CAMPAIGN DONATIONS LIMIT
• Ontario set to limit municipal election donations [ Toronto Star ]
• Election rules tightened [ Toronto Star ]
• Province aims to limit municipal campaign donations [ Globe & Mail ]
GARBAGE CONTRACT
• City sticks to initial garbage contract [ Toronto Star ]
• Council endorses $132-million garbage contract, despite lower bid [ Globe & Mail ]
• After a city council rebellion, David Miller reasserts his authority [ National Post ]
MUNICIPAL FINANCES
• Hume: TTC warns of slashes to budget [ Toronto Star ]
• Billboard tax savings estimated at $11.1-million [ Globe & Mail ]
• Councillors’ pay-display queries too feeble … and much too late [ Toronto Star ]
OTHER NEWS
• School pool saved by lessons [ Toronto Sun ]
• Insider to design Ex hotel [ Toronto Star ]
• Council rejects compromise in street furniture dispute [ Globe & Mail ]
• Council seeking single marathon [ Toronto Star ]
• File under “too much information” [ Globe & Mail ]
• Fiorito: Transit cops get tough, but why not get real? [ Toronto Star ]
• Mammoliti proposes cutting number of councillors by half [ National Post ]
• ‘Gladstone Cowboy’ rides off into sunset [ National Post ]
5 comments
I’m glad to see that council had a backbone this week and rejected splitting the cost of the concrete pads with Astral. I’ve seen new pads installed for bus shelters where there were already adequate pads.
“Insider to design Ex hotel”
And Pantalone wants to be Mayor? Seems like Miller needs to take his broom to the Deputy’s office.
John Lorinc noted in a weekend article in the Sun that he agreed with an Audit Committee Motion recommending the Auditor General look into a Staff Report dealing with Building Trade union only restrictions in Toronto Construction Public Tendering. The point of my deputation to the Committee was that the Report, agreeing with the Mayor’s position, claimed there was only $200 Million a years in restricted tenders and the cost of union only restrictions to the City were minimal. Yet as the Capital Budgets for the City and its’ ABC’s come up for review a 5 year projection summation clearly shows that yearly restricted spending will exceed a $ Billion with $500 Million a year alone on the Spadina line extension. One of the questions Lorinc says needs to be answered by the Auditor is, has the City intentional lowballed estimates of restricted tendering? I want that question answered as well because the implication is that the facts were lowballed so that the financial impact of the Building Trades monopoly on Public Tenders would be grossly underestimated.
I am the President of the Merit OpenShop Contractors of Ontario and represent the majority of GTA contractors who are disqualified from bidding public work in Toronto paid for by our taxes. City practice is not only unfair but we believe $100 of Millions a year are being wasted. You can read our deputation on our website.
22 councillors? What kind of bone-headed idea is that?
Amalgamation already made each councillor represent more people, which means each individual is represented that much less.
Each councillor currently represents ~56,800 people, but under Mammoliti’s plan it would be ~113,600. Sounds like a failure of democracy to me.
Then again, with the advent of 311 a lot of city services don’t need to go through the ward office anymore…
Still, that plan stinks.
Kevin, it is a failure of local democracy. The more citizens represented per councillor means that the councillors are less responsive to (and less vulnerable with respect to) the needs and considerations of the particular neighborhoods in their wards. At an information session I attended about 2 years ago, Councillor Adam Vaughn made the point that given the size of their wards, councillors were now in a position to pick and chose which neighborhoods to listen to and which to ignore. We have certainly seen that in Ward 18 (where the affluent and trendy parts of the ward seem to get Councillor Giambrone’s ear).