City
City Hall Mischief - Getting what We Asked For
Is anyone else less and less surprised at what they see going on at Toronto City Hall these days?
I am not even to begin to comment on the soap opera like drama currently unfolding at City Hall this week, instead - I want to beg the question, where is David Miller?
David Miller since becoming mayor has seriously dropped the ball when it comes to many important issues affecting Toronto. I should clarify at the outset, that I did not vote for Mayor Miller in the last election - I voted for John Tory - and I somehow feel vindicated (but saddened for our sake) that David Miller has been such an incompetent handler of our city's affairs.
The latest incidents at City Hall only begin to scratch the surface of the larger issue at hand - that being - the Mayor is not a good leader. Not only has David Miller failed to "cleansweep" City Hall as he claimed he would. He has failed to address other critical issues such as gun violence and what to do with Toronto's garbage.
Instead, he successfully stopped a bridge that would have linked the island airport to the rest of the City. Oh, and I almost forgot, we have a few new trees in some of our parks, we also have water year round as opposed to seasonally in many of our public water fountains. And lets not forget, we also have the new Waterfront Revitalization Program that will begin giving our waterfront a facelift sometime this century.
Where is this Mayor's priorities - he's avoided taking leadership all year - he did not even go to visit the communities that were experiencing high rates of gun violence immediately. I recognize that visiting does not equate with solving the problem, but any decent Mayor should have showe his or her support to that community.
Instead the media has been having a frenzy with the sex and sleeze at City Hall, and Miller has been left in the dust trying to react to allegation after allegation. What were these fundamental changes that Miller brought in to ensure things like this couldn't happen any longer at City Hall? Miller has been touting himself as bringing back integrity to City Hall, but has yet to be translated into actual results.
For me, I cannot wait until the next municipal election - I'm looking forward to having a visionary, someone with big ideas, but that will actually follow through on them. I also look forward to someone who recognizes the importance of ensuring our streets are safe NOW - not 10, 20 years from now.
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Not sure if you are aware that Unions have been agressively attempting to organize all of the cities construction employees. Why? Well when this happens ANY city construction work that falls under the specific trade's collective agreement must be completed by union work. Why is this an issue?
Because an overwhelming 70% of contractors are non union (just ask Stats-Can).
And the Unions are slipping through a loop-hole in legislation that the Province has failed to deal with. Technically the city should not be forced into such agreements, because they are a "non-construction employer" that is (according to the Labour Relations Act) "a person who is not engaged in the construction industry or whose only engagement in such a business is incidental to the person’s primary business." Surely the construction completed by the city is incidental to running a Municipal Government. These rules were designed to apply to contractors, and not lock governments into costly non-sensical obligations.
I'm getting to my point...
So, now most of the tax paying business owners in the city, and their likewise tax paying employees are SOL. The city is violating the Charter by excluding indivduals based on their choice to associate, and construction costs SKYROCKET because of a limited pool of companies willing to deal with the city that have the necessary union agreements. Because of this tax payers in Toronto are losing TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars.
So what did Miller do when just recently the Iron Workers at the city filed an application for unionization? Basically, nothing.
They didn't even send a labour lawer to pleed the case to the Labour board. Atrocious. And this is a mayor that was going to clean up corruption?
Bah.
The only power the City doesn't have is to Tax - and thank goodness for that. Remember the days where the Toronto District School Board would present a budget that went into the Red and to fix the problem, the City would just raise property taxes arbitrarily??? Yeah, that was fair. School Boards had zero accountability and the City of Toronto was only too happy to make up the difference. Forget that!
Ultimately the City of Toronto has a HUGE budget to work with, with not very much oversight at all - if there was all this oversight that you are claiming, then we wouldn't have $70 Million leasing fiasco's.
I'm so glad we have yet another Miller apologist - Anyone who says a city Mayor has no power should go give Mayor Hazel McCallion of Mississauga a call.
If Toronto was a business it would be completely unsustainable. It has the power to allocate its money from an income source that responds to growth with a 5 year lag time (property-tax). That means that the city has a huge budget, yes, but in reality it should be more huge to adequately deal with the cities problems.
The province on the other hand, like the federal government, responds to growth instantly (gst, pst, income tax). They also can legally run a deficit or a surplus if they wish. Sometimes these actions are nessecary (although not always ideal). Toronto is legally forbidden to run a deficit.
Thank god, you may say. But if you were told that you could only raise money one way (and a piss poor way at that) and you were also told how to spend it. What hope would you have in this world?
For fuck's sake. Miller, Lastman, Hall, Eggleton... It's been like this for years. Do you think for a second, one person, (and budgets are made in council by the way) can change the fundemental structural flaw of our provincial government? Maybe the blessed John Tory as premier will step up to the plate.
Does anyone honestly believe that the Mayor, of what is something like the third largest government in this country, has no power? Get real!
The third largest government thing is a farce. Third largest by number of people it employs, maybe.
But can you compare the powers of the "third largest" (Ontario) to the "fourth largest" (Quebec?).
Toronto, like all municipalites in Ontario, is a ward of the state.
I am not sure how familiar you are with ENRON or Nortel - or any other private business for that matter - but when there is corruption - the leaders do fall. Do you think the CEO of Nortel or Enron "cooked the books?" Hell no, it was their accountants - Regardless - the company makes the decision to fire the people on top to ensure that this does not happen again. You're right Miller did not "hire" the person - but Miller was in power as the person in question gave promotion after promotion to someone who did not deserve.
As much as I love your "shallow" political stereotyping, I would ask you to take a step back before you say anything and ask yourself - Does this make sense?
<p>Let's remember a couple of things -- some remedial electoral politics for you.</p>
<p>1. <b>Miller won the election.</b> Tory didn't. That's because more people wanted Miller to do the things he promised to do than the things Tory promised he'd do. Let's review some of them.</p>
<p>1. <b>He stopped the bridge</b> -- which he promised to do. If he hadn't, you'd be complaining about his lack of leadership in stopping hundreds of planes from whizzing past the waterfront every day. Want to tell me it wouldn't happen? Then why is the federal government backing a plan to run trains from Union Station every 10 minutes? That's a lot of plane traffic.</p>
<p>2. He cleaned up parks and other parts of the city -- I believe you boiled it down to "the water fountains work all year-round." Well, who likes parks? Certainly not me.</p>
<p>3. He put funds back into Transit -- and was so good at it, he didn't just get them for Toronto ($1 billion), but <b>he got them for every municipality in the country</b> (Gas tax). I didn't see Tory doing that. Nope, his transit advocacy for Toronto is ... non existent. Hell, it was Harper who promised a tax rebate on transit expenditures -- way to show leadership, John Tory.</p>
<p>4. He secured a new agreement for Toronto to put it on proper fiscal ground. McGuinty's promised a new deal by the end of the year. How many years did Toronto go on knowing that property taxes couldn't fund a city our size without anyone fixing it? The fact is, Miller did it. No one else. If that's not leadership, then you don't know what leadership is.</p>
<p>I could go on. If you get your head out of the Tory Mayoralty Campaign Headquarters (which must be a lonely place these days) for a minute, you'd realize Miller's spent two years addressing issues that took decades to get this bad, managed crisis after crisis that was not of his creation with dignity and a cool head, prevented himself from being dragged into silly debates like "our streets are unsafe" while crime goes down, and built the foundation to deal with the big picture. In the meantime, he's kept his promises. Good luck finding a better Mayor. I'm telling you -- I can't wait for the next election.
Fact: Gas tax only went to municipalities that already had a significant public transit system.
Fact: Gas does not go to emerging municipalities that want to develop a new transit system.
Fact: This was a FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE.
Hilarious - great homework.
Now onto your point about the rapid transit link to pearson - Let me know when that happens - because it won't be in our lifetime - have you seen the opposition from nearly EVERY community that the rail link is going to cut through - this will not happen - Miller and the Feds will not get this pushed through anytime soon.
I am no way suggesting that I have been disappointed with EVERYTHING Miller has done - but fundamentally I think his priorities are mixed up.
In addition to stopping the bridge to the island, he promised to revitalize the waterfront - It's been 2 years - I have yet to see much revitalizing. I'm happy there is no bridge - but I was of the understanding that there was some reasoning behind it. Miller again is one step behind.
And again, who's idea was it for a new deal for Toronto - John Tory's - and I quote from his campaiign:
"Federal and provincial governments have to stop treating Toronto and other cities like geese that will just keep on laying golden eggs no matter how badly they are treated. Between 10 and 20 billion dollars more are taken out of Toronto in taxes than the city gets back in funding for programs and services. While Torontonians are committed to doing their part for nation and province building, the city has a huge physical and social deficit that must be addressed."
Hmmmmmmm Sounds alot like Miller nowadays doesn't it.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that Miller has incorporated Tory's ideas into his own vision - but please, please, do not try to pass them off as his own.
Thank you.
I do not align myself with one "wing" at any point. I have voted for all parties actually at one point in my life. I do my research to find who's ideas engage me the most. I look for integrity, vision, and a leader who will be best for my city, province, or country.
the LOL was done in all good jest - I agree, this is a great forum for debate, and no offense is intended - sometimes certain things do not translate well over cyberspace.
Thanks everyone for the feedback - it is good to see everyone so passionate about these issues - it says alot about people who care about our amazing city!
It's funny that some people spend half their time complaining that "government should be run more like a business", but when it does, they suddenly demand a higher standard. I don't think cronyism and nepotism are good things, but let's not pretend that it's unique to City Hall, or that the Mayor is somehow personally responsible for it.
<p>Two comments:</p>
<p><b>Gas Tax</b>: Yes, the federal government provided the funds, but it was Miller's leadership that organized mayors from across Canada to advocate and make it a national (and eventually election) issue. His leadership pushed Martin to commit during the federal election. Your comment about small municipalities beign short-changed is inconsistent (and a red herring), considering your other comments about Toronto's unique needs. The fact is that some of the funds were allocated per capita, which will benefit big cities like Toronto. The rest were not, and will help smaller, growing transit systems. Everybody wins.</p>
<p><b>New Deal for Cities</b>: Same song. You're right that everyone was talking new deal long before Miller was Mayor, including Miller. But he's the one closing the deal. That's leadership. Everything else was just stump speeches.</p>
<p>It's a big city, and Miller will be judged by what he did, and what he didn't do next fall. You're right that the Waterfront is dragging. My only point is that it takes time to set a city right, and I think Miller will need a couple of terms to do it. Fortunately, I think the people of Toronto will give them to him.</p>
To beg the question is to assume the truth of what one seeks to prove, in the effort to prove it. Original post used the phrase to mean "leads to the question." Why you so stoopit?
lol!!!!!!!!!
They are saying that David Miller has proven himself against tenants with his new garbage recyclying levy against poor tenants in highrises.
They also say Miller refused to renew his NDP membership in 2005.