Vancouver's Capital Plan 2012-2014: A Love Story

photo by GoodnCrazy from Flickr (cc)

Ok, so it's not really a love story, but I figured no one would read this if I didn't grab their interest somehow. A Vancouver civic election looms, which also means that, yeehaw!, it's capital budget time! Over the summer Vancouver City Council consulted with Vancouverites on the upcoming capital budget plan, which coincides with civic elections so you can vote on whether to approve borrowing for the stated projects.

As boring as something called the Capital Plan might sound, it's mighty important in setting the agenda for the next three years of, well, building stuff. Important stuff. Like water mains and sewers and community centres.

So, here's the skinny on the final plan (the whole of which you can find here). This is the stuff you'll be voting on when you head to the polls on November 19th to elect a new city government.

The Executive Committee's Game

(this post originally appeared on Torontoist. July 30, 2011)

Remember back in elementary school, when a group of kids would invite you to come play a game with them, explain all the rules, but then, as the game went on, continuously change the rules so the outcome would inevitably be that they won? It was an exercise in frustration and futility. No matter what you did or how much you tried to play by their rules, the outcome was always the same.

This was what came to mind yesterday, watching the Executive Committee as they held their marathon meeting that lasted almost 24 hours as Mayor Ford & Co. heard from, according to the Toronto Star’s count, 169 out of the 344 citizens who had signed up to speak about the core service review done by KPMG. The narrative that Ford & Co. attempted to construct—that the people coming to speak were all from labour and special interest groups—was refuted time and time again as people from all backgrounds and wards came to speak (including the now famous yelly granny from North York).

That the meeting lasted continuously until there were no more people left to speak was no accident, nor was it necessary. The meeting could have been capped at a certain time of night and then reconvened again Friday morning. This would have allowed more people, many of whom were probably unable to spend their wee hours of the night sitting and waiting to be called upon, to participate. This was an intentional move to limit the amount of engagement and discourage those wanting to speak from actually doing so.

There was also the motion Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) put forward to limit speaking times from the usual five minutes down to three minutes. This motion passed easily, with Ford voting in favour, even though he had earlier said that everyone would get five minutes to speak. Hours later, a motion to cut speaking time for councillors from two minutes to one minute failed in a tie, but then Councillor David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale), who had been absent during the vote, walked back in and was allowed to vote late, thus allowing the motion to pass. Presto, change-o.

Then there was the one-minute chant of “save our libraries” during head of library workers' union Maureen O’Reilly's deputation, after which Mammoliti exclaimed that if this happened again he would move a motion to end the meeting and hear no more deputations. Ford agreed, saying: "If a councillor moves a motion to end this meeting, it's over. I am being very democratic. I'm being more than fair." You expected him afterwards to look around the table at all the committee members, saying: Anyone? Anyone want to move that motion? No? Damn.

Or there was Ford, pressing the button to start a speaker's time before they got to the table, or moving down the list so quickly that speakers who were seated in overflow rooms couldn’t get there fast enough.

This kind of dirty game–playing behavior is not limited, however, to just this one Executive Committee meeting — it has permeated Ford & Co.'s entire term so far. (Think the behind-the-back motion to kill the Jarvis bike lanes that sprung out of nowhere and without consultation with the councillor in whose ward that bike lane is located.)

But let’s just remember for a moment why it was that those kids we knew, way back when, changed all the rules during the game. The reason was to give themselves an advantage. And the reason that someone would want to give themselves an advantage was because they were afraid of losing.

What usually happens with children who continuously change the rules to allow themselves to win in a game is that, eventually, no one wants to play with them anymore. Or, in more political terms, they’re voted out of office.

Ford's I-Told-You-So Moment, a Provincial Oh-Snap, and Vancouver's Casino Conundrum

It looks as though spring has finally stuck her cute little button nose out between the heavy drapes of winter as temperatures rise above freezing and the skating rink that was my back alley now resembles a very nice, gray swamp.

The Toronto Community Housing Corporation is on similarly thin ice after an auditor general's report about inappropriate spending, which has the Brothers Ford barely able to contain their glee as details emerge about expensive chocolates, massages, and lavish Christmas parties (however, there have been no reports of actual, non-metaphorical gravy). Rob Ford seems to be basking in his I-told-you-so moment, biting his lip in the effort effort to stop himself from jumping up and down chanting: nah nah nah nah.

In a well-timed oh-snap moment from the Province, it emerged that Dalton McGuinty has shot down Ford's request for $350 million in funding. But don't expect Ford to be out taking too many questions from media about this, or any issue at city hall, as it seems his ability to answers questions runs to an average of, oh, say three minutes and twenty-three seconds. Maybe that's because when he does speak for longer than this it unravels into a confusing, cringe-inducing mess. leading everyone to wonder if we have, in fact, elected a mayor who's taken his public speaking advice from an Abbott and Costello routine.

But Toronto's not the only city with spending woes. Vancouver's much criticized construction of a new 680,000-square-foot waterfront casino to replace the current Edgewater Casino that will see, among other things, the number of slot machines rise from 493 to 1,500, will be before council on March 7, 2011 at 7:30pm. This is after council pushed back the hearing not once, but twice. The official line was that it was because so many people had signed up to speak in opposition, probably due to Vancouver Not Vegas, a vocal non-partisan group in opposing the project. The Vancouver Sun reported a few days ago that if the casino didn't get approved, funding for the new retractable roof/crown on BC Place stadium could fall through. Keep in mind that this roof is already nearing completion, which brings up the question: didn't they possibly maybe kind of see this problem coming?

And if all that has left you in a steaming pile, here's a video of a cat who steals things to cheer you up. Look at the klepto kitty!

When 0.155% is Deemed Too Big a Tax Increase

(Feb 25, 2011 edit: portions of this post appear in altered form in my article on the Torontoist)

This morning something unexpected happened to me. I began to watch the live stream of Toronto city council debating budgetary matters and was suddenly hooked. I don't know if it was Speaker Nunziata's saucy schoolmaster attitude or the overly sensitive councillors offended by such things as pointing and smiling, but I almost missed an appointment for a haircut.

Of course, I wouldn't have been so riveted if the debate hadn't been about something that seemed kind of important--like, oh I don't know, the money the city needs to operate.

Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14 - Parkdale/High Park) introduced a motion to raise the property tax rate by 0.155%. As Perks pointed out this would raise enough money to avoid the proposed service cuts to TTC bus routes, save the urban affairs library from closing, with a chunk of change left over that could be used for other things. He also pointed out that this would be an incredibly small tax increase, costing taxpayers between $4 and $9 for the entire year.

Sounds reasonable, no?

27 councillors didn't think so, as the motion was defeated 18-27, causing sane people all around the city to grab a fistful of their hair and rip it out.

But there were some good points raised in the debate about the motion (by debate I mean of course that everyone got to speak and no one listened to each other). Josh Matlow (Ward 22 - St. Pauls) made the observation that service cuts are all relative: while Rob Ford may deem some service cuts to be minor, the citizens affected by such cuts may deem them major.

Karen Stintz spoke about how she believed that it would be better to let the citizen's of Toronto figure out how to spend their $4 to $9 since the City has proven unable to do so in the past. I guess some of those people could pool their $4 to $9 together, invest it, and maybe in a hundred years they'd have enough money to buy their own bus. That's reasonable.

What was really on the table though was blind ideology against common sense city budgeting. Rob Ford was bent on freezing the property tax no matter what, so they were going to freeze the property tax no matter what. How else could councillors really justify cutting services as opposed to approving a tax increase so small that most citizens wouldn't even notice if no one told them? I mean, really, most people probably lose that much change in their couch each year.

Budget talks continue. Tune in.