LORINC: Is there an app to help Ford’s leadership skills?

Is there an app that would help Mayor Rob Ford figure out the transit file?

Late Friday afternoon, the mayor’s office leaked the news that the city’s 2011 year-end surplus will be $285 million (net), which is a good deal larger than the initial projections, although somewhat south of what David Miller (and his budget chair Shelley Carroll) achieved in the final year of the previous term.

Those dollars, according to council policy, are to be placed in a fund for the purchase of replacement streetcars.

When I consider the current council’s fiscal policies, this one stands out and deserves praise, on several fronts: First, municipal governments need healthy reserve funds. Second, council’s decision to impose policy discipline on said reserves not only establishes an important precedent – earmarked transit funding; it also builds some much needed transparency into the always opaque budgeting process.

The provincial Liberals, prior to the recession, enacted a similar measure – legislation requires that any budgetary surpluses be distributed to municipalities for infrastructure – as did Paul Martin, who, in his tenure as federal finance minister, split surpluses evenly between debt reduction and targeted investments, such as post-secondary education.

But Ford’s antipathy towards streetcars burns so hot that he can’t bring himself to tout this particular accomplishment. He loved slagging Miller for failing to set aside funds for new vehicles. Yet now that the council he heads has taken an important step towards rectifying that shortcoming, what does the mayor do?

He goes out and shovels, uh, tar.

Ford’s office, in fact, spent the week obsessing about minutiae, like touting the 311 pothole app (which will do little more than crowd the transportation department’s work order queue with strident text messages) and declaring war on the senior ranks of civil service, you know, the same management team that delivered – shuffle feet, mumble, mumble – the aforementioned juicy surplus.

(They made some serious “coin,” budget chair Mike Del Grande assured us. Memo to Ford chief of staff Mark Towhey: Perhaps they deserved it.)

Ford, of course, had nothing to say about what those surplus dollars will do for drivers (take more cars off the roads). He couldn’t bring himself to move past the bitter partisanship of the March subway fight and laud Metrolinx for finally approving a gargantuan $8.4 billion plan to invest in transit for the city. He had nothing to say about the federal NDP’s motion to create a national transit strategy. Nor did he have anything constructive to contribute to the rapidly evolving debate about new regional revenue tools to help underwrite Metrolinx’s $50 billion Big Move plan, an investment strategy for which must be released by June, 2013.

After the Mighty Middle’s power nosh, Josh Matlow filed a motion calling on council to request the city manager to work with Metrolinx on developing a case for regional road tolls and a regional sales tax, as was approved in Los Angeles. “Ultimately,” Matlow says, “we want the City of Toronto to have a leading seat at the table with its partners as Metrolinx’s process moves closer to fruition.”

Civic Action’s John Tory, that well-known pinko, is also pushing this boulder up the hill, not because he loves taxes but because he recognizes that it will cost real money to solve a regional congestion crisis decades in the making. Ford, however, clearly doesn’t want a “leading seat” at the table, and isn’t interested in Tory’s coalition of the willing. All he can do is sputter petulantly: “No, no, no…”

Indeed, it was curious to watch the parallel message tracks emerging from City Hall last week. Clearly stung by suggestions that he’s run out of stuff to do merely 18 months into his mayoralty, Ford appears to have ordered his minions to conjure up the illusion of action with a series of substance-free photo ops.

By stark contrast, the Mighty Middle – Stintz, Colle, Pasternak, Matlow, et al –spent their time considering the big picture for future transit development and frankly confronting the politically tough financial decisions that will likely face all of us – drivers, transit users, and cyclists alike – in the years to come.

And so it goes: the leader who refuses to lead, ceding the policy field to those who took it upon themselves to act responsibly because, well, someone had to do it.

photo by Danielle Scott