So I decided something needed to be done to raise this to the attention to someone in a position to do something about it. I called Toronto’s 311 service in hopes that they might be able to help me figure out who to contact to make sure something was done tonight.

I have to say, service was quick. The phone literally rang once before it was answered. I started explaining the situation and the location but the potential seriousness of this issue hadn’t really hit the person on the other end. I was getting frustrated because it seems pretty clear to me that this is a problem. I was put on hold while the 311 representative got more information on how to handle this and what was playing?

And you can’t always get what you want, honey
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime, yeah,
You just might find you get what you need!

The 1969 Rolling Stone’s classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (This link will take you to a YouTube recording of a live performance)

I couldn’t help but laugh.

For any organization this is embarrassing for your customer service line, for the City of Toronto it’s a little too honest. In my particular case, not only could I not get what I want, but what I think people need – the hole properly covered with something (like a plywood board? giant piece of metal?). We see this all the time in other parts of the City when folks are leaving open trenches and holes in roads and sidewalks.

The call ended with the 311 representative asking for my name and phone number, saying she would pass it along and if they needed any more information someone would call. There was no commitment to any action being taken, or even appreciation for the issue.

So I went back, with my camera to take pictures of said hole and here they are. If you get bored, call 311 (they are open 24/7) and ask them to send someone to cover the giant hole in the sidewalk at Yonge and Harbour on the southwest corner that could end really badly if they don’t.

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Toronto Hydro owns an incompetent sister company called Toronto Hydro Energy Services that is proposing to build turbines in a part of Ontario where we all know they won’t work. Because the City of Toronto is the 100% shareholder in theory residents should be able to win this fight and keep this money making asset (this is why the City shouldn’t sell Toronto Hydro) from blowing $700 million bucks it doesn’t have on a project that doesn’t work.

Silvers however has made a good amount of money pushing a product that doesn’t work on former colleagues of his. Robert Silver (links are to his filings in the lobbyist registry) has represented the Canadian Wind Energy Association an industry lobby for the corporate welfare cases that make up the wind industry in Canada and fought so hard to have citizens rights taken away.

Joyce McLean – the Director of Strategic Services at Toronto Hydro Energy Services is the past chair of CanWEA. In fact the bottom of every email she sends shares that fact.

Toronto Hydro is a member of CanWEA (Robert Silver’s former client).

Silver has also represented the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association - an organization that founded the Green Energy Act Alliance and literally developed the framework to deprive citizens of their rights, strip municipalities of their planning controls and trample democracy to keep their financially not viable clients in business.

In fact his former boss Dalton McGuinty cited Scarborough Bluffs resident’s opposition to Toronto Hydro’s illegal application to install a wind testing device as the reason for introducing the bill Rob Silver’s clients (OSEA) wrote to take my rights and the rights of my neighbours away.

CanWEA is a member of OSEA as is the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, and the City of Toronto. The Toronto Atmospheric Fund is funding part of Toronto Hydro’s research and the City of Toronto is the 100% owner of Toronto Hydro.

Rob Silver has also represented Trillium Power – a wind farm developer with a pipe dream of putting a ridiculous amount of turbines in the east end of Lake Ontario. Trillium Power had previously been set back by the Ministry of Natural Resources ‘we-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing’ moratorium on offshore wind development in the Great Lakes. The end of that moratorium opened the door for Toronto Hydro to continue planning their project which has been under development since 2003 in some way or another.

Currently Silver is listed as the active lobbyist for Enbridge Inc. – which owns a wind farm in Ontario that is believed to be harming the health of local residents. In fact at a Liberal BBQ Silver’s former boss was hosting, that was being catered by Silver’s client Enbridge – I was threatened with arrest for organizing a protect to voice opposition to Silver’s other client (OSEA’s) Green Energy Act and it’s impact on our ability to oppose Toronto Hydro’s project that was being by the former Chair of another one of Silver’s former clients (CanWEA).

He also lobbies for the Renewable Energy Task Team which is co-chaired by Mike Crawley – President of Aim Power Gen, and the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario). Silver also lobbies for Vestas - the Danish wind turbine manufacturer in addition to lobbying for other wind energy types which can be found here.

Silver’s employment and client list has him firmly onside with the folks who are breaking down the process, denying citizens their right to participate and using pressure and influence to prevent citizen opposition from derailing projects.

In this light Toronto Hydro’s proposal is the most vulnerable as it is still in theory subject to the democratic will of folks who are at least marginally accountable to their constituents.

If I was Robert Silver I would support selling Toronto Hydro too. But as the President of Wind Concerns Ontario, and a Ward 43 resident there is no way I could support any plan to sell Toronto Hydro so long as it has a dual mandate because such a sale would harm my community and this is something folks like Rob Silver must know.

That being said, based on Rocco Rossi’s performance today I wouldn’t expect Rossi knows what Toronto Hydro is up to. His issue knowledge appeared weak when he suggested amalgamation happened in 2000 (it was 1997) or that Councillors voted themselves a pay increase this year (they decided not to vote to cancel an increase they’d passed in 2006).

Generally speaking billboards bother me. Especially illuminated ones. Anyone who is shining a light at a sign at night to light up their advertisement is wasting a whole lot of electricity and is consciously making the decision that having their advertisement viewable in the evening is more valuable than energy conservation – something I think most people recognize as being important and support.

It costs like $15 000 a month plus about $3 000 to have the ad produced and installed so we’re talking about an $18 000 investment here. If someone is spending $18 000 seeking a captive audience, I’m sure paying an additional tax isn’t going to price too many people out of the market.

Consider that a full page ad in the Globe and Mail would run the same advertiser $53 000 for a day.

Ladies and Gentlemen – little violins are in order for outdoor advertisers.

The industry lobbyist, the “Out of Home Marketing Association of Canada” is clearly the ‘WE’ we’re supposed to feel for. Sorry guys, but I wonder how out of touch you’d have to be to try and convince the 2.6 million folks who call Toronto home that a billboard tax aimed at folks that annoy us with their marketing materials is somehow something those individuals are going to have to pay and can’t afford.

The sign should read “The City’s billboard tax. Council’s first attempt to shift some tax burden off of residents” because that’s what’s happening here even if the industry doesn’t like it.

OK – so the argument I missed here and really the only possible impact anyone could claim will impact a real person is the potential that this industry will lose business, dry up or die. None of that is going to happen for as long as those billboards continue to be in high traffic spots, someone is going to pay the tax and advertise.

Regardless – let’s just say there was the potential for an adverse economic impact here… who would it affect?

If you visit the citybillboardtax.ca under contribution they don’t state how many people they employ, instead they talk about how much revenue the industry has generated for itself in Toronto last year (about $65 million) and how much revenue was generated for the City (about $36 million). They also talk about ads as being nice and part of the cultural fabric etc.

This $36 million dollars worth of revenue to the City is stable in that Astral media – the guys who bring you most of your ads on city property – so things like garbage cans, bus shelters etc signed a 20 year agreement with the City for the privilege of building our ‘street furniture’ and in exchange the City has a guaranteed stream of revenue raised off of these assets. The tax won’t change that, and even the OMAC isn’t suggesting it will. I guess they’re trying to say because the City is leasing them space essentially for one member’s ads they are doing their part as an industry?

The bottom line is these guys don’t have an argument better than ‘but we don’t wanna’ and I get that. Who wants to pass a tax on to their customers – the difference here however is their customers are generally large entities that will pay the tax because it’s still a clear win for them.

They are also running a really crappy campaign based on none of the fundamentals of a winning campaign. Like their product, it is lame, one way communication with no measurable effect or ability to engage interested parties.

I personally support the City finding ways to generate revenue that don’t involve milking existing individual and residential taxpayers  and think ideas like the billboard tax are a far fairer approach from my perspective as a resident.

So George Smitherman decided today after eHealth, OLG and the royal mess up that has been the Ministry of Energy it was time to move on to see what kind of damage he could do in Toronto.

Smitherman being Smitherman has decided to turn the office of MPP for Toronto Centre into his piggy bank while he rolls out his campaign. There is a problem with his strategy and I want to point it out before I go any further. Smitherman is planning to file in March, so five months from now.

The law is very clear – you can’t spend any money when running for office in any municipal election without first filing your nomination. It’s not like a federal or provincial election where riding associations can spend outside the actual election period to get over the limit and run a longer campaign.

Just how Smitherman plans to be declared as a candidate and not file, and still expect to do anything is beyond me. He is running for Mayor – that means events, rallies, staff, polling – all things that cost money.

I get that he would like to keep his paycheque, but that doesn’t mean he can get creative with the municipal elections act to preserve a paycheque he will no doubt not be earning as he prepares his bid.

I don’t care what party you belong to – watch this and watch it closely. How will he run and not spend a penny before he files in March? No money means no website, no flyers, no room rentals, no events, no staff.

Does anyone honestly believe he won’t spend any money running for Mayor for five months? He also can’t raise money legally either.

Beyond the fact that I think he is walking into a situation that will make him look ethically suspect at best, his media stuff today demonstrated exactly why this is a bad idea.

Smitherman demonstrated duplicity in his first interview as a candidate.

1) Smitherman criticized Council for not rolling back their cost of living increase. He is a member of a government that voted to raise their salaries by 25%, even while the government was in deficit. No vote on a rollback has been planned.

2) Smitherman attacked the Council for it’s first instinct being to tax to solve it’s financial problems. McGuinty’s government has never seen a balanced budget in over five years in office, and has added tens of billions of dollars to the debt. Smitherman has headed up the two largest ministries, each which surely have relied on deficit financing. Unlike the Province which raises the taxes of our grandchildren to solve their financial issues, the City has to balance the books at the end of the year. As far as I am concerned both deficit financing of an operating budget and tax increases are the same thing.

3) Smitherman shot at Councillors’ sense of fiscal responsibility. That’s not a statement I will dispute, but this is the pot calling the kettle black. The 2.4 billion dollar Pan Am Games is a joint venture with all three levels of government, meaning Smitherman and his friends in cabinet are responsible for enabling Toronto to blow $800 million on sixteen days of sports six years from now. His Ministry will be funding much of the province’s share, just as they funded $400 million of a $1.2 billion streetcar order of which the City is on the hook for $800 million. Those are two projects where Smitherman has enabled the drunken sailors to spend $1.6 billion.

4) On referring to the Mayor’s chair as ‘a bully pulpit’. So much for ‘post-ideological’ governence. Smitherman is proposing to scare half of Council into doing what he wants as a means of governing. I doubt members of Council are going to be up for this, and expect and hope they will vigourously oppose him on the ground as they seek re-election.

Smitherman has enemies. He has attacked a number of constituencies in the City and province and what better opportunity than an election where the guy is vulnerable to respond.

It will be a very sad day for our city if Smitherman is elected.

I encourage everyone to look at the other candidates as they emerge and consider your choices wisely.

The Province is thrilled as I’m sure many of the participating municipalities in the the GTA. I wonder how residents are feeling about it though.

I passively watch the Olympics both Summer and Winter with some interest, and not necessarily just when Canadians are in the mix. For all of its faults, there is still something to be said about the symbolism of the Olympics and the world wide scope of competition that makes it seem worthwhile – particularly when its on someone else’s dime.

With the Pan Am Games though, I’m not sold Canadians are all that into it. Can anyone name five Pan Am sports without the aid of google, or ten countries that participate in the Pan Am Games? There are a few challenges I have getting excited about Toronto’s bid and I’ll briefly explain them.

Relevance is a big one, but not necessarily the critical one. I just don’t believe the Pan Am Games are relevant to many people in the GTA, and particularly in comparison to something like the Olympics which Canada is hosting in 2010. Nationalism driven by sports for this country is mostly a hockey thing, and more broadly a winter sports thing. I’m not sold that an 11 day summer sporting event in 2015 will have the rousing impact on Canadians you’d expect 2.4 billion dollars to buy. What’s more, the Pan Am games are considerably more popular in Central and South America making Lima or Bogota seem like more natural selections for host cities for both the viewers and the potential positive impacts the games could have for Peru or Columbia.

Cost is probably my biggest objection. In 1999 when Winnipeg hosted the Pan Am Games, they had a proposed bid of $141 million dollars to get the necessary infrastructure in place to host a successful event. Those games generated a profit of $6 million dollars. The 2003 games were hosted in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic at a cost of $175 million. In 2007 Rio hosted the games, but the cost isn’t readily publicly available. The 2011 games will be hosted by Guadalajara Mexico with an expected budget of $250 million. Why will Toronto be spending $2.4 billion on something that has cost others consistently less than 10% of that.

Toronto has other desperate needs for that money. We have a serious infrastructure deficit in the TTC’s capital budget brought on by nixing a number projects in favour of buying those streetcars – a decision that saw the City spend $400 million it wasn’t expecting to in less than 24 hours. We have a $200 million dollar backlog in maintenance in our Toronto Community Housing buildings. There are a number of at risk communities that lack community centres and other recreation infrastructure for youth that could be better helped with this money. What’s more, Toronto is broke, the Province is broke and the Feds are also broke. No one actually has the money to pay for this and each level of government will be debt financing their support for the Pan Am Games.

Considering Winnipeg brought in $147 million in revenue from the games in 1999, what does the City, Province and Federal Government realistically expect the City of Toronto to bring in?

If we’ve got a pot of $2.4 billion these three levels of governments are itching to spend, invest it in Transit City, Affordable Housing, Community Centres, keeping pools open, the waterfront (remember when Lastman, Harris and Chretien announced a billion dollars for that in 2000 – how is that working out so far?). If you don’t want to do that stuff, throw it at Toronto’s debt and free the City up for interest payments. Almost anything would be a better use than this. To me hosting the Pan Am Games is a misguided money loser that should have residents mightily pissed with their governments for prioritizing this over the needs of everyday residents of our city.

I wish I could celebrate with the bid organizers who think all is great. I will say the regional cooperation concept of the games is positive if not just because it is bringing municipal governments together over big infrastructure projects, but at the same time, I would prefer to see them working together on roads, sewers, interconnected public transit and things that will actually improve their city’s and be worth the investment at the end of the days, especially when compared to a 16 day sporting event to take place six years from now in July.

The last two councils have increased taxes and spending at an totally unsustainable way and have relied on the Province for annual bailouts. I don’t dispute the Ctiy’s claim that the Province has failed to upload areas of provincial responsibility, but if one looks at how this council has responded to financial pressure – it can hardly be seen as an example of difficult leadership or tough decision making.

I don’t believe each department can or should be cut an arbitrary 5% this year and next. Doing so will hurt good and meaningful programs while leaving wasteful, misguided or otherwise unnecessary programs in 90 to 95% in place.

The annual budget has increased 1.5 billion under David Miller’s leadership. There is undoubtedly an opportunity to dig through all of this new spending and find ineffectively deployed resources. There is an opportunity to look at non core areas of spending and find significant cuts to ineffective spending while preserving program funding for well functioning and necessary resource deployment.

But before this Council attempts another ‘do as we say not as we do’ like they did with the unions during the negoiation that led to the longest strike in our City’s history – they ought to look at their own offices first.

They should cut 5% of their 53 100 office budgets, this year and next. They should cut 5% of their 200 000 staff budgets this year and next. And above all they should cut their own salaries 5% this year and next. They could also cut out the catered council meetings, the free coffee, the free zoo, golf, parking and metro passes they give themselves. While they are at it, they could cancel the city boxes at the Rogers Centre and the Air Canada Centre.

None of this spending does anything but stroke the egos of a bunch of ward bosses who find importance through these perks. Gutting these perks, and cutting back Councillor salaries, political staff salaries and councillor’s office budgets would also help them and their staff understand how difficult the current economic crisis is for many Toronto families. Cuts to their own office resources would also allow them to understand how their cuts to real programming impact the civil service as they deploy services to residents.

It seems to me only fair that these guys start with any cuts closest to themsevles and work out toward residents – who pay more than ever and are receiving less than before for it.

Who is with me?

An Ombudsman helps address systemic barriers to action within an organization. At the City of Toronto, this is an extremely important addition to an organization that is sometimes as clear as mud. One of the problems with an 8.6 billion dollar organization with thousands of employees, dozens of programs and departments and work locations is that it is easy for someone from outside that structure to get lost within it, and see their issue unresolved.

The fact that the Ombudsman is holding ‘regional’ meetings within the City to get out there so people know about the service, how to access her office and seek resolutions this way is extremely important.

I’m quite happy she will be at the Scarborough Civic Centre on Tuesday from 7 to 9PM to meet with Scarborough residents and get a sense of the situation on the ground.

All too often the experience I hear when I speak to folks who have contacted a municipal politician or sought help with a challenging aspect of service delivery from the City is one of a run around. I know from personal experience what a frustrating waste of time it can be trying to navigate contentious issues at City Hall because the mentality appears to be that it is safer for the individual on the other side of the phone, desk or computer to ‘shut down’ instead of help you to resolve whatever has brought you there.

In the absence of an army of effective Councillors to use their muscle to seek resolution on behalf of constituents an office like the office of Ombudsman is extremely important and while a very new experiment in Toronto – one I hope will be extremely successful in helping people access their government efficiently and effectively. Let’s hope she and her seven staff can make it happen.

I don’t agree with what Sandra from Toronto did. I understand that as a fervent member of Toronto City Council’s establishment on the left, she felt duty bound to defend the record of the Mayor who made her less obscure and acted on many of the things the two believe. I get that as his former Deputy Mayor, and the current City Speaker, defending Miller and attacking a possible mayoral candidate who would likely undo much of what Miller has done made sense to her. But the tactic and approach was all wrong, and even her reaction to her bizarre call in, makes the depth of her lack of judgement appear even deeper than her first appearance did.

Personally speaking, I don’t think you slug someone for trying. One thing a guy like John Tory, or anyone else who has run for public office going for them is the right to say they’ve tried to act on the convictions they hold, and for anyone to try to use electoral failure as an attempt to silence someone else to me (as someone who has failed electorally)seems like a pretty bad thing to do in a democracy. We need opposition to those who govern if we are to maintain a vibrant exchange, accountability and the ability to not get stuck in the status quo. We need incumbents to lose to ensure change for good or bad happens. That’s how our system works. When he is a candidate, hit him for what he says, positions he holds and plans he has – that’s all fine with me, but slamming a guy for holding true to his convictions and sacrificing from his own life to advance his ideas, especially considering he lost in doing so – is totally wrong. If folks of diverting opinions don’t butt heads before, during and after elections, the actual voting part is meaningless and soon so do is the governing.

As difficult as it may be for Bussin to accept, she could be the poster girl for the status quo at this point. She represents the problem with politics at City Hall. She has been a City Councillor since 1997, and given the opportunity I would ask her whether she believes her 13 years on Council have been productive in shaping the City, and the community she represents. When she said yes (as I expect she would), my follow up would be, after 13 years what do you still believe you have to contribute that you haven’t in this particular role. If she seeks re-election will 17 years be enough time to get it done? or will she need 21? or 25 years to get whatever it is she set out to do in 1997. It’s clear I don’t accept the idea of career City Councillors, but I’ll stop here on this as although I think it’s a problem, its a discussion for another time.

Before I continue condemning what Sandra from Toronto/ Councillor Bussin did, I’m going to explore how I think she could have done it better, recognizing that what she was trying to do if it wasn’t so poorly executed and haphazard could have been part of a broader political strategy of progressives to weaken John Tory.

Progressives do have an interest in painting Miller as an icon and guys like Tory as a bad, scary, failure. It makes perfect sense why they would like to do this. Let’s accept that Sandra from Toronto/ Councillor Bussin’s actions were based on furthering this legitimate attempt of the left on Council to shore up support for their next candidate and tear down what they see as the greatest threat.

If you’re Sandra Bussin and you want to roll in the mud on this – do it as Councillor Bussin, not Sandra from Toronto. Sandra from Toronto can’t make news nearly as effectively as Councillor Bussin can. She also doesn’t have the weight to frame an argument as effectively either. If Councillor Bussin decided to wish John Tory luck, to tell him that she expects he will fail and opted to blame it on how strongly his views differ from David Miller, who is probably the most brilliant municipal politician in Canada – that would make news. She could have said almost everything she did, and likely set the agenda for the ‘should John Tory run’ story that will be ongoing until he decides what to do. She couldn’t have been as rabid about it as Sandra from Toronto and been effective, but had she have calmed down before going off at the mouth, she really could have framed the issue. The frame of the story would have been Councillor Bussin takes strip off wannabee Mayor. Not Councillor Bussin screws up huge, critics question judgement in light of bizarre attack on John Tory.

Sandra from Toronto screwed up. She weakened Councillor Bussin, and damaged the ability of progressives to go after someone they will need to if they seek to control to control City Hall.

If Councillor Bussin wanted to be evasive on air, – which is wrong and should never have been done, she should have been smarter about it. My first suggestion would be not to identify by ‘Sandra’ as there is a Councillor Sandra Bussin who is publicly very much a fan of David Miller, who also happens to be from Toronto. My second suggestion would be not to split hairs on who you work for. Councillor Bussin’s income comes from the Corporation of the City of Toronto, her letterhead carries that corporation’s symbol, as does her business card. Her email address directs people to email her at the City of Toronto, and her website calls her ‘Speaker of Toronto City Council’. Yes, ideally Councillors work for their constituents, but they are still very much employed by the City of Toronto in doing so.

My final suggestion would be don’t do it because it is really stupid, dishonest and inappropriate.

I don’t agree with Councillor Bussin or Sandra from Toronto did and think what she said was poorly thought out. Her defense was even worse. This ‘give me my own show bit’ is truly crazy stuff. But at the same time, I do understand why someone with her views would want to frame an argument on the topics she attempted to. Sandra from Toronto messed it up so badly though that it not only backfired, but it got Councillor Bussin pretty good too.

My personal view on any statements I give, is that I only say things I am prepared to stand behind. For me, its just a matter of integrity and sort of a check I have on myself to ensure everything I am saying is honest, and provable. In doing so I am prepared to stake my reputation on the words that come out of my mouth (or fingers). If I were an elected official I imagine that would continue to be the same, particularly because the ability an elected official has to direct media attention on an issue.

Had Sandra from Toronto been thinking rationally and not lashing out in anger as it is clear in her voice and temperament she is, Councillor Bussin could have done a lot of good in trying to frame the argument for a progressive replacement to David Miller, but in failing to do so, she called in an airstrike on herself and left her opponent on the high road, looking down on her perplexed.

In my last post I suggested these guys are marching us toward a dangerous financial picture, and while I still agree with that statement, I honestly think the TTC needs to find a more creative solution than penalizing transit riders with yet another transit hike. They know all too well that the TTC only makes sense so long as the price point of a transit fare is reasonable to riders. This isn’t my opinion this is basic economics. The more pressure they put on the affordability of public transit, the more ridership will fall off.

What’s more, I can tell you from running for City Council in an area with many low income transit riders, that metro pass affordability is already an issue as it and rent are generally paid for at the same time of the month. Putting any upward pressure on the cost of a monthly pass would hurt the low income users who rely on them, and may force them to use more expensive fare options such as cash or tokens for the entire month.

The City has an $8.6 billion budget. They surely can find the $17 million and recognize this short fall needs to be filled in a way that matches their overarching transit strategy and doesn’t hurt transit users unfairly. They found $400 million for LRTS in less than 24 hours just two months ago to support enhancing public transit. The TTC is far more than an financial transaction. It is part of our urban planning framework and daily life in Toronto for many residents.

While I wouldn’t be shocked if the City went ahead and raised the fare, I believe it would be a serious mistake, especially right now. Bad economic times are a good opportunity to raise ridership by encouraging folks to take the TTC to work more frequently and leave the car at home. Bad economic times are even worse times to raise the cost of transit fares and hurt ridership.

No one can disagree with that point. Let’s hope the City recognizes how bad of an idea this is before they make it.