City
Amended 2012 Toronto budget a blow to Ford's agenda
It what was a whirlwind day at City Hall yesterday, an amended version of the 2012 Toronto budget passed 39-5 shortly after 7:30 p.m while a group of protestors clashed with police outside. Although Mayor Rob Ford would later characterize the day as a victory, the big story was the reversal of many of the cuts endorsed by the executive committee heading into the city council vote.
Councillor Josh Colle led the charge with a motion to repeal cuts to community grants, public swimming pools and arena hours, youth priority centres, homeless shelters and to save about $5 million in TTC funding (amongst other things). Coming from Cole, who's mostly stayed out of the headlines in his first year in office, the move seemed to catch the mayor and his allies by surprise. Not so for his fellow councillors, who would eventually vote in favour of the motion (23-21).
Along with Colle's motion, around an additional $4 million in cuts were overturned, the money for which will come from the 2011 surplus, currently estimated at $154 million. So while Ford did manage to keep the property tax increase at 2.5% (did anyone seriously speculate about raising this?) and though there will be cuts to city staff, the general sentiment is that his agenda took a significant blow.
At a brief press conference after the budget passed, Ford argued that the appetite of left-leaning councillors to spend remained out of control, comparing it to a tidal wave and that of "food in front of a dog."
"But we fended them off," he said in a less than triumphant tone when it was all said and done. Thing is, the councillors who voted to save services probably thought the same thing about Ford and his allies. I know who I think won. How about you?
Photo by Kevin Lam in the blogTo Flickr pool
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Toronto needs a Mayor with some vision for how this city is going to deal with the major urban issues of the next decade. The grid lock of GTA roads isn't going to be solved by ripping out a few bike lanes. Transit, sustainability, growth and development are complex problems that Mayor Ford has clearly demonstrated he has no grasp of what so ever.
Thanks.
http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/decisionBodyProfile.do?function=doPrepare&;decisionBodyId=261#Meeting-2012.CC15
http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2012.EX14.1
No point in complaining about it now.
The 2.5 tax increase only covers what Ford tossed away in regard to plate tax / cancelling the transit city amounting to 125 million.
Ford will continue to respect taxpayers as his administration continues to slash services and raise taxes his remaining mandate.
As a Canadian, and life long Torontonian outside of the last 5 months being here in Melbourne. I can tell you Toronto has a long way to go with how we treat people in cars and on transit. It's not either or in this case but about making a moveable city for both sides and the tourists that visit us.
Ps be it noted ford nation if this was a federal or provincial government what happened today would be considered a vote of non confidence. You are not a majority.
Let's be clear Toronto is not out of the woods yet. We are still over a billion dollars behind in to aging sewers and other infrastructure improvements. We still have a bloated payroll at city hall. We still have costs downloaded by the province which create a large structural deficit. An since the province is broke there will be no money coming from Queens Park.
Toronto still has a lot of work to do to get out finances in order for the long term.
If you think Toronto is still is good financial health I do not know what to say to you. We've eroded over
2 Billion in reserve funds. We have a backlog of over 1 billion in infrastructure spending. Toronto has millions of dollars in unfunded liabilities on the balance sheet. We still have a massive debt we are financing and will not come close to paying off in the next decade.
I cannot believe people think we can continue to increase spending.
Pretty much every city has debt. Most Homeowners have mortgages it's the nature of investment.
http://www.care2.com/causes/toronto-mayor-losing-weight-for-charity-just-not-gay-bicycle-aids-or-library-charities.html#ixzz1jonkjxGz
http://www.thestar.com/news/cityhallpolitics/article/1117299--how-councillors-coalesced-to-defeat-mayor-rob-ford
Now that the city no longer gets a cut of the vehicle registration tax... literally the only direct money just from drivers is the 2.5 cents / litre share of the gas tax... as someone who commutes from downtown to Markham I probably put about 70 litres of gas in my car every month... so the city would get $1.75 / month or $21 / year from me.
Conclusion... unless your car is a rocket ship you are not paying $1488 per year to the city for the privilege of using city maintained roads.
Toronto will sit on its butt, doing absolutely nothing but bicker with itself, while the world tries to move ahead.
Have to be spent on which roads... provincial highways + bridges that the city doesn't pay to maintain?
Click on the "How your tax dollars work for you" link:http://www.toronto.ca/taxes/property_tax/index.htm
http://www.toronto.ca/budget2010/pdf/op2010_factsheet_howdollarworks2.pdf
Transportation Services is responsible for creating and maintaining liveable streets for all Toronto residents. The division looks after:
road and sidewalk maintenance
So if some of our property taxes fund that division and they (among other things) look after road maintenance does that not mean our property taxes pay for roads?
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1117299--how-councillors-coalesced-to-defeat-mayor-rob-ford?bn=1
Has anyone stopped to realize just how much money unions make? from almost EVERY construction project, every city worker, every union member.. it takes a cut of the money.. adding to Billions of dollars and only a small portion is ever given back. Its a better, more profitable business than all McDonalds franshises put together !