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Excellent letter quicksilver. I think you should copy that to all of city council and the Mayor himself. He won't listen but it must affect him in some way to see Torontonians disagreeing with him.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I'm well aware of the fact that there is no official impeachment process. But that doesn't mean that the mayor can't be impeached. If his approval rating drops so low I could imagine the province creating a process of removing him from office. But impeachment isn't necessarily needed to remove the mayor's power. At the end of the day council has complete control and if they wanted to they could just completely ignore the mayor.
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No matter how much I dislike Rob Ford, I would be strongly opposed to any sort of impeachment process, or anything that would remove his current powers. Enabling recalls or impeachments would set a horrible precedent, one which could cause havoc for every mayor or councillor of every municipality in this province. He was democratically elected (even if our democratic system is flawed) and we have to live with it and in a few years the voters will have a chance to vote him out.
 
^ Correct. The checks and balances are already in place and Council already has the power to override the Mayor. Hopefully Toronto voters won't be so naive and easily swayed by slogans in 2014.
 
Electrify said:
I have a friend who is a total Fordnut, and believes anything that is left of centre is automatically socialism/communism (let's ignore the fact she receives unemployment cheques from the government...). About a week ago I asked her what she thought about Ford getting railroaded in council about his transit plan, and she said she could care less because the TTC sucks and that all they do is raise their fares and cut service (once again, let's ignore some facts...).

The point I'm making is that many Ford supporters could care less about transit. Sure there are the lemmings that read the Sun and will do whatever they tell them to do, but more than you think probably would get lost navigating our two subway lines. Making this his hill to die on is a very bad political decision, and likely to hurt him much more than help him.
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I think Ford supporters have proven that they don't know much about anything in the city. Every time I try to have an honest debate with a Ford supporter it inevitably turns into a name calling screaming match.
 
MetroMan said:
^ Correct. The checks and balances are already in place and Council already has the power to override the Mayor. Hopefully Toronto voters won't be so naive and easily swayed by slogans in 2014.
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I think Mr. Ford has already lost any chance of being re-elected. Nearly 40% of people strongly disapprove of the job he is doing and the chances of him getting those votes back are pretty much zero.
 
I think what I hate most about the Ford administration's time in power so far is how much time and brainpower is being increasingly spent trying to simply keep the city out of serious trouble.
Resources that would normally be moving forward along intelligently crafted channels of distribution are instead being wasted. All means of delivering them - from the intelligence and science needed to formulate them, to the civic and social apparatuses that bring them to fruition - are being attacked, destroyed, and messed with.

This is the 'rule by stupidity' model that has been the scourge of the U.S. for awhile now. Somewhere along the line, people after power discovered that the use of force, lies, vulgarity, and criminality tripped up and halted intelligence, truth, professionalism and rule of law -and, so far, that they could get away with it.
Whether or not we are going backward yet is debatable. But we are certainly beginning to run into real trouble. Like a disease that destroys tissues before the symptoms start to show, we could be entering into a phase where we see the real structural basis of the city - it's intelligence - begin to fray.

Toronto's great strength has been a kind of adaptive, progressive, highly civilized intelligence that is also efficient. I worry that it is under direct attack, now. I also worry that it would be hard to get back, once gone.

I think what the Fords are up to with Mr. Webster is reprehensible. It is not just a threat confined to this arena, though - it is a threat to the city.

I would urge everyone to write their councillor as well as the mayor's office (and anyone else), to let them know what you think of this situation.

Does anyone think that things would actually improve in this city if this way of operating becomes more normal? What next? It's pretty frightening to think of.
 
CanadianNational said:
I think what I hate most about the Ford administration's time in power so far is how much time and brainpower is being increasingly spent trying to simply keep the city out of serious trouble.
Resources that would normally be moving forward along intelligently crafted channels of distribution are instead being wasted. All means of delivering them - from the intelligence and science needed to formulate them, to the civic and social apparatuses that bring them to fruition - are being attacked, destroyed, and messed with.

This is the 'rule by stupidity' model that has been the scourge of the U.S. for awhile now. Somewhere along the line, people after power discovered that the use of force, lies, vulgarity, and criminality tripped up and halted intelligence, truth, professionalism and rule of law -and, so far, that they could get away with it.
Whether or not we are going backward yet is debatable. But we are certainly beginning to run into real trouble. Like a disease that destroys tissues before the symptoms start to show, we could be entering into a phase where we see the real structural basis of the city - it's intelligence - begin to fray.

Toronto's great strength has been a kind of adaptive, progressive, highly civilized intelligence that is also efficient. I worry that it is under direct attack, now. I also worry that it would be hard to get back, once gone.

I think what the Fords are up to with Mr. Webster is reprehensible. It is not just a threat confined to this arena, though - it is a threat to the city.

I would urge everyone to write their councillor as well as the mayor's office (and anyone else), to let them know what you think of this situation.

Does anyone think that things would actually improve in this city if this way of operating becomes more normal? What next? It's pretty frightening to think of.
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If by "normal" you mean running the city based on progressive, logical decisions based on facts then yes I do think that things would improve in this city. But it may be very difficult to return to that kind of government in this city. Ford has proven that running on fear, lies and catchphrases is the best way to get elected in this city.

Running on fears and lies is easier in Toronto then in most other municipalities since the media isn't particularly objective in this city. They generally report whatever the mayor says as facts.
 
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Palma said:
Well it looks like Webster will be fired. They could not get Karen Stinz so they went after Webster. Just heard this on 1010 Talk radio
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6 years ago the Miller administration forced out Richard Ducharme - who was a leftover from the Mel Lastman days. Different method, but same result. I guess all mayors act the same - get your people into power positions.
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Is there any way that Council can prevent Webster from being fired??
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There is a very remote possibility that one of the TTC Board members may change his mind if enough outrage is raised. Other than that, not any other method to think of, but there's post-decision opportunities to at least wrestle more power from Ford.

As Steve Munro puts it:

From the viewpoint of political strategy, now is the time for Council to hold yet another special meeting to seize control of the Transit Commission. This could be done either by prematurely ending the terms of sitting members, or by increasing the size of the Commission and diluting Ford’s influence with enough extra members to ensure a majority that represented the broader view of Council rather than of the Mayor.
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http://stevemunro.ca/?p=6038
 
BurlOak said:
6 years ago the Miller administration forced out Richard Ducharme - who was a leftover from the Mel Lastman days. Different method, but same result. I guess all mayors act the same - get your people into power positions.
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Sorry it was the Chair of TTC who should have retire years before he did. He was the same one that got David Gunn to quite as GM also.

The chair undermine Richard Ducharme during the labour talks to the point, he gave the union new sinks at no cost.
 
MetroMan said:
Thanks for the list. I've tweeted it. However, I anticipate Denzil-Minan-Wong will not follow Ford's lead on this.
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Why do you say this? As council has already voted for Stinz's plan, even if Ford fires Webster that will not change anything. And again. Ford was never going to build a subway on eglinton, It was an LRT underground.

This stuff that is happening with council and Ford is crazy. And one of those councilors Di Giorgio is the councilor for my ward. But obviously he is following Ford's wishes
 
MetroMan said:
I'm surprised MW signed the petition. Maybe he's buying his time. It just takes one councillor to change his mind and I think Minnan-Wong is that one.
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Hasn't MW voted 100% the same as Ford in Council? This would be an odd time for him to change his pattern.
 
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