That Rob Ford. either he’s crazy like a fox or just plain crazy.
Has there been a worse first few days of a civic administration in Hogtown in recent memory?
That was one real head-scratcher of a budget Monday, January 10, raiding David Miller’s surplus to “balance” the bottom line, which is actually $68 million more than last year.
That was followed by another explosion – namely, a massive flip-flop on the TTC fare increase proposed just 24 hours earlier. Somehow the $24 mil magically appeared overnight. Conspiracy theories abound at City Hall about the timing of the latter. Did the mayor set it up to make himself look good? Ha, good one. Is he really that smart?
No. The bureaucracy is in revolt – see city manager Joe Pennachetti’s missive to the fine men and women of the public service that surfaced before the budget Friday.
Ford is quickly discovering that being mayor is a lot more complicated than ruling by decree.
I have to believe he’s taking some lesson from this week from hell because I don’t want to contemplate the alternative: that he doesn’t have a fuckin’ clue what he’s doing.
I mean, make $64 million-dollar budget decisions (like doing away with the vehicle registration tax) without all the numbers and you’re bound to have a train wreck, right?
Not an impressive start for El Fordo. It’s early days yet, but all the damage control makes you wonder. Where’s the method to his madness? (Cue scene of a sweaty Ford lying in a hotel room in Saigon, fan whirring overhead.)
He seems lost in his own headspace.
It’s on the police file that the infuriating illogic has been most in evidence.
During the election he promised to hire 100 more cops. Then he backtracked. Either he didn’t understand the financial ramifications or he never intended to follow through.
The mayor met with police Chief Bill Blair Monday afternoon. Blair has been under the gun for coming in with a 3 per cent increase for 2011.
The papers report that the chief was “summoned” to the mayor’s office – called on the carpet, if you will. The timing of the photo op couldn’t have been better for Ford. It at least made it look like he was exerting some control on a budget process quickly getting away from him.
But the meeting was actually scheduled weeks before and just happened to fall on budget day. Ford and Blair emerged from their first face-to-face with a new “understanding,” or so we’re told. Later in the day, the chief would drop the force’s budget request to $905.9 million from $914.9 million.
The kicker: he’ll have to put off the hiring of some 200 more cops to replace those who will be retiring this year to do it. We’ll soon be hearing from the police union about that.
Ford’s newly minted Police Services Board vice-chair, Scarborough Councillor Michael Thompson, pesky at the first meeting of the board on the budget, was softening by late Tuesday on the mayor’s request for a 5 per cent cut.
“Taxpayers just want to know with some degree of certainty that we have done the best we can to find savings,” he says. “If we’re not able to meet 5 per cent, then….” The spin continues.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
