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Toronto City Council has a heavy agenda<\/a> [PDF] to get through at its meeting scheduled to run on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n Here are highlights of some of the more compelling issues Council will dig into (note that all headings link to PDF files):<\/p>\n 2008 Capital Budget<\/a> Union Station Revitalization framework<\/a> Office Expenses for Councillors Ford and Holyday<\/a> Donations to Community Events 2008 Interim Operating Budget Estimates<\/a> <\/p>\n Third Quarter 2007 Operating Variance<\/a> Social Housing Strategy<\/a> Partnerships with the Toronto Catholic District School Board<\/a> Financial Incentives for Economic Growth Developments<\/a> Protocol for Negotiating Section 37 Benefits Audit of TTC Accessibility Complaints<\/a> (page 9) Getting to 70% Diversion — Response to Councillors’ Motions<\/a> As always, you can go down to City Hall to take in the proceedings in person or tune in via Rogers 10 or the Rogers web cast<\/a>. Photograph courtesy <\/em>HiMY SYeD<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nThe Miller Administration has worked diligently to make the 2008 Capital program easy to support for any councillor who isn’t entrenched with the unofficial opposition by discarding silly ideas like spending on hotdog carts. But there will likely be talk of money for Exhibition Place projects like the conference centre and rain water collection. Other than that, be prepared to hear the Chicken Littles of Council tell us that the sky is falling from the City’s debt load.<\/p>\n
\nCouncil will be asked to endorse a high-level plan for the revitalization of Union Station. This will include searching for a private sector partner to help shoulder the $388.33 million in capital investment required to rehabilitate the decaying Beaux Arts gem, as well as working out deals with the federal and provincial governments. See past post on this here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThis item will spark a debate that is almost certain to degrade public office holders everywhere. Although this was brought forward by Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti<\/a> as nothing more than a personal vendetta against his old nemesis Councillor Rob Ford<\/a> (who called Mammoliti \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gino boy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at Council a few years back), the debate centres on important issues of ethics (is someone else bankrolling the councillor’s office?), fairness (will millionaire councillors be more equal than the rest?) and transparency (what is the councillor really doing?). Councillor Gord Perks<\/a> gave, by far, the best speech on this issue when it came up earlier this term. Hopefully he’ll remind his colleagues one more time that public office isn’t the exclusive domain of the wealthy.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>This one will hit a nerve with Council for the same reason the office expenses debate does: it’s every councillor’s bread and butter. I wrote about this earlier in the Council meeting cycle here<\/a>. The only thing that’s changed is Executive Committee has recommended a $5,000 limit on donations from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all sources\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for each event. I still have a rather queasy feeling about this one. This is the Council that needed two shots to get a lobbyist registrar and then cut her off at the knees by giving her a sham of a budget to work with. Instead of doing this in a two-step approach, they should have addressed the entire issue at once. Now the door is left wide open for backdoor community benefits from shady corners of Toronto like the outdoor advertising industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThe 2008 Estimates report is approving a status quo operating budget for the beginning of 2008, until a 2008 operating budget is approved at the end of Q1. However, the Budget Committee has used this opportunity to make one significant change. It has recommended increasing the budget of the Office of the Lobbyist Registrar to $711,000 to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153make it functional.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The lobbyist registry has been written about here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThis may stir some interest because the report projects a $78 million positive variance by year-end 2007 that is the result of cost containment measures<\/a> [PDF] implemented following July’s failed tax vote. Higher than expected revenues from various sources also contributed to the positive variance.<\/p>\n
\nAccording to the report headed to Council, funding for public housing from the provincial and federal governments is drying up. This report details a strategy that is mostly focused on a permanent funding stream for housing, uploading social housing costs in full and creating more friendly legislative conditions that enables more local decision-making.<\/p>\n
\nCouncillor Maria Augimeri<\/a> did a great job in the last term of Council hammering out a deal with the TCDSB that provided benefits to the children in her ward and the City. Essentially the TCDSB received access to City-run ice rinks so kids could learn to skate during off-peak hours (middle of the day) and the City was permitted to use school facilities free of charge for its summer camps. Now the City is looking to create more partnerships in a similar mould. This is city building at its best.<\/p>\n
\nCouncillor Kyle Rae<\/a> is steering through a policy that will give tax breaks to developers that build office buildings that house new jobs in Toronto. The strategy has been supported by everyone from the Toronto Board of Trade<\/a> to the Toronto & York Region Labour Council<\/a> and signifies the most concrete step the City has taken to lure employers back to the Big Smoke.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>Council attempted to deal with this last month but there were too many holes in the report so it went back to committee so they could take another stab at it. For those not in the Planning Act know, Section 37 allows the City to trade density for community benefits. It often includes a lot of behind-closed-doors wheeling and dealing between the local councillor and the developer and has left a bad taste in many people’s mouths over the years. This protocol is intended to bring a more formal and transparent approach to negotiating community benefits.<\/p>\n
\nCouncillor Karen Stintz<\/a> won support at committee to ask Council to request the Auditor General look into the money the TTC expended to fight David Lepofsky, the vision impaired lawyer who filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal over the Commission’s refusal to announce stops on all of its vehicles.<\/p>\n
\nThis report gets at some interesting and important details of the plan Council adopted in June to move to a Pay As You Throw waste disposal program that is expected to get Toronto to its target of 70% waste diversion. The report responds to a whole slew of motions that were made in June and referred for one large staff report to make recommendations on them all.<\/p>\n
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