private sector while draining the public purse.

But this is a conversation and decision we need to have right now and not some time after we’ve thrown half a billion dollars at a problem that will do nothing more than handcuff another generation.

— discombobulatedly submitted by Cityslikr

Taxing My Patience

Posted on December 11, 2012 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Just a quick slapdash entry after deputations on the 2013 budget wrapped up this afternoon. Hopefully it will appear entirely different from my regular slapdash efforts.

Mike Del Grande. Councillor Mike Del Grande. Budget Chief Mike Del Grande.

Mike Del Grande, Mike DelGrande, MikeDelGrande, mikedelgrande…

Despite listening to over 200 deputants, none of whom I heard demand their taxes be cut, and a litany of the usual suspect downtown lefty councillors suggesting their constituents would prefer a better city over lower taxes, our budget chief doesn’t buy any of that nonsense. People don’t like paying taxes. End of story. Let’s move on.

How does our budget chief know this? By a rigorous examination of a solid, evidence based study, OK? Voluntary repayment of the Vehicle Registration Tax back to the city. All these people, coming down to plead their case in front of the Budget Committee year after year, all the bleeding hearts the likes of Councillor Janet Davis meets in her ward, all saying they would happily pay more in tax. Well? Where are they, the budget chief wonders. Certainly not filling the city coffers out of the goodness of their hearts, let him tell you.

Now, I don’t have a car, thus don’t pay the VRT but if I did and didn’t have to pay the VRT because the Ford Administration is averse to that kind of revenue generation, the last place I would be returning that money saved is to a City Hall run by a gang of far right, anti-government ideologues. All taxes are evil, as far as the likes of Councillor Doug Ford is concerned. Yeah… sure. Here’s my rebate, Mr. Budget Chief. Please do something nice with it, OK?

Instead, I know a couple people who have diligently used the $60 they saved when renewing their car sticker and donated it to places hurt by recent city cuts – i.e. the library. So, the budget chief’s certainty that people don’t like paying taxes based on a lack of returns back to the city is based on, what do you call it, an inadequate sampling? Nonsense? Pure and utter bullshit?

On top of which, taxation really only works as a collective enterprise. Elective participation in handing over one’s hard earned cash doesn’t tend to fill the coffers like a compulsory obligation. It only fully functions if we’re all in it together, contributing. Some more, some less but none voluntarily.

I’d like to think my willingness to pay taxes is based on an absolute selflessness. That I am constitutionally more inclined to help out the ‘widows and orphans’ than our budget chief is. But that wouldn’t be entirely true.

From an unequivocally selfish perspective, I want to pay more for better transit (which I don’t depend on), for fewer people forced to live on the streets (I have a house), for free recreational programs (which I’ve never taken) because it means the lives of other people (mostly who I don’t know but share this city with) are made just a little bit better, a little more liveable, their prospects of a better life just a little brighter. Why does that matter to me? The possibility of them being able to contribute more significantly and positively will make this a better city for me to live in.

And I can’t do that single-handedly, giving back my VRT or making some other voluntary contribution to the likes of Mike Del Grande. Taxation only works en masse. Everybody pitching in what they can.

It’s disheartening that the person in charge of spending billions and billions of dollars annually either doesn’t realize it or doesn’t believe it.

— taxingly submitted by Cityslikr

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before

Posted on December 5, 2012 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

I have this recurring nightmare.

In my death throes, with no turning back from whatever it is that’s oncoming, infinite nothingness I assume, and the last thing I see, my ultimate mortal vision, a Latin verse or two I so wish I could drop in here, my final rite if I were a god fearing sort of person, the light I would not rush headlong toward is the scowling, sullen, angry face of our current budget chief, Mike Del Grande.

Widows and orphans! At the end of the day! These times we live in. These TIMES we live in. At the end of the day. Widows and orphans. At the end of the day.

The burning resentment of that relative wrapped in a slight whiff of burnt butter that even your politically radioactive father didn’t have the time of day for. I may be nuts, sonny jim, but your Uncle Mike, well, he’s, well, how do I say this nicely, more than a little crazy. No small talk from your Uncle Mike because it cuts into his time to rail at everything. And we do mean everything.

Do you know how much they want for this loaf of bread? A loaf of bread?! Some flour and water! A loaf of bread?!

Mike Del Grande should not be making any sort of important decisions about the course of this city. He is simply incapable of imagining a place that must spend some $10 billion a year to function even close to properly or fairly. Big numbers overwhelm him and confuse him. Such confusion leads to a perpetual state of surliness.

These numbers must be reduced. They do not compute. My pocket calculator cannot contain them. They do not compute. These numbers must be reduced.

In breath-taking post by Karolyn Coorsh at Town Crier Politics, there’s the following exchange between the budget chief and the city’s Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat.

Keesmaat was quite candid in describing a “honeymoon’s over” moment back in early fall, when she had to defend departmental spending line by line to Budget Chief Mike Del Grande.

…

Keesmaat held the line this year, but informed the budget chief that after a previous three years of unilateral cuts, there is no way she’d be able to squeeze or freeze again next year.

According to Keesmaat, a “hot-under-the-collar” Del Grande responded by saying it’s a pervasive problem he was seeing across departments. “He said, ‘There’s just no money and there’s no fat to trim. We have to find a source of revenue.’

“And I said, ‘Councillor, with all due respect, that’s what property taxes are. They’re a way that residents of this city pay for the services that we provide.’”

“There’s just no money and there’s no fat to trim,” the budget chief laments. “We have to find a source of revenue.”

We had a fucking source of revenue, Mr. Budget Chief! It was called the Vehicle Registration Tax. You and a majority of councillors jettisoned it back in the halcyon days of the city having a spending not a revenue problem. You froze property taxes one year and didn’t make up for the resulting revenue shortfall the next.

There are sources of revenues immediately accessible to us. Our budget chief just chooses to ignore them, pretends they don’t exist and then berates anyone who comes before him, asking to be spared the axe. ‘Show me the money,’ is his boringly predictable response. Show him the money.

When someone actually does, pointing to a proper property tax increase, the budget chief just picks a big, unnecessarily large number out of the air. 10%? Is that what you want? 10% Maybe 15. Just say it. Say it!

It would be a lot less galling if he was just honest with us and simply came right out and said that he doesn’t care about the planning department. Widows and orphans? M’eh. Free swimming lessons? Outrageous. In his day, if you couldn’t afford to learn how to swim, you just stayed clear of the water.

Instead, we get this self-pitying tone of a put upon martyr foisted reluctantly into a position in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d love to help everyone, give out a second helping of gruel to the needy, a chicken in every pot etc., etc. It’s just that, it’s just that his hands are tied, you see. A victim of circumstance and inevitability.

Three years in, the schtick is old and tiresome not to mention detrimental to the well-being of the city and its residents. Budget Chief Del Grande likes to tout how tough it is saying ‘no’. Anybody can say ‘yes’ to every request for money that comes across their desk. Only the bold stand their ground, dig in their heels and close their minds.

But if there’s no more fat to trim, as the budget chief apparently admitted, only someone bereft of imagination or spirit would continue to cut away. He just can’t seem to stop. It’s all he knows how to do.

Perhaps it’s time someone takes the knife from his hand before he inflicts any further damage. After all, we don’t expect a butcher to breathe life back into the cow.

— slice-and-dicingly submitted by Cityslikr