Karen Stintz meets with Rob Ford’s staff and brings OneCity back from the brink

Another day, another twist in the OneCity saga. On Wednesday, TTC chair Karen Stintz publicly mused that she didn’t have the council votes to move a study of the blockbuster plan forward, but now she’s sounding more chipper. “I think we will be successful in having a study of OneCity approved,” she said yesterday after a meeting with Rob Ford’s chief of staff, Amir Remtulla, and Earl Provost of councillor relations. However, Stintz refused to say whether she and TTC vice-chair Glenn De Baeremaeker will keep pushing for the two per cent property tax increase dedicated to transit, an idea that councillors from both the right and the left have attacked (Adam Vaughan recently called it a “half-baked proposition”). Given Stintz’s silence, it’s possible she and De Baeremaeker have agreed to scrap the funding model for something more palatable to council. Or not. At this point, the future of OneCity remains a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a maroon TTC jacket. [Toronto Star]