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Rob Ford's Toronto

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Don Valley flooded, another possible flood later when a second storm approaches - and no Mayor at City Hall, Minnan-Wong is handling the press on the issue.
 
Councillors hire staff as set out in the Manual. See: http://www.toronto.ca/city_council/pdf/office-budget-policy.pdf

The wording (pp 61-62) is:

Councillors are responsible for selecting support staff who work in their offices and determining the level of compensation within the salary range of the respective job classification as approved by Council. Mayor's Office staff are under a separate job classification system.

* Councillor staff are non-union employees of the City of Toronto and are not employees of the Councillors. Councillor staff are hired on fixed term contracts and their conditions of employment should be in accordance with the terms set out in the appropriate, stipulated employment contract (as provided by the Director, Council and Support Services).
• If a current City of Toronto employee chooses to work in a Councillor’s office instead of their base position with the City, the employee and their home division within the City must sign a formal internal agreement (along with their new host division, the City Clerk’s Office). The agreement will be in accordance with the City’s Acting Assignment Guidelines for non-union employees. Acting assignments involving union employees require consultation with the City’s Labour Relations staff in the Human Resources Division as well as the consent of the respective union bargaining agent.
• Councillor staff contracts will only continue until the end of the Councillor’s term and will not automatically continue after a Councillor is re-elected.

I assume the same rules apply to Mayor's staff.
 
The gathering at NPS on Saturday to demand Ford resign is gaining a lot of momentum. It's being talked about everywhere and I've already heard it in person (once at a cafe and another on the streetcar). They're going to chalk the square up (it made an enormous impact for Jack Layton's passing) and they're planning to have speakers address the crowd. This is it. This is what I imagined would inevitably happen when Ford took office on a strategy of division.
 
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CP24 has mentioned it too, unfortunately they are saying it's on Sunday :(
 
Can Ford just hire whomever he wants--like a private business--or is he required to follow city HR guidelines?
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Ford's special sense of entitlement that is derived from his particular personality disorder means even if he knew what guidelines were (which he probably doesn't) he makes up his own rules...or interpretations of rules to suit his mood. Then plead ignorance if and when he is called on it.
 
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Here's a nice blast from the past article. It was on Spacing's front page but was reported back in 2010. It is truly astounding the lengths this man will go to to not say he's sorry. "Look! The NoFrills flyer used a similar word!" Unfortunately the man does not understand context.

Also, here's something important from today's Grid:

Edward Keenan said:
As journalist John Lorinc has asked, who will steer the city if, god forbid, there is a sudden natural disaster or terrorist attack or other civic crisis? We don’t know, because the man whose job it would be is already in the midst of an ever-worsening crisis. Toronto-based consultant James Aldersley reports he’s been asked to brief a U.S. hedge fund that is revising its stability assessment of the city in light of this scandal. We are beyond personal business here. We are in a governance crisis.
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Here's John Lorinc's Twitter Feed, which I believe is where Keenan got the reference:

John Lorinc said:
Chaos in @TOMayorFord's office puts lie to his rhetoric re: bringing private sector exp to politics. No CEO would operate this way.

Clarification: no CEO wd behave like Ford & expect to survive. If they did, an attentive board & angry shareholders would fire him/her

We have this surreal situation where the chief executive of Canada's 5th largest gov't is behaving in an utterly irrational state. If there's a significant public disaster now, subway collision, explosion terrorist attack, who speaks for city? Governance crisis is underscored by fact that there are no checks other than a free press (aka maggots). No mechanism exists to turn the office of mayor of Toronto over to a responsible entity until such time as order is restored. This is very essence of a governance crisis.
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The Star is overly critical of anyone in power (journalistic integrity aside, they still need to sell papers and exaggerating minor gaffes does this), but when it's a side you don't agree with that states it, their just idiots and racists. Leading up to this debacle, the Star did this too many times and people just discounted everything the Star had to say (the newspaper that cried wolf) Now that they have him dead to rights, the Fordistas don't want to believe because of the Star's past performance.
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I don't see where there was any "crying wolf" going on. It's less about what constitutes "the news" than it is about the level of discourse used in reporting it. I'm willing to bet those that discount the Star the way you seem to think are the same people who cling to every word Sue-Ann Levy says, where the level of discourse is, shall we say....lower?
 
guitarchitect said:
Well damn, I guess if you can't buy an english-only newspaper in a pocket of montreal that is almost exclusively french, you can't say that the toronto star is nationally circulated. GOOD WORK!!! :rolleyes:
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I lived on Papineau Street, in Montreal's Gay Village, from 1991 until 2000 and I read the Toronto Star every single day while I was there. I bought the Star in the Gay Village, and it wasn't hard to find. I certainly had no problems buying it for the 9 years I lived there.
 
Torontovibe said:
Is that intentional? (kinda like the Conservative Robo calls)
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With CP24, you're never quite sure if they're malevolent or just stupid. I have to say that most of their meat-puppets, producers and copywriters appear to just be, shall we say, overwhelmed. Not sure if that's by malevolent design, though.
 
Torontovibe said:
I lived on Papineau Street, in Montreal's Gay Village, from 1991 until 2000 and I read the Toronto Star every single day while I was there. I bought the Star in the Gay Village, and it wasn't hard to find. I certainly had no problems buying it for the 9 years I lived there.
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Yeah, I don't doubt it - but to some people, it would seem that unless there is a fully unimpeachable source of information that shows The Star is on every single newsstand in the country, it's just a local paper. Your anecdote will mean nothing to those types, because their head is too far up their ass to hear the voice of others ;)
 
The Toronto Star is a local paper - it focuses on local issues. We can't help it if other parts of the country are so fascinated with us that they need to read about us daily :D
 
guitarchitect said:
Yeah, I don't doubt it - but to some people, it would seem that unless there is a fully unimpeachable source of information that shows The Star is on every single newsstand in the country, it's just a local paper. Your anecdote will mean nothing to those types, because their head is too far up their ass to hear the voice of others ;)
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Niftz's response to the mild assertion that The Star could be considered a national paper was pure Nfitz gold. While the degree of righteous indignation was way over the top (some might say "manufactured out of thin air"), it was just average by Nfitz standards. To the OP that started the avalanche: Please don't take it as a personal attack; Nfitzery is an art form. One never knows what innocuous statement might be the final straw, which is part of the glorious fun of it. I think I have done it a couple of times. The first time, IIRC, I was stepping in to defend Nfitz against trollery and was on the receiving end of the Nfitzery.

Ahhhhhh, the good ol' days, back when calling the mayor a crackhead was just a ridiculous joke...
 
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freshcutgrass said:
I don't see where there was any "crying wolf" going on. It's less about what constitutes "the news" than it is about the level of discourse used in reporting it. I'm willing to bet those that discount the Star the way you seem to think are the same people who cling to every word Sue-Ann Levy says, where the level of discourse is, shall we say....lower?
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Well, a simple example which obviously doesn't represent everyone. My parents, once upon a time got the sunday Sun delivered, but 20+ years ago switched over to the Star daily delivery because they were tired of the Sun (it was bad even back then, just not as bad as now). They cancelled the Star last year and switched to the G&M. They didn't like Ford either, but they were sick and tired of so much of it's focus being on Ford.

And yes, I do read SAL, but I treat her with the same contempt as the rest of the columnists at the Sun - and the Star as well. I call those sections the comics.........
 
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