Amateur hour at city council yesterday shows nobody’s gettin’ ’er done
We’re going to start this with a correction of sorts: The Informer wrote yesterday that, after the first major reversal of Rob Ford’s mayoralty, His Fordship’s motion to finish off the TCHC board and install Case Ootes as housing commissar would bounce to the executive committee. We wrote that because it seemed to be what the mayor’s allies were telling reporters, and because they actually scheduled a special meeting of the cabinet for later today. By late in the afternoon, those plans were scotched, as the mayor’s staff apparently realized that they didn’t quite know what they were doing: Ford’s loss at council yesterday did not punt the issue to the executive committee—it bounced it to the next council meeting in April. So the executive meeting was cancelled and Ford’s office announced instead it was using the mayor’s power to call a special meeting of council, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. today. At this meeting, Ford will be able to set the agenda and will only need a simple majority to get his way.
Confused? So were we. Nobody comes off looking particularly good in this episode.
The mayor’s office either didn’t know they’d need two thirds of council support to get their way, or thought they had it and gambled wrong. (At the risk of setting up another correction for the future, Ford will almost certainly never win a two-thirds vote in the next four years: his opposition is already one third of council.) The opposition, meanwhile—when not distracted by the mayor’s habit of insulting them—is basically slowing down the inevitable by only 24 hours. Plus, in debating another issue yesterday, council’s lefties managed to come off looking like they were attacking the auditor general—exactly the wrong message, whether they intended it or not.
We can’t tell if council is actually getting even more incoherent, but we’ll keep watching. By 5:30 today it’s possible that councillors will need help remembering which voting buttons to push. Oh, wait, that already happened.
• James: Attacking city’s auditor to get at Ford is wrong [Toronto Star]
• Ford determined to see Ootes installed as head of TCHC [Globe and Mail]
• Ford works around council’s lefties in TCHC vote [Toronto Sun]
• Ford refuses to apologize for ‘garbage’ joke [Toronto Sun]
This is totally absurd!
These councillors that are oppose to dismissing ALL the TCHC members are sending out a clear message to ALL gov’t servants, that “IT’S OKAY IF YOU STEAL, GAMBLE ON THE STOCK MARKET, SOLE SOURCE, ETC., BCOS WE WILL BE THERE TO DEFEND YOU, BCOS OUR MOTTO IS, GRAB ALL YOU CAN FROM THE SUCKER TAXPAYERS!
Please don’t try to convey to us that this message may not be intended……
It sure the heck is! That was and still is their political platform, from day one of politics.
In respect to Mayor Rob Ford, all I can say is “You can’t keep and honest man down”. You can try all you want, but he has a land slide of voters behind him and the voter data base is growing every day.
“We are mad as H*ll and We Won’t Take It Anymore!”
Adam Vaughan really should go back to being on TV because his act at City Hall is getting old. I don’t understand the opposition over wanting to refresh the TCHC board, especially when the old one squander so much money.
And no…Torontolife…it is YOU who is incoherent in all of this. Not only did you report on pure speculation, you failed to get the news from the man in charge, himself.
Your quote:
“We wrote that because it seemed to be what the mayor’s allies were telling reporters, and because they actually scheduled a special meeting of the cabinet for later today.”
Ya, that’s great. Reporting rumor and speculation from your “supposed” sources. Get your damn facts straight before you criticize city council. I guess it would not have sounded as juicy and anti-Ford if you actually reported on what will happen today as opposed to what people thought was going to happen.
Re: Missy
It’s important to note a number of things regarding the auditor’s report and the requests by Mayor Ford for TCHC board members to step down.
1. The details of the report are unclear since only certain aspects were ‘leaked’ to the public through the media.
2. Names of the responsible managers have not yet been released (to my knowledge) and do not include any of the recently acting TCHC board members.
3. Newly appointed members to the TCHC board including City Councillors Cho, Augimeri, Parker, and Nunziata were assigned this role by Mayor Ford himself, and were not involved in the TCHC spending troubles from 2009.
4. The Auditor General also indicated that there is absolutely no criminal activity involved ie. no fraud allegations.
In summary, Councillors were asked to take part in a ‘witch hunt’ by dissolving an acting TCHC board of directors that were not involved, nor had any control over the activities in 2009. This included 4 recently appointed City Councillors that were appointed to the TCHC board by Mayor Ford. Councillors were asked to do this (dissolve the remaining members) on the evening of Wednesday March 9th, 2011 and were not given the opportunity to understand the full details of the Audit Report. They also voted to transfer the full decision-making power of the entire board to one person.
Are these actions honest? or The acts of an honest leader?
Is the act of placing blame on community leaders (whom are innocent) fair?, and
How does transfering power of 13 to 1 restore public confidence in the TCHC?
David.