Rob Ford's Toronto

[picard102]

Honestly, all it would have taken was for Ford to drive to City Hall and, for just a few hours, pretend to care about what is going on the city he allegedly leads.

There is nothing he could have done at city hall, that couldn't have been accomplished by phone. But let's have the Mayor drive downtown, despite people being told not to be driving around.

 

[CowboyLogic]

Right, and if you look at the 2012 Operating Budget table, you'll see that this claim comes from the comparison of the Total Levy Operating Budget, which notes a reduction from the 2011 budget figure it offers of 0.2%. If you think this a one-fifth of one percent reduction is significant, you're welcome to tout that figure as gospel.

However, when one does an apples-to-apples comparison, that decrease actually vanishes. The number the 2012 table gives for the 2011 approved budget is 9,409,056.4, but the number given in the equivalent 2011 budget table is 9,382,869.1. This figure is actually less than the comparable 2012 figure of 9,389,954.2, meaning that, by this comparison, the 2012 budget was actually $7 million more than the exactly comparable 2011 amount. And things get even dicier when we look at the 2013 budget table, which has the 2012 budget at 9,417,784.7, higher than the number in the 2012 table, and certainly higher than either figure for the comparable 2011 amount. In other words, those comparisons show an increase in 2012, and not a decline.

(Of course, you can see this as well in the listed budget summaries that I linked to originally -- 2011 says that that "the 2011 tax supported 2011 Operating Budget is $9.383 billion", and 2012 states that "City Council approved a balanced tax-supported 2012 Operating Budget of $9.4 billion". By any math I do, 9.4 is bigger than 9.383, not smaller.)

That 2013 table also has something interesting: by the same comparison in 2012 that claimed a budget decline, the 2013 numbers show an increase from 2012 by, yep, 0.2%.

Now, I am not an accountant, and there may things I'm missing here. But on a straightforward reading of the figures, it sure seems to me that the claim "He did put out a budget smaller than the year before" is a) at best only technically true and represents no major decline, b) is incorrect when later figures are used and direct apples-to-apples comparisons are made, which themselves show an increase in 2012, and c) is wrong when one looks at this year, where there was an increase that matched percentage-wise the best claim for a decrease the year previous.

Anyone with a greater understanding of city finances is welcome to correct me.

Interesting...in a rush right now to get to work, but I'll respond to this later tonight. Thanks for the response.

 

[Johnny Au]

Do you have a sewer backflow valve?

No. We just have a drainage pipe. I live near the old part of the city. All the drainage pipes converge towards our drainage pipe.

 

[Tulse]

There is nothing he could have done at city hall, that couldn't have been accomplished by phone.

And what happens when his cellphone runs out of juice? Or, because of power outages, the cell towers themselves don't work?

Why don't we just let the Chief of Police and Fire Chief work from home, if everything can be done by telephone?

But let's have the Mayor drive downtown, despite people being told not to be driving around.

Seriously? This is your response, that this mayor is so useless in a potential crisis that he should just stay home rather than get to his office?

Is there any situation that you think would demand the mayor be in his office outside of working hours (which for him seems to be around 10am to noon)? I'm serious -- do you honestly think there is no role for mayoral leadership in a potential city crisis? Or, as I've suggested for other Ford supporters, do you think there is no role for a mayor, period?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

There is nothing he could have done at city hall, that couldn't have been accomplished by phone. But let's have the Mayor drive downtown, despite people being told not to be driving around.

Didn't stop him from supposedly travelling in his car to visit flooded basements, where he offered his help how?

AoD

 

[James_D]

Say 1,000 vehicles per lane per hour x 2 lanes per direction x 4 directions = 8,000 vehicles per hour. How long was Doug there?

It would be 83 cars per minute assuming there were zero stops in traffic and an entirely uninterrupted flow. Also assuming that traffic was non-stop and bumper to bumper which it clearly wasn't when looking at the photos and footage.

Douggie is exaggerating again. It's no big deal, it's just what he does. It's his thing.

 

[PinkLucy]

I commend Doug for getting out and lending a hand. There were a lot of dangerous intersections last night, and the police couldn't be everywhere. But Doug being Doug, he couldn't just say "yeah, I pitched in and helped out", he had to have personally seen to the safety of 20,000 cars But hey, at least he wasn't huddled in his air conditioned vehicle.

 

[ShonTron]

What did you expect Ford to do? Personally drain all the flooded water, unblock the DVP and pick up concrete debris?

There's nothing he could have done that would have made a difference. You guys would criticize him for anything.

Oh, please. No one is saying that. I know what you're trying to do here so I won't waste time repeating what I said above.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

What did you expect Ford to do? Personally drain all the flooded water, unblock the DVP and pick up concrete debris?

There's nothing he could have done that would have made a difference. You guys would criticize him for anything.

He is the leader, the "point-person" for this city, what the hell is he doing sitting in an SUV in his driveway - during rush hour - when he should be at City Hall during yesterday's unprecedented event instead of skipping out early (as usual). He should be directing and getting updates from emergency services and doing media updates but no, leadership was absent once again. This was a record amount of rainfall in Toronto history, exceeding that of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 over some areas of the city. This is all very valid criticism and once again - I'll repeat, once again our "Mayor" was MIA during yet another crisis. I hope the John Tory's and Olivia Chow's of the world are keeping detailed notes to sink this useless idiot when out on the campaign trail and engaging in debates.

 

[Gavin]

Considering the time of day that the storm hit, the bigger question was how the fuck was he already at home in his driveway to begin with? It's bad enough that he was at home instead of at City Hall, but that he clearly skipped out of work early to get there?

 

[Tulse]

He should be directing and getting updates from emergency services and doing media updates but no, leadership was absent once again. [...] I hope the John Tory's and Olivia Chow's of the world are keeping detailed notes to sink this useless idiot when out on the campaign trail and engaging in debates.

And that points out just what is so odd about Ford -- yesterday's storm was a tailor-made campaign-burnishing event, and he blew it. He could have come into City Hall and had photo ops looking all mayoral and concerned and active and involved, but instead he calls in and says his butt is sitting in his air-conditioned SUV in his driveway. This man is a terrible politician.

He apparently was very effective as a councillor, and has a reputation for getting things done for individual constituents, so it's not that he doesn't care about people, or that he can't make the system work on the micro level. But he seems not only incapable but uninterested in the larger issues of making a city run (rather than just pleasing individual constituents in one ward). Really, I think everyone would have been happier if he had just stayed in his ward as a councillor.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Tulse:

I wonder how much a 311 operator (or if I am being even less charitable, someone at a call centre) makes, in comparison.

AoD

 

[Ramako]

Considering the time of day that the storm hit, the bigger question was how the fuck was he already at home in his driveway to begin with? It's bad enough that he was at home instead of at City Hall, but that he clearly skipped out of work early to get there?

Aren't Ford's typical hours something like 10am - 3pm? The guy barely works.

 

[Forgotten]

Dealing with emergencies is part of the his job as the top elected official - if he can respond to potholes, the whole "hands off" argument just doesn't wash. What, he couldn't have stayed at City Hall coordinating responses or otherwise keep the media briefed? He certainly haven't had trouble calling an impromptu news conference about the Dufferin bridge shutdown for crying out loud.

That's okay for someone like Hazel who is in great health but not so great for someone like Rob Ford. Cut him some slack. He's one elevated heart beat away from keeling over. Toronto would be lost without him.

 

[bobbob911]

I commend Doug for getting out and lending a hand. There were a lot of dangerous intersections last night, and the police couldn't be everywhere. But Doug being Doug, he couldn't just say "yeah, I pitched in and helped out", he had to have personally seen to the safety of 20,000 cars But hey, at least he wasn't huddled in his air conditioned vehicle.

Do you think we should also have vigilante squads roaming our streets, because hey - the police can't be everywhere?