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Morning Brew: TTC Blue Ribbon Panel Announced, Coyote Attack in Pickering, Councilor Paula Fletcher Apologizes for Outburst, Proposed Oakville Power Plant Protested, Leafs Trade Ponikarovsky to Pittsburgh
The blue ribbon panel aimed at assessing problems with, and devising solutions for, customer service at the TTC has been announced. I'm impressed by the diversity, proven track records, and skill sets represented by the panel, which includes Tyson Matheson of WestJet Airlines, Matt Blackett from Spacing Magazine, along with other recruits that have ties to the student population and/or have extensive marketing experience. The panel will explore issues related to employee training and hiring criteria, the commission's complaint process, and a customer charter of rights.
People taking their dogs for walks at dusk or dawn, especially in areas on the fringes of the city or near forested areas, should be prepared to encounter coyotes - and they should be considered hungry. Yet another case of a pet being attacked (and in this case, likely eaten) has been reported in Pickering.
A public consultation session at City Hall on Monday night, pertaining to the city's 2010 operating budget, got rather out of hand when councilor Paula Fletcher let her temper get the better of her. She's since apologized for her actions. See video of her shouting match, in which she accuses a participant of being a plant from a Newstalk 1010 radio show hosted by John Tory, below.
Oakville residents don't want a power plant in their backyard. Somewhere between 500 and 1000 demonstrators showed up at Queen's Park to call for the province to cancel plans to build a 900-megawatt gas-fired plant in an area within 350m of affluent areas with residential homes and a school. McGuinty says it's safe, but they're not convinced.
Passengers traveling between Toronto and Montreal by train may see delays continue into today, after a freight train derailed yesterday afternoon. 26 cars jumped the tracks near Morrisburg, and thankfully no casualties were reported.
And the struggling Maple Leafs made one trade of note before the NHL trade deadline, sending Alexei Ponikarovsky to Pittsburgh in exchange for forward Luca Caputi and defenceman Martin Skoula. Who got the better in the deal?
Photo: "Snoww" by AshtonPal, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
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You're splitting hairs and ignoring the bigger issue
You can of course, take long vacations in Spain while garbage piles up (Kyle Ray).
The hours are long but the pay and perks are pretty good...
Why oh why are only dimwits and egomaniacs running?
It's sick that someone like that could be on Council.
A base-load power plant needs to go SOMEWHERE, and that somewhere is usually near the people who use the power (or, you can transmit power for hundreds of km and waste half of it in the process).
Get some facts before making stupid assumptions like that.
There's a mandated minimum distance between wind gerneated power sources and homes but there isn't one for natural gas.
Looks beyond your ideology and into the real world
The Oakville Petro-Canada refinery closed in 2005. What's left there is just a fuels terminal (for feeding suburbia's car fleets). The Ford plant is just an assembly facility. Not what anyone would consider heavy industry, by any stretch. But power-hungry just the same.
Also, the land literally touches the CN rail corridor, and it's quite close to the QEW and 403. If there's ANY sort of emergency, three pieces of critical infrastructure will be completely shut down. No GO, no VIA, no rail freight, no highway commute, no truck shipping.
Overall, it's a half-baked idea.
Especially:
Table 3.2
Table 7.1
Those summarize key problem organizations, including the Ford Plant.
With the looming financial crunch that is coming, no way in hell is anyone of consequence going to step forward and run for Mayor. Would anyone on this site want to run the city with the challenges facing it? Councilors need to practice saying one word: NO
Power has to come from somewhere people. Why not build it near the people that need it? Kind of like how Toronto residents do not want a garbage burner in Toronto, but it is them that make all the garbage that is trucked out of country. As long as their problem is not taken care of in their backyard, they do not care how it affects other people.