{"id":2940,"date":"2008-03-31T13:25:30","date_gmt":"2008-03-31T18:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:37:32","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:37:32","slug":"city-council-bits-and-bites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council Bits and Bites"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Council’s smallest member<\/strong><\/p>\n

This morning,\u00a0Council’s speaker, Councillor Sandra Bussin<\/a>, ordered Councillor Rob Ford to retract and apologize for his racist comments regarding people of Asian decent.<\/p>\n

Councillor Ford willingly retracted his statements<\/a> but refused to apologize. In an attempt to get out of apologizing, Councillor Ford challenged the ruling of the speaker that required the apology, forcing a vote on whether or not he should apologize. Councillor Ford lost the vote with eight councillors supporting his protest.<\/p>\n

Once Council had voted, Councillor Ford stood and, in barely a whisper, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sorry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and quickly sat down.<\/p>\n

The hollow apology sounded and\u00a0looked like an unremorseful eight year old in a suit.<\/p>\n

City includes cycling in strike contingency plans<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spacing Toronto<\/em> readers pointed out that the proposed TTC strike contingency plan considered by Council at its special meeting this afternoon didn’t include any mention of an enhanced bicycle network.<\/p>\n

Mayor David Miller<\/a> noted this, too, and\u00a0said earlier today\u00a0that during the last TTC strike he was concerned by the thousands of Torontonians cycling in mixed traffic. To right this, the Mayor had staff pull together an amendment to the plan that would assist those cycling into the core.<\/p>\n

Cyclists will now be able to rely on Dundas (gaps in the bicycle lanes at the eastern portion of the street will be filled in), Queen’s Quay and Bay.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ford attempts to filibuster<\/strong><\/p>\n

It used to be that Council would debate every program in the City budget (solid waste, emergency services, culture, etc.). Then, for reasons I still don’t quite understand, during the last Council term, the opposition bloc (led by Councillor David Shiner<\/a>, if I remember correctly)\u00a0proposed streamlining the debate process, which the progressives were happy to support. This means that instead of having 5 minutes to ask questions and 5 minutes (plus an extension) to speak to and move motions on each program, councillors would have 5 minutes to question, then up to 5 minutes (plus the extension) to speak to the entire budget<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Basically, this cut 1.5 days of debate and forced councillors to take a more global look at the budget, while only offering a small handful of amendments (instead of a small handful of amendments to each program of the budget). The person this hit the hardest was Councillor Ford, who used to place\u00a0more than two dozen\u00a0frivilous motions to cut a few dollars here or there. In the new process,\u00a0Councillor Ford\u00a0only has time to get out-voted on half a dozen to a dozen ill-conceived motions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This morning, at the beginning of the budget debate, Councillor Ford rose with a procedural amendment. He wanted to unbundled the budget and debate it line by line like they used to.<\/p>\n

I guess in his time of crises, Councillor Ford needed to demonstrate that he’s still doing something (anything) to a constituency that must be getting tired of watching the three-term Etobicoke councillor continuously make a fool of himself.<\/p>\n

As usual, Ford didn’t find nearly enough support on Council for this, with many of the opposition councillors even going against him on this one.<\/p>\n

Pink Flamingos Against Earth Hour<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you were walking on the eastern side of City Hall on Saturday evening during Earth Hour, you may have noticed a fluorescent pink flamingo lighting up the window of a second-floor office.<\/p>\n

That office belongs to Councillor Howard Moscoe<\/a>. While\u00a0Council’s\u00a0chief prankster\u00a0routinely turns off all of his office\u00a0lights (unlike a few councillors), the pink flamingo stays on.<\/p>\n

Councillor Moscoe’s history with the bird dates back to a gift from his grandchildren. Unfortunately, as the Councillor says with his tongue in his cheek,\u00a0the gift\u00a0gave others\u00a0the impression he likes Flamingos. Thus,\u00a0Councillor Moscoe\u00a0was ahead of the fashion curve on pink ties.<\/p>\n

Photo by <\/em>jnicholl81<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Council’s smallest member This morning,\u00a0Council’s speaker, Councillor Sandra Bussin, ordered Councillor Rob Ford to retract and apologize for his racist comments regarding people of Asian decent. Councillor Ford willingly retracted his statements but refused to apologize. In an attempt to get out of apologizing, Councillor Ford challenged the ruling of the speaker that requiredContinue reading “City Council Bits and Bites”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4037,"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":[7,13,2,8],"tags":[8546,2211,408,425,2725,23,8545,330,426,22085,316,227,3994,2390,19],"class_list":["post-2940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-green-space","category-politics","category-transit","tag-bicycle-network","tag-chief","tag-councillor","tag-david-miller","tag-david-shiner","tag-environment","tag-etobicoke-councillor","tag-howard-moscoe","tag-mayor","tag-politics","tag-queen","tag-rob-ford","tag-sandra-bussin","tag-speaker","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCity Council Bits and Bites - 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\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"City Council Bits and Bites - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 Council’s smallest member This morning,\u00a0Council’s speaker, Councillor Sandra Bussin, ordered Councillor Rob Ford to retract and apologize for his racist comments regarding people of Asian decent. Councillor Ford willingly retracted his statements but refused to apologize. In an attempt to get out of apologizing, Councillor Ford challenged the ruling of the speaker that requiredContinue reading "City Council Bits and Bites"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-31T18:25:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T18:37:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/\",\"name\":\"City Council Bits and Bites - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-03-31T18:25:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-21T18:37:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/da656cba8e02a7aabb6c80c549dc7e72\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"City Council Bits and Bites\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/da656cba8e02a7aabb6c80c549dc7e72\",\"name\":\"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/73c02741f456d391a6979ebe8b8a600f?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/73c02741f456d391a6979ebe8b8a600f?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/wire\/?author=37\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/adam\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"City Council Bits and Bites - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"City Council Bits and Bites - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"\u00a0 Council’s smallest member This morning,\u00a0Council’s speaker, Councillor Sandra Bussin, ordered Councillor Rob Ford to retract and apologize for his racist comments regarding people of Asian decent. Councillor Ford willingly retracted his statements but refused to apologize. In an attempt to get out of apologizing, Councillor Ford challenged the ruling of the speaker that requiredContinue reading \"City Council Bits and Bites\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Toronto","article_published_time":"2008-03-31T18:25:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-21T18:37:32+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/","name":"City Council Bits and Bites - Spacing Toronto","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0","datePublished":"2008-03-31T18:25:30+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-21T18:37:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/da656cba8e02a7aabb6c80c549dc7e72"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1047\/543085677_395159a659.jpg?v=0"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/03\/31\/city-council-bits-and-bites\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"City Council Bits and Bites"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/","name":"Spacing Toronto","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/da656cba8e02a7aabb6c80c549dc7e72","name":"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/73c02741f456d391a6979ebe8b8a600f?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/73c02741f456d391a6979ebe8b8a600f?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/spacing.ca\/wire\/?author=37"],"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/adam\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4037"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37183,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions\/37183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}