Posts Tagged ‘2010 Municipal Election’
Twenty Two Down, Two Hundred and Fifty Nine to Go! The Conversation is Just Beginning
It had a great day connecting with my neighbours in Ward 43 today. Although it was cold, the sun was out, and many people were quite willing to talk about how we can change direction and turn the page together in the upcoming term on Council. For much of the day I was talking with Guildwood residents about Toronto Hydro’s wind turbine proposal, and what we’ll need to do to stop their irresponsible plan from damaging the environment or our community. We need to protect our green space and natural environments. There is an overall disappointment with a lack of local leadership from our Councillor, his antics at City Hall and more broadly, the actions of City Hall in general.
Making the decision to run for public office isn’t an easy one, not matter what anyone says. What makes being a candidate so rewarding, is the ability to work on solutions with residents, offer something different, and solutions that will improve the community we each call home. If we continue to work together, and build a vision we can pursue over the coming months, we’ll then have four years to see action on our priorities and truly turn the page for our community.
I am humbled by the response I’ve received so far and motivated that much more to press on over the coming months in hopes that the community can unify behind the only candidate in the race whose got a plan to improve our community moving forward.
We have a long way to go, and it’s going to take the help of many if we’re going to succeed. I want to hear your thoughts, and ideas so please feel free to write me.
Our campaign can only be successful with the financial support of those who believe in what we’re trying to achieve.
Would you like to comment? Please feel free to visit the Contact page on my site and contact me. Click subscribe if you would like to receive daily updates from http://laforet.ca in your inbox.
No Comments »Some Toronto Councillors Use of 'My' Irritates Me
This post was sparked by Councillor Giambrone’s email to Councillor Palacio, who represents the other half of the Federal and Provincial Davenport riding, but speaks to an issue far greater than a silly turf war between two men.
Ok – Here is a brief rundown of what happened.
Adam Giambrone is the Councillor for Ward 18, which is the southern portion of the riding of Davenport just west of the downtown core. The area has a very large Portuguese community. The President of the Regional Government of the Azores (a small autonomous archipelago that is part of Portugal) was coming to Toronto and the Portuguese community wanted to hold an event in recognition of this. They also wanted an liquor license for the event. So far, it sounds pretty reasonable right?
So members of the Portuguese community contacted Councillor Palacio, himself Portuguese, and the Councillor neighbouring the ward where the event would be held for his help.
That seems to have upset Councillor Giambrone who sent the following email to Councillor Palacio
“Stop messing in my ward or there will be problems. I generally ignore your actions, but I am going to start looking for ways to cause trouble for you and when I start you’re not going to appreciate it.”
Ward 18, is essentially Davenport South, Ward 17 (where Palacio is elected) is essentially Davenport North. They are separated by Dupont, meaning based on Giambrone’s logic, Palacio can do whatever he wants on the north side of Dupont, but needs to stay out of all affairs on the south side of the street. It’s a pretty ridiculous and arbitrary logic.
The use of ‘my’ in politics is something that I always kind of watch, because in many ways how one uses ‘my’ as an elected official represents the outlook they bring to both their role and that of members of the community.
Ward 18 is not Adam Giambrone’s ward. In 2010 I expect he’ll have a handful of challengers, and like all who seek public office, even those who win, will have thousands of folks who vote against him. Ward 18 is the ward he represents, he is Ward 18′s Councillor, but Ward 18 isn’t his. The point I’m trying to make is the Councillor belongs to the Ward, not the Ward to the Councillor.
It irks me when a Councillor or any elected official uses the phrase ‘my’ to refer to political boundaries or the people who live within the area. To me it seems like a subtle recognition that the individual who is speaking doesn’t necessary understand the relationship between a community and it’s elected official, at least as I see it, or their broader role as one of 45 people tasked with managing the City of Toronto.
Communities are important, so is the role of the public in decision making. To me at least, it seems like the best elected officials are the ones who recognize that they’ve been hired by members of a community to act as their voice, to use the tools they’ve been granted to work on the issues of concern to members of that community, while those who live in the community provide guidance and perspective on matters that reflect significant departures or change from the status quo. My general view on government is that the representative needs to represent the community to the level of government and not take the ‘trust us, we know best’ approach to governing. Far too often, elected officials find it easier to stand with bureaucrats, political parties, and others against those who elected them, relying on the fact that powerful friends remember good deeds longer and can reward them better than members of the community remember bad representation, which is now so common folks just tend to expect it. Call me cynical, but look at the donors lists and voting records of many elected officials and tell me you don’t see a pattern.
Giambrone’s over reaction to a fellow councillor trying to help out a community he has clear ties to with something that is void of any political agenda to me seems ridiculous. I loathe the kinds of politicians who refuse to help folks or listen to folks because they don’t live in their ward, and what Giambrone has done appears to be to try and convince a member of Council that the ‘focus on your ward and forget about everyone else’ feeds into that. I don’t even have words for the attempt to bully and intimidate a fellow member of Council and think it is great that Councillor Palacio has made this email public. He was also right to file a complaint with the Integrity Commissioner in my view.
Without getting into electoral reform, I would like to point out that under the 1997 election rules when each ward was the size of a federal and provincial riding and had two representatives, Councillor Palacio’s actions would have been completely OK and in general one of the biggest flaws with the single member constituency concept is it leaves residents who are on the opposite side of an issue with their elected officials, without a voice and with politicians who they gave a mandate to represent them, with the power to in effect silence members of the community.
Why Giambrone even cares who gets to help the community get a liquor license to me seems odd. I would be willing to bet no one in Ward 18 will or
will not vote for him would or would not have voted for him based on whether he or another Councillor helped get the license. I doubt the community frankly cared, they just want the license, and figured Palacio, a fellow member of their community, probably would be more motivated to work on it, in effect letting Giambrone off the hook.
What this amounted to is silly ward politics, over a complete non issue. But what it has become probably will hurt Councillor Giambrone’s otherwise shining star and could see a minor backlash against him from folks who see his actions as inappropriate and indicative of a kind of politics they’d rather not support.
At the end of the day constituents who seek out help are after one thing. It’s always very transparent, they’re looking for help with whatever their problem or issue is. They necessarily don’t care about the next election when they initially reach out to an elected official, or the politics of City Hall. They just want help resolving whatever issue they have been unable to. That being said, like all individuals who come away from a situation no better off then they were before, voters have a tendency to look for others options. Like each of us whose changed a service provider over bad service, voters change representatives for the same reason.
If Councillors focused less on the politics of elections to come, and more on the needs of those who’ve hired them, faith in government would be considerably higher, residents in all wards would be better served, and the ‘ward boss’ mentality that is often seen around City Hall would be unnecessary.
Councillors would probably still win re-election at the same rates they currently do; well the good ones at least. The difference would be that they would be winning through with votes from an informed, engaged and well served electorate, not the 30-35% who isn’t so frustrated they’ve given up on municipal politics as even being relevant and opted not to exercise their right and responsibility to vote.
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