Rob Ford's Toronto

[jn_12]

What are the legal repercussions of this? Is it even legal to use taxpayer money on a project that was never approved by council?

Why wouldn't it be legal? Councillors (the Mayor included) can spend their budget on whatever they'd like.

 

[jje1000]

Why wouldn't it be legal? Councillors (the Mayor included) can spend their budget on whatever they'd like.

I suppose, but it's interesting to see the lengths that Ford is willing to go to promote his Sheppard Subway concept.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Councillors (the Mayor included) can spend their budget on whatever they'd like.

Well then, perhaps Ford should stop bitching about Kyle Rae's retirement party. At least it was a party, and not redirecting more tax dollars to fruitlessly support an agenda in direct conflict with Council, the TTC, or the people of Toronto (and common sense).

 

[jeff316]

Why wouldn't it be legal? Councillors (the Mayor included) can spend their budget on whatever they'd like.

I agree it is perfectly legal.

But weren't Ford and Minnan-Wong getting after Mihevc for his potential use of his office budget to solicit a legal opinion on whether Council approval was needed to cancel Transit City ? (http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/03/mihevc-says-he-paid-for-transit-city-legal-opinion)

 

[JasonParis]

It appears that perhaps soon, the LRT vs Subway debate is going to become the least of Rob Ford's problems.

I can't say what, but there's also something else big coming. A media organization is sitting on something huge. They will release it at the opportune time (and when a few more rounds of investigation have occurred). But this will be big and goes back to an incident in the summer. That's all I can say.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Ford didn't really go "cottaging" Pride weekend?

 

[freshcutgrass]

A media organization is sitting on something huge. They will release it at the opportune time (and when a few more rounds of investigation have occurred).

Can you narrow it down a little bit...I mean, there are so many investigations surrounding Ford, both domestically & politically, it makes it rather vague.

I have a sneaking suspician Warrior Princesses are involved.

 

[jje1000]

Can you narrow it down a little bit...I mean, there are so many investigations surrounding Ford, both domestically & politically, it makes it rather vague.

I have a sneaking suspician Warrior Princesses are involved.

That was in November. Maybe it's the time when he raised his middle finger? Or maybe the story isn't about Ford at all?

Maybe it's about KPMG and the sort- anything concerning fiscal mismanagement is a goldmine in my eyes.

 

[jn_12]

I suppose, but it's interesting to see the lengths that Ford is willing to go to promote his Sheppard Subway concept.

Well then, perhaps Ford should stop bitching about Kyle Rae's retirement party. At least it was a party, and not redirecting more tax dollars to fruitlessly support an agenda in direct conflict with Council, the TTC, or the people of Toronto (and common sense).

I agree it is perfectly legal.

But weren't Ford and Minnan-Wong getting after Mihevc for his potential use of his office budget to solicit a legal opinion on whether Council approval was needed to cancel Transit City ? (http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/03/mihevc-says-he-paid-for-transit-city-legal-opinion)

Hey I agree with all of you. I'm just saying that there's nothing illegal about any of it (whether it's paying for a study, purchasing a website, throwing a party, buying your staff a pizza after a long day, and so on.)

 

[Torontovibe]

^^^ If Ford's agenda is all about cutting the gravy, shouldn't there be restrictions on what councillors can spend their office expenses on? Why just limit the amount and not how it's used? Ford just comes off looking like a hypocrite, after all his rhetoric about not spending tax payer's money.

 

[jn_12]

^^^ If Ford's agenda is all about cutting the gravy, shouldn't there be restrictions on what councillors can spend their office expenses on? Why just limit the amount and not how it's used? Ford just comes off looking like a hypocrite, after all his rhetoric about not spending tax payer's money.

Because that would involve a message that has an ounce of depth to it.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Did anyone see one of the Mayors at the St. Patrick's Day Parade? They weren't at the cottage this time, but should have made room for the first hour before their radio show. Might have difficulty getting there using their horseless carriages with the roads closed and blocked off.

 

[jje1000]

Granted, this is from NOW, but it still provides some insight into Ford's workings. The part that describes how Ford connects with his constituents is worth remembering, as it is the core of Rob Ford's modus operandi. Wasteful public workers wasting tax dollars, bikers stealing lanes from drivers, downtowners impeding suburbanite's subway extensions. "I will fix everything and you and me together will have power."

Shelley Carroll comes clean
BY ENZO DI MATTEO
Mar 11, 2012 at 12:22 AM

Of all the behind-the-scenes schemin’ by Ford & Co. to avoid another embarrassing loss on the transit file at Monday’s meeting of council, the plot to recruit Shelley Carroll to take over as TTC chair was a real headscratcher.

Yes, that would be the same Shelley Carroll that served as former mayor David Miller’s budget chief and is among those on council the Fordists like to vilify as “lefties” or “communists” when they can’t muster a cogent argument on a given issue.

Centrist Carroll ended up declining Giorgio Mammoliti’s nomination to sit on the TTC board. A slate of seven councillors put forward by Karen Stintz, who was reappointed chair, won the day – bouncing the five Fordists who’d conspired to off TTC chief general manager Gary Webster a couple of weeks back.

But there would be a few tense moments in between.

For a while there, it looked like Carroll, was seriously considering a run at Stintz’s job, only taking her name out of the mix of candidates to sit on the TTC seconds before the vote.

Whether Carroll would have had the votes to topple Stintz is debatable. The mayor’s forces could only muster 19 against 25 for Stintz – 18 if you count the fact Maria Augimeri mistakenly voted for the eventual Ford-backed candidate, Peter Milczyn.

But a Carroll versus Stintz run-off would have set up an interesting dynamic, that’s for sure.

Here’s Carroll in her own words on the drama.

On the mayor’s efforts to lobby her:

“That was a first for me so I have some insight now into the pressure he’s been placing on some of the first-term councillors. He wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. What was really driving it was sticking it to Karen Stintz. And I don’t want to stick it to Karen Stintz.

On the nuts and bolts of her conversations with the mayor and his staff:

Mayor: “C’mon, you should do this.”

Carroll: “Well that’s actually not the way I work. I work with a team.”

Mayor: “Forget the team. They’ll come back. Principles? Forget your principles.”

On the political lesson for the mayor:

“The mayor and his staff keep thinking, that, ‘Oh shit we’re going to lose, let’s compromise,’ is compromising, is consensus-building. If you wanna pull the council together, you gotta pick the people who will then proceed to go knocking on other doors, not say, ‘OK, what’s in it for me.’”

What lefties have learned about the mayor from their coalescing with the right on the transit file:

“We’re not going to wake him [Ford] up. The fact is he likes where he is. He’s just going back to Councillor Ford mode – it’s me against the universe. He likes that position. The trick now is going to be to get those [councillors] who didn’t spend a decade watching him work in that mode, understand that mode.

“He says he goes to peoples houses to fix things for them. He goes to have a conversation in which he first makes them feel that they are powerless. Makes them angry and then says, ‘I will fix everything and you and me together will have power.’ That’s his whole thing.”

On a possible deal at council’s special meeting March 21 to extend the Sheppard subway line two stops to Victoria Park and go with LRTs from there:

“Here and there all over this planet there are famous interchanges where transit systems have one really stupid connection because somebody made a political deal. One hundred years later people are going into Holborn station in London and saying, ‘Why is that (expletive deleted) hallway so long? Why do I have to get on a people mover and get up here and go over there. Who’s idea was that?’

“All the mode changes you need to area employment parks in York Region and downtown Toronto are all sitting right there in the Don Mills centre. Why would you add a mode change 1,000 metres away at Victoria Park? If the mayor’s subway were really about the Scarborough rider, he’d start listening to transportation planners.”

(Editor’s note: Carroll thinks there will be more votes than the 25 cast to back LRTs at the special meeting of council on February 8.)

On what recent defeats on the transit file will mean for the future for the Ford administration:

“They’re beginning to sound like a losing McCain campaign. I think when he says, ‘Well, luckily on the things we said we were going to do we’re already done,” it’s code for, ‘Ok, we’re done.’

“He could make it possible for us to work. He’s got one big opportunity left and that’s mid-term [when striking committee appointments to council committees are made]. ‘Balance things now, buddy. Do it.’ If he doesn’t he’s going to have a problem. He really just becomes that guy down the hall.”

http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/news/story.cfm?content=185642

 

[freshcutgrass]

In yet another example of the Ford bros. juvenile highschool attitude...the two commenting on the latest verbal altercation with the public last week (a bike courier).

“I told him if I wasn’t an elected official I’d kick his ass in about 10 seconds,” Doug Ford said.

Mayor Rob Ford interjected: “There’d be one less courier because, trust me, Doug has been a kick boxer 10 years . . . I guarantee you that guy would have been history in about two seconds.”

This isn't one of those cringe-worthy things they didn't intend to get "caught" saying....it was very purposely said into a microphone. Mind boggling.

 

[k10ery]

In yet another example of the Ford bros. juvenile highschool attitude...the two commenting on the latest verbal altercation with the public last week (a bike courier).

This isn't one of those cringe-worthy things they didn't intend to get "caught" saying....it was very purposely said into a microphone. Mind boggling.

There could be nothing more tasteless than a Toronto politician joking about killing a bike courier on the street. This retard has sunk to a new low in my opinion.