Each week, we round up the latest news, views, and rumours from City Hall.
HEADLINES
The day the subway died
The final vote was 24-19, but that five-vote margin hardly conveys the crushing defeat Rob Ford suffered Thursday when council buried his subway plan and endorsed surface LRT on Sheppard Ave. With Toronto now committed to building a light rail network into the suburbs, the mayor’s best hope for delivering his key campaign promise is that the province will disregard the will of council and build subways instead, a long shot to say the least. Aside from the final outcome the meeting served up several entertaining side shows, including the first ever video link to the chamber floor (transit expert Prof. Eric Miller was beamed in from Peru), Ford’s allies executing a rare filibuster, and the mayor losing his cool in an angry, bizarrely repetitive speech. Subways, subways, subways!
Striiiiike!
Libraries across the city failed to open their doors Monday morning as 2,300 TPL employees walked off the job in an effort to preserve job security provisions, particularly for part-time workers. The city’s inside workers with CUPE Local 79 could be headed down the same path, as they voted 85% in favour of a strike mandate on Tuesday and they entered a legal strike position once the bargaining deadline expired. 12:01 am Saturday morning. Union president Tim Maguire says he hopes to avoid a walkout and the mandate is only insurance against the city unilaterally imposing its own contract on Local 79’s 23,000 members. Talks were ongoing Saturday afternoon.
BULLETINS
- According to a report from the Economic Development Committee, 2011 was the best year in the decade for Toronto’s film industry, which netted the city a staggering $1.13 billion in direct expenditures
- A week after dodging reporters’ questions on the subway vs. LRT issue, the TTC’s new CEO Andy Byford was forced to take a stance at Wednesday’s council meeting and threw the mayor a bone, declaring “in my professional opinion, this city needs more subways”
- Clayton Ruby’s legal application to have Ford removed from office over an alleged conflict of interest had its first day in court, and it was announced that a judge from outside Toronto will be called in to preside over the hearing, the date for which will be set on April 11
#TOPOLI DOCS
For some reason, councillors were not persuaded by this anti-LRT flyer their colleague Norm Kelly handed out in the chamber this week in an apparent effort to scare them away from backing surface rail. Not only did it contain some unnecessarily ghastly images of LRT crashes, but a picture of “Sheppard at capacity” that turned out to be Yonge Street at rush hour.
MEETINGS, MOTIONS, AND MINUTES
On Monday, the executive committee adopted a motion asking the city manager to study redrawing Toronto’s 44 Wards to “better reflect effective representation within the city.” There is scant criteria and no timeline for a report to come back, but presumably drafting new boundaries would be a messy process if it ever gets to council, as sitting councillors would do their best to ensure their electoral chances aren’t damaged by the shifting map.
COUNCILLOR OF THE WEEK
Mike Del Grande, for being the only Ford ally to put forward even a quasi-realistic way to pay for the Sheppard subway. Yes it was half-baked, and yes Del Grande later tried to withdraw it, but by proposing a parking levy at Wednesday’s council session, the staunchly anti-tax budget chief shifted the transit conversation by acknowledging that if Toronto wants expensive underground transit, we’re going to have to find ways to raise the money ourselves. Revenue tools like parking levies and road tolls will now undoubtedly be part of the debate when council next considers transit expansion.
CITY SOUND BITE
“I want to make it very clear, this decision was won by two votes.”
– Councillor Doug Ford, on council’s 24-19 decision to go with LRT
NEXT WEEK’S AGENDA
The great transit debate may have reached its denouement, but the business of running the TTC continues. On Thursday the commission will hold a town hall to consult with riders on how to run the system better, and Friday the newly minted TTC board will meet for the first time since council booted commissioners loyal to Ford and replaced them with LRT supporters.
