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2005: The year in review

Rating: NNNNN


1 Scarborough pol Mike Del Grande gets the award for the ugliest display of bigotry for moaning that “a lot of the white people are moving out” of his riding because of an influx of Chinese immigrants. Not this loudmouth’s first racially charged misstep — and he’s in public office?

2 Downtown councillor Kyle Rae makes our shooting gallery for the worst sellout of public transit . The gadfly proposed turning the TTC over to the province to be absorbed into a regional transit authority. Money-saver for the city, to be sure, but also a sure path to deteriorating service.

3 Mel Lastman’s former budget chief, David Shiner , makes this losers list for the best example of shortsightedness . He opposed a plan to install an energy-saving windmill on a condo in his ward. Visionary.

4 The AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) gets a lump of coal in its stocking for the most unfortunate display of religious insensitivity . ACT’s Fashion Cares fundraiser for AIDS is an annual highlight, but when it appropriated Hindu religious symbols in its Bollywood Hollywood promo, complete with blond, blue-eyed models, progressive ACT should have known it was setting off alarm bells.

5 The Toronto Port Authority ‘s (TPA) mishandling of the Island Airport file grabs headlines, but missing the deadline for construction of the ferry terminal — a tent was set up to handle passengers from Rochester — puts it on the list for biggest development botch . An embarrassment for “the city that works.”

6 Mayoral wannabe Jane Pitfield makes our wall of shame for the most ill-conceived transit plan . She wants to cut a path through popular Crothers Woods in the Don Valley for a bus route that could easily be accommodated on the DVP.

7 City bureaucrats do a lot of crazy things with our hard-earned cash when nobody’s watching. They make our list for the most maddening waste of taxpayers money : blowing $3.1 million on rental cars and trucks on weekends while available city-owned hybrid vehicles sat idle. Shame.

8 Scarborough councillor Shelley Carroll can be forgiven for being a bit eccentric, but not for her proposal to “tranquilize, fix and release” raccoons and skunks tearing up rooftops in her riding. It gets our award for most over-the-top proposal of the year .

9 The Anglican archdiocese has a proud history in this city, only you’d never have known it when it moved this year to evict the congregation and Kensington’s Out of the Cold Program from St. Stephen’s Church. We’re still holding out hope the city will step in and save the church from development, but until then the archdiocese is on our list for most cold-hearted eviction .

10 No list would be complete without a shot at city council , which makes our list for taking the easy way out by agreeing to another TTC fare hike for an already beleaguered ridership when a modest property tax hike would have footed the bill.

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