Mayor Rob Ford: More thoughts,mentions (and links...)
Everyone: I also noticed these CNN shows: Ashleigh Banfield hosted a half-hour show titled
"Cracked: The Toronto Mayor Scandal" yesterday 11/15 and tried to seek other information
from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com and look in the "World-Americas" section (I currently
can not get the direct link to work) and look in updates as of Sat 11/16
Chris Matthews "Hardball" show on MSNBC on Thursday 11/15 also had a segment on Mayor
Rob Ford and his problems and one of his guests in that segment was the Toronto Sun's
Adrienne Batras - who for the most part defended Ford and said that he does need help
for his substance and alcohol abuse problems...
http://www.msnbc.com/hardball
I still find interesting mentions of how the five outer Boroughs of Metro were considered "suburbs"
even after the 1998 unification - I compare this to the five NYC Boroughs in which all belonged
to the City of New York as annexed in 1898 but today only most of Staten Island (Richmond Co.)
could be thought of as truly suburban and perhaps sections of eastern Queens can also qualify...
In my opinion what was truly Toronto's suburbs were the areas outside Metro's six boroughs and
today there are populous areas outside Toronto's boundary with the City of Mississauga being
clearly the best example which is becoming a large city in its own right...
The other Ford question I have with Toronto's City Council voting to strip powers from the Mayor
will that only concern Rob Ford as he serves as Mayor or will it also affect future holders of the
Mayor's office?
If this affects future Mayors I feel that it is actually a bad precedence because I feel that it may
end up being a problem in the future for a competent Mayor looking to succeed positively in
office and not end up having adversarial problems with members of Toronto's City Council...
With the thought of de-amalgamation being also mentioned recently what would happen if the
current City of Toronto breaks up into four jurisdictions as mentioned elsewhere here at UT
or revives the six borough Metro government? Could the Rob Ford situation have come into
existence in a Metro government pre 1998?
This has become quite a news story and thanks to UT's coverage I can find information that
just is not available elsewhere outside of Toronto and Southern Ontario...
Thoughts from Long Island Mike