{"id":2156,"date":"2007-08-03T13:51:47","date_gmt":"2007-08-03T17:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2156"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:18:22","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:18:22","slug":"dale-duncan-at-city-hall-august-3rd-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/08\/03\/dale-duncan-at-city-hall-august-3rd-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Duncan at City Hall: August 3rd, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Won’t somebody think of the rich?<\/h3>\n

If there’s one thing Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby’s constituents can count on, it’s that she’s always willing to fight for their best interests, even if it means standing up to Mayor David Miller and the gang. In the spring, she selflessly campaigned for her Etobicoke residents’ rights to use leaf blowers: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not all homeowners care for postage stamp-sized lawns,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she told the Licensing and Standards Committee. More recently, the Executive Committee member has decided that the suggested \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revenue tools,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as proposed, aren’t such a good idea. The land transfer tax, in particular, will hit those buying $800,000-plus homes particularly hard, Lindsay Luby says, and she has asked staff to look into how this particular portion of Toronto’s population — those all-too-easy-to-ignore well-off homebuyers — would be affected.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Lindsay Luby is advocating that the proposed land transfer tax be limited to 1 per cent of a home’s price tag regardless of the cost (instead of a 1.5 per cent tax on homes over $250,000 and a 2 per cent tax on homes over $400,000). This, of course, would reduce by half the revenue the city expects to receive from the new taxes — which, at a projected $356 million, isn’t enough to cover Toronto’s $575 million shortfall anyway.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the not-so-quick-thinking councillor isn’t championing another income-generating or budget-reducing idea to make up for the financial shortfall that would result. The city will have to find over half a billion dollars somehow, but we can worry about that later, I suppose.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it’s that Lindsay Luby’s constituents, over a quarter of whom make over $100,000 a year, won’t mind if services, such as those provided by the Toronto Public Library (TPL), are cut. On July 25, heeding Miller’s call to decrease spending, TPL approved $1.23 million in cutbacks, which included staff freezes, discontinuing Sunday service and a $330,000 cut to the materials budget. Really, who needs libraries when you’ve got Chapters and Indigo?<\/p>\n

Transparency troopers<\/h3>\n

Team Denzil Minnan-Wong and Karen Stintz are at it again. The duo’s latest project: providing Torontonians with better access to the goings-on at city hall. The councillors have started a website \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dedicated to trying to pierce the veil of local government\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by tracking the voting records of councillors. But why settle for simply being transparent when you can also editorialize? The land transfer and vehicle registration taxes are referred to as a tax grab, while Theatre Passe Muraille is dubbed a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153money losing theatre.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Politics aside, at least the anti-Miller advocates are making an effort to provide information that the city makes it difficult to find, and they’re paying for it out of their own office budgets, too! What will Rob Ford say?<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

Every Thursday, Spacing’s Dale Duncan contributes a column<\/a> on City Hall for Eye Weekly. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Won’t somebody think of the rich? If there’s one thing Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby’s constituents can count on, it’s that she’s always willing to fight for their best interests, even if it means standing up to Mayor David Miller and the gang. In the spring, she selflessly campaigned for her Etobicoke residents’ rights to useContinue reading “Dale Duncan at City Hall: August 3rd, 2007”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21759,15,2],"tags":[331,35,425,4550,5134,423,722,1254,1969,6366,5257,426,6368,22085,227,6369,6367,19,4322,391],"class_list":["post-2156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-media","category-politics","tag-dale-duncan","tag-dale-duncan-columns","tag-david-miller","tag-denzil-minnan-wong","tag-executive-committee","tag-eye-weekly","tag-gloria-lindsay-luby","tag-indigo","tag-karen-stintz","tag-licensing-and-standards-committee","tag-lindsay-luby","tag-mayor","tag-not-so-quick-thinking-councillor","tag-politics","tag-rob-ford","tag-suggested-aeoerevenue-tools","tag-thing-councillor","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-public-library","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDale Duncan at City Hall: August 3rd, 2007 - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/08\/03\/dale-duncan-at-city-hall-august-3rd-2007\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dale Duncan at City Hall: August 3rd, 2007 - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Won’t somebody think of the rich? 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