MB Toronto
Morning Brew: Rob Ford's chief of staff to step down, Toronto's private streets, Ward 9 election win called into question, Jays trade Vernon Wells, year-round patios coming to town?
Nick Kouvalis, the man who is often credited as the architect of Rob Ford's mayoral campaign, is stepping down as the mayor's chief of staff. At some point in the next few weeks, he'll transition to a role in which he spearheads the effort to privatize city garbage services. Rumours of Kouvalis's depature have been swirling for a while, but statements made by both parties yesterday showed no hint of animosity between them. Instead this is the explanation that Kouvalis offered: "It's been fun working with these guys [Rob and Doug Ford] on the campaign. I was never really supposed to be the chief of staff ... I wanted to try it and they needed someone to get them started."
The Post takes a look at private streets in Toronto, unsurprisingly paying particular attention to Wychwood Park. The gated community of some 60 odd homes north of Davenport between Bathurst and Christie contracts out snow removal and road repair with residents paying a fee commensurate with the size of their property and its street frontage. The owner of an average sized home would appear to pay about $600. So here's a question: would you absorb that cost for faster service and to avoid being left high and dry in the event of a strike?
This could be interesting. Ward 9 councillor Maria Augimeri's seat is being challenged by former rival Gus Cusimano, who lost by just 89 votes. Cusimano claims that there were problems with over 400 voting forms filled out on the day of the election, many of which weren't signed. "I've got a problem with the integrity of the system," Cusimano said. "As a candidate, as a voter, everyone expects a fair process. We live in a democratic society here. In this case, the process broke down."
The Blue Jays traded Vernon Wells to Anaheim yesterday in exchange for catcher Mike Napoli and outfielder Juan Rivera. In moving Wells the Jays lose their highest paid player, but also one of their best. But, to have any hope of signing Jose Bautista to a long term deal, they had to get rid of Wells's contract. There are conflicting reports as to whether the team will carry any of his salary post-trade.
IN BRIEF
- Year-round patios coming to Toronto?
- The pack rat at the epicentre of the Wellesley fire
- Stephen Harper meets with David Chen
Photo by Still the Oldie in the blogTO Flickr pool.
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Baseball in this town certainly has its challenges: horrible ballpark to play in, the team hasn't won since 1993 and there's a lost generation of fans from roughly 1998-2008 because of a number of circumstances which include foreign ownership (Interbrew) and, frankly, J.P. Ricciardi who decided moneyball was the answer to the Jays issues.
Toronto is a major market in baseball and Rogers certainly has the dough to fund the team. What we have here is a fantastic GM who unloaded a contract that handcuffed the team. Now that money can be spent on keeping homegrown players on the team.
In this town we lament why the Maple Leafs, and possibly the Raptors, didn't blow it all up and stick to the plan by drafting and rebuilding. Here we have a team doing it the right way (for once) and now you're going to come along and pretend like your opinion matters because I'm willing to be you're one of those people who are bandwagon jumpers. You're just waiting for the right time to "rediscover" the Jays.
Now, I will agree with you that with immigrants coming in greater numbers to Toronto makes things challenging but if you knew anything about the team you'd know that they've finally brought back the Jays Caravan and travel the entire country to spread the news about the Jays, like they did from their inception until Interbrew bought them. They're actually in Vancouver right now talking to kids across the Vancouver and BC area about Jays baseball and introducing them to the team.
So before you go making some douchebag-y shite comment read a bit about the team and what they're doing and you'll see they're still relevant in this town.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
So I voted once, could've voted twice, and can't be 100% sure of who I voted for.
Success!
She needs to go.