Thursday’s headlines

9 comments

1. Reading the water pipe piece on the Metro this morning my initial thought was to agree with the sentiment that it was, as someone put it, subsidised home improvements.

   Reading the Post piece later I thought about the impact on our water system of 65,000 people running their systems for five minutes, and the sort of things that Public Health has declared worthy of Toronto taxpayers funds that are arguably less important than lead poisoning and suddenly it seems not so bad.

   I think the City should offer some help (interest free loans sounds too complicated – a direct grant like the Ontario and Canada energy schemes should be sufficient) in order to end water waste and leaching of lead from the pipes into our sewer system and thus into Lake Ontario.

2. I cannot stand Minnan-Wong. The guy is nothing but a shit disturber. He could care less about the city, yet residents in his ward still elect him. I don’t get it.
   Him, and Rob Ford are a cancer on the council.

3. Re: “What’s with the urban planning in Clarkson?”

   Someone should break the news to the National Post’s correspondent that Streetsville is nowhere near Clarkson, nor is it on the lakeshore.

   Port Credit, maybe.

4. Justin

   Stopped clocks are correct twice a day. You just have to be very patient to see happen is all 🙂

5. Yeah, he is thinking about Port Credit, near my old stomping grounds.

   Which, incidentally, does have one of those car-oriented plazas where you’re driving to everything (built in the 90s on the old Texaco land west of Mississauga Road), complete with one of those damn Loblaw’s stores way at the back.

6. Maybe some day the City will install the 70,000 meters that will replace the flat rates. That would bring in revenue day 1.

7. the water supply issue is a hot one.I have seen homeowners watch the city dig up their yard to install new line up to the property line and then the “private city contractor” would ask a fortune to continue the few more feet into the house.I saw quotes as high as $3000 to put a pipe less than 8 feet from the house.Of course the owners declined the “offer” so a piece of lead pipe just a few feet long remains.Couldn’t the city just allow the contractor to finish the job and solve the problem.We probably paid for the full job anyway.
   I must say though that if you are a personal friend of a councillor you can get the new 3/4″ pipe installed right to the house.I witnessed this on my street, in fact it was one of the few houses that got a new line almost as soon as the owner moved in.Talk about service.I guess I better start making friends with Joe Pantalone so that I could get that special service done.Hmmmmmm

8. scott the big reason the city isn’t rushing to install new water meters is that many residences that have flat rate belong to single resident families or units that use very little water.The city actually makes more money on flat rate.In fact toronto hydro started realizing that ever since they changed the billing system and people started realizing how much hydro they really use customers have used less power.Problem hydro realized that conservation was bad for the bottom line.Smart meters in some cities are now being removed because people did change their habits to pay less.Go figure.In fact if the city sees that you use less with a flat rate connection they will make sure you will stay on a waiting list.

9. Re: “What’s with the urban planning in Clarkson?”

   Not sure honestly why the columnist thinks this is news worthy. This is exactly the same sort of nonsense urban design you will see in Woodbridge, Maple, Kitchener-Waterloo, Pickering-Ajax, Whitby, Oshawa, etc…

   However, dont be surprised if the residents flip out with joy when the news comes through that another big-box retail park abomination is being built. seems that the farther away you get from a major city the more people actually want this stuff. O.o