2006 Municipal Elections: Adam Vaughan for City Council!

[building babel]

I think Vaughan is partly right, and smart, in claiming that "downtown subsidizes the rest of the city". Downtown homeowners who voted Miller have seen our property assessments soar over the past three years while John Tory-voting suburbanites have seen their assessments fall. It may become a wedge issue of sorts.

Miller's drift to the centre has turned off the NDP-ers who voted for him last time, and the soft Liberal centre who shifted to Miller rather than to Tory last time may not be as easily convinced that someone like Dennis Mills is the devil incarnate this time. So, shoring up the vote is the name of the game.

 

[blixa442]

Fiendish, you've nailed it 100%. I really hope this blowhard doesn't get elected. His claims in the Post that condos are 'vertical sprawl' are utterly absurd.

 

[miketoronto]

I can not believe you guys. Adam is right, there is a quiet crisis.

With each day, Downtown is not only losing more of its marketshare of employment, but we are losing unique neighbourhoods like he is pointing out. Is it going to take Kensington Market going all chain store, before you guys wake up and see some of the issues facing downtown.

Our great unique neighbourhoods are under threat, and I am glad someone is finally announcing that. We are already letting chains ruin Queen West, I am glad someone is wanting to stand up for our other unique neighbourhoods and educate people on downtown.

Downtown does need saving. Because our downtown is probably at its lowest influence in the region since Toronto begun. Declining employment, declining regional share of employment, overcrowded transit, declining retail market share, chains taking over every single street they can find, etc.

 

[andreapalladio]

Great minds think alike.

 

[AlexisTO]

A billion dollar investment in art and cultural buildings, the first large scale office development in a dozen years, a least four, possibly five major 4+ star hotels proposed, and over 10,000 condo units under construction and stable retail lease rates. Not to mention the start of new waterfront communities like East Bay Front, West Don lands and the likes. Sounds like the core and it's neighbourhoods are going to hell alright. I don't think we have to worry about large scale development invading neighbourhoods like the Annex, Danforth, College, Kensington for a very long time, if ever. There are plenty of sites to develop and redevelop in the core. As for the "chains" taking over? It doesn's seem to effect the street activity at all, if anything streets like Queen W, Danforth and Bloor are busier than ever. I wonder if this isn't a case of someone trying to perserve their own idea of the city based on some kind of memory of "the good old days".

 

[doady]

Great leaders like George W. Bush and Hitler successfully used people's paranoia for political gain and now Adam Vaughan is looking to do the same.

 

[adma]

I can not believe you guys. Adam is right, there is a quiet crisis.

But who's to say that whomever the NDP contender is, isn't prepared to acknowledge or address this "quiet crisis", either?

Not to say that Adam Vaughan's a bad candidate--far from it. But look, miketoronto, perhaps the voters chose Glenn DeB. because they felt him better prepared to address whatever "quiet crisis" existed than you were...

 

[Mark Dowling]

Doady:

Great leaders like George W. Bush and Hitler successfully used people's paranoia for political gain and now Adam Vaughan is looking to do the same.

Wow - I didn't think a Certificate of Hitlertude would be needed on this thread... go figure.

I thought Vaughan was spot on about the condos driving families out of downtown - the City should mandate a proportion to be 2-3 bedroom rather than pack them in shoeboxes.

Helen Kennedy's main priority seems to be getting elected to me - she and Chow seem to have really misjudged their ward, which seems to be more of a personal than an NDP vote than they realised.

 

[EnviroTO]

Trinity-Spadina is in crisis? Compared to what? Most of the downtown condos that have been popping up have been doing so on long time parking lots and railway lands. Oh no, we are loosing historic parking lots and the human population is growing. Voiceless? One vote per person was true and is still true. The only way such a comment can be taken seriously is within the context of megacity and non-megacity where old Toronto voices went from the only voice to one of many. Unfortunately I fail to see how Vaughan could be the undoer of the megacity merger. There is a job loss argument and business tax argument which can be made but I don't see Vaughan being the person that will hike residential tax to lower business rates. So what is he talking about?

 

[bizorky]

A sort-of semi-sidebar note:

There are rumours that Olivia Chow's campaign is going to be investigated by Elections Canada.

Anyone have any details, or heard of anything?

 

[adma]

I think it's Ianno's camp bringing up issues like juiced-up voters' lists, etc. (Trouble is, voter totals went up across the board in 2006--and especially in "university polls"; so it wasn't unique to Trinity-Spadina...)

 

[Mark Dowling]

Interestingly I came across this today which referred to Dublin's docklands redevelopment - sounds exactly like what Vaughan has been taking about in T-S and can probably apply to a lot of the recent condo development in Toronto.

Mr Maloney pointed out that the DDDA's amended planning scheme for the Grand Canal Docks specified that there must be more larger three-bedroom apartments in the area, designed for family living, and also included provision for a half-acre "play park" for children.

home.eircom.net/content/i...=Eircomnet

 

[bizorky]

I think it's Ianno's camp bringing up issues like juiced-up voters' lists, etc.

That's it. The Chief Electoral Officer is looking into it. The politicking continues.

 

[Mark Dowling]

Isn't the City's list supposed to be even worse than Elections Canada's?

 

[blixa442]

If you're a nimby who hates highrises then, yes, the city is in crisis.