Fire Sue-Ann Levy

I haven't been keeping up very well with this blog for a few reasons.  Mostly due to laziness, but, another big reason, is because I have been following a few other blogs quite closely and anything I want to write about is usually, already covered by them and they do a much better job, so the three of you that read this blog intermittently, should be reading All Fired Up in The Big Smoke and Ford For Toronto.

One of the reasons I started this blog, is because I really feel that the media in this city let us all down during the election.  They should have been harping on Rob Ford's lack of a plan for the city at every possible opportunity.  Sure, the Star tried the "Anyone but Ford" campaign, but, it was already too late.  With help from the three candidates declaring our city a giant flaming garbage pit of out of control government spending at every turn, popular opinion shifted right enough to allow Rob Ford to win the election.  I started this blog, because, I didn't see many people making the argument against this idea.
"Fire Sue-Ann Levy" will focus on journalism that I find lacking.  Although, I definitely believe in the sentiment of the title, I must point out that I took the name from the great sports blog Fire Joe Morgan, rather than out of some sort of crusade to get anyone fired. Also, before you get your hopes up I will not be nearly as funny, or as "meta" as Ken Tremendous.

The first article that gets my attention is one by Sue-Ann's editor, Rob Granatstein from Sunday's Sun.
One of the ironic things about the whole Transit City vs Subways debate is that it has become a right vs left issue in this city in a way that doesn't really fit into the usual mould of right vs left debates.  In a different political climate the positions taken by each side could very well be reversed.  Subways are, obviously not an inherently right wing issue.  It could also be argued that the Transit City plan is the exact kind of compromise that a traditional fiscal conservative would make.  The ideal "respect for taxpayers" version of Rob Ford that his supporters believe in should be raging against the insanity of increasing the cost of one project (burying Eglinton) and unilaterally assuming $4.2 billion in costs to build a subway, when the money was already there for a similar service.  Not only did our "champion of the little guy" mayor agree to take on a huge, unnecessary financial load, but, he completely left the most at need area of the city without access to rapid transit.

Granatstein's article not only praises Rob Ford for "making the right call by getting the Eglinton line going," it makes no mention of the extra incurred costs of burying the Eglinton LRT and no mention of Finch at all.

After the Finch omission, the article actually does a pretty decent job of explaining some of the other problems with Ford's plan.  Ford expects to raise money ($4.2 billion) through selling development rights along the Sheppard line.  Citing numbers for the whole city from the building boom over the last two years, Granatstein's breakdown of how Ford expects to pay for the Sheppard Subway shows what an albatross this whole plan could end up being:

According to City of Toronto figures, all that construction has pulled in development fees worth $85 million in 2008, $44 million in 2009, and about $90 million in 2010. That’s $219 million. For the entire city.

He also mentions that the people that live near these imaginary condos might not want them there.  The problem is that, Granatstein continues to give credit to Ford for "doing the Eglinton line," but, totally ignores the fact that Ford's only contribution to Eglinton was to increase the cost by burying it, in fact Ford's ridiculous "Transportation plan" from his website shows that he doesn't want to "do the Eglinton line."  If anyone should be getting credit for the Eglinton line, it is Dalton McGuinty.

Symbolic Governance

This post was originally titled "Does Rob Ford believe his own bullshit?"  I was going to write about all the promises Ford had made during the election, and how none of them really meant anything, but, they sounded good.  100 new cops, subways over streetcars, getting rid of the VRT and land transfer tax, cutting the amount of councillors in half, making the TTC an essential service, zero percent tax increase, the city has a spending problem not a revenue problem... etc.  Obviously, when I say they don't mean anything, I don't mean that Rob Ford was lying when he said he would do these things.  I believe he intends to do everything on his list.  By meaningless, I mean, the money he has saved in items like getting rid of sandwiches at city hall and cutting councillors' budgets save the city negligible amounts of money, and in the case of the councillors' budgets may hinder the ability of our councillors to do their jobs properly.   For people who think of government as an important aspect of our lives, rather than the burden that keeps us all from achieving all of our financial dreams, adequately funding our government representatives is important.  For our millionaire mayor, (who obviously never felt the pinch as a councillor, having spent his own money (tax refund) instead of his budget,) this is a victory for small government and thus, the taxpayer.  We could go through every one of these issues and quite easily see that there is not really much substance there.  

Maybe, I'm late on this, but, I'm starting to understand that maybe that is the whole point.  During the debate on the TCHC last night, the pro-Ford councillors kept re-iterating that the board of the TCHC was probably not responsible for the waste there, and could, eventually, be voted in again, but, they needed to resign now.  When asked why she had to resign, they said. "Symbolism."  Because, when people read the newspaper, people who were not at the meetings, and maybe don't even really have a dog in the fight, will see that "Rob Ford" (and council) cleaned house and be happy that something was done.  It's the same reason, the budget committee rejected a recommendation to raise taxes by just $3.5 million to avoid having to make any cuts, but, an increase of .155% does not look as good in the Sun as 0% does.

Basically, the mayor's governing using "truthiness" and "gut feeling"

The mushy middle

Outsourcing Government Responsibility

Rob Ford and his cadre of conservative councilors (C³) recently held a press conference announcing that they will be privatizing garbage collection in half of the city, from west of Yonge street to Etobicoke.  Obviously, there are a few problems with this.  The first problem is something that Rob Ford has done already in his short time in office, premature proclamation. 

Balls in the air

Red Herrings and Gravy

"It is altogether stupid"

Before I start, the post title comes from a reply I got from former Special Assistant to Joe Mihevc Anthony Schein when I asked him:

"How is it worthwhile to cut out the VRT and then save $880 000? just making a point, I guess?"