[dt_toronto_geek]

not sure if this is yet more evidence of derangement, but it is definitely evidence of the city's general cluelessness......why, on the May long weekend, when the downtown area is full of tourists, and summer is unofficially underway, would the fountains at Nathan Phillips Square be off????? I know it is seasonal, but surely this long weekend would have been an appropriate time to re-activate the fountains, and install the greenery that goes with them...

The square looked pretty tired this afternoon, quite a bit of garbage blowing about, absolutely disgraceful imo....on the holiday monday of the May long weekend.....does nobody at City Hall care about the image we present to visitors?...

This is unfortunate however not something Miller can be blamed for.

 

[nfitz]

I know it is seasonal, but surely this long weekend would have been an appropriate time to re-activate the fountains, and install the greenery that goes with them...

I'm not sure greenery, flowing water, and frost warnings mix well!

 

[MetroMan]

allaboottmatt, you're so right. In an article that starts off on a positive message like this:

Miller raising the (green) bar. Mayor announces that Lower Don Lands site will try to achieve zero greenhouse gas emission

... you immediately get comments like this:

The only thing this man can do is wasting taxpayers money.

Submitted by nino at 8:24 AM Thursday, May 21 2009


Who pays his salary while working for C40. It's all about him building his resume, and nothing about doing what's right for the City. "His" 65000 public housing residents, including old folks, live in slums without security, are terrorized by drug dealers, and he's wants to spent multiple millions on reinsulating buildings. This when the projects havent seen paint in 20 years?

Submitted by brianlf at 8:16 AM Thursday, May 21 2009

Seriously! People commenting on TheStar have just gone plain bonkers! Is there a way to turn off comments? I guess I'll have to start reading the paper version of TheStar to get away from such negativity yet still read the local news.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Newspaper comments are almost entirely useless. The Star ran an article about Miller losing 50 pounds recently - a fluff piece - and they got comments like this:

Too bad his ego and undeserved, inflated sense of self worth hasn't shrunk along with his waste line.

Submitted by Soulchaser at 10:46 AM Wednesday, May 20 2009

Miller is a joke

Thats the worst mayor in the history of all mayors around the world, while those tamils were blocking the city, he showed up on TV saying that we have to wash our hands for 15s.

Submitted by Speck at 10:13 AM Wednesday, May 20 2009

found a diet that suits him

some people can't eat glutens and some people thrive on red meat. Lapping up the tears of the Middle Class agrees with him.

WOW!!

No one with half a brain cares about you Miller. GET OUT!

Weight loss

That's great, but he is still the worst mayor in Toronto's history.

Submitted by builder.m at 7:51 AM Wednesday, May 20 2009

I don't know why Toronto politics arouses this much anger in people.

 

[Eug]

Newspaper comments are almost entirely useless.

Yes.

I don't know why Toronto politics arouses this much anger in people.

Cuz it's politics. It's not limited to Toronto politics.

However, Miller esp. has a worse PR image than others, for various reasons.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Who pays his salary while working for C40. It's all about him building his resume, and nothing about doing what's right for the City. "His" 65000 public housing residents, including old folks, live in slums without security, are terrorized by drug dealers, and he's wants to spent multiple millions on reinsulating buildings. This when the projects havent seen paint in 20 years?

Submitted by brianlf at 8:16 AM Thursday, May 21 2009

Well, look - Toronto is getting exposure on the world stage, and it's not in the form of a mayor looking like a baffoon talking about the WHO or Africans.

City chiefs seek bigger say in UN climate summit

SEOUL (AFP) – Leaders of the world's biggest cities called for a bigger say in upcoming UN climate change talks as they wrapped up a three-day summit on ways to combat global warming.

"The fight against greenhouse gas emissions will be won or lost in cities," said Toronto Mayor David Miller, chair of the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in the South Korean capital.

The leaders in a summit declaration stressed that half the world's population lives in cities, which account for 75 percent of global energy consumption and 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

"In the run-up to the... UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, the leading role of cities in the global effort against climate change must be recognised," the declaration said.

The conference in the Danish capital is meant to approve a new treaty for the period after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's obligations to cut carbon emissions expire.

Miller told a press conference that all C40 member cities decided to have "a strong presence" in Copenhagen. Representatives from 36 smaller cities, in addition to the biggest 40, also attended the Seoul summit.

"If countries wish to succeed, they have to include cities," Miller said.

The Toronto mayor strongly urged national governments to engage, empower and resource the world's cities so they can successfully combat climate change.

"We occupy only two percent of the area of the world but represent 80 percent of the emissions," he added.

"You must resource cities. So, help us have the tools and financing necessary because that's how to defeat the climate change in those areas. That's what we'll be saying in Copenhagen."

In their declaration, the city leaders "set a common goal of transforming themselves into low-carbon cities" by cutting emissions and making themselves less vulnerable to climate change.

Mayor Gilberto Kassab of Sao Paulo in Brazil, which will host the next C40 summit in 2011, said his city can show the way.

Kassab said Sao Paulo is successfully turning 15,000 tons of its garbage into energy every day -- enough for 700,000 people.

He said it has shifted from one of the most polluted cities into "one of the cleanest cities -- visually speaking -- of the world."

On Tuesday former US President Bill Clinton warned that if the world fails to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050, it would pay a high price in food shortages, drought and public health dangers.

"It is absolutely certain (that) if we let the worst happen, then the consequences will be so severe that we won't be able to save the planet for our grandchildren unless we are willing to undertake enormously expensive projects which can now be avoided," he told the Seoul summit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090521/sc_afp/skoreaclimatewarming_20090521071032

All for a measy what, 100K? Priceless.

AoD

 

[Hydrogen]

The climate fear-mongering is impressive. The inaccuracies and vagueness of some of the statements is depressing.

 

[MisterF]

While he's certainly better than Mel, he's perpetuated some of the "Crying Wolf" every year at budget time.

While Toronto probably has some of the worst systemic budget problems in the province, annual budget struggles aren't unique to Toronto. For example, only this year did Northumberland County bring its road budget back to what it was in the 90s. But taking into account inflation, increases the cost of construction, and highways downloaded by the province, they're capable of doing only a quarter of the work that they could do back then. That's just one example of many - pretty much every municipality struggles to make ends meet every year.

We get a water front that, mainly due to the tax climate, is dominated by condominiums. The only non residential around is ground floor retail, which was forced on developers.

The policies that govern waterfront development were adopted long before Miller was elected. So was the current Official Plan.

 

[Glen]

The policies that govern waterfront development were adopted long before Miller was elected. So was the current Official Plan.

Yes, that is true. Though Miller must take his share of blame for the perpetuation of that.

 

[christiesplits]

On the subject of Lastman, I had the misfortune of hearing his recent three minute screed about Toronto crime with Bill Carroll on CFRB. I was quickly reminded of why I prefer Miller.

 

[kEiThZ]

All in all, Miller is a step-up from Lastman. But when the bar was that low, it's not saying much. I predict that we are going to paying for some of Miller's mistakes for a while yet:

We have a historic opportunity to build a significan amount of public transit in Toronto and what do we get? Transit City. I am a Malvernite and I could tell you that Malvern doesn't need that many transit lines. Years from now we'll look back on this decision and wish that we had not squandered the opportunity to build up the subway network. Contrast that with Pitfield who had the sound policy of building a stop every year.

My other gripe is the union friendliness. All those clauses promising the highest wage in the region or only agreeing to do business with companies that provide a 'living wage' (in reality a sop to the unions - why do they need this if they claim that unionized labour can be economically competitive?). Worst of all on this point is that he has not even taken on the favourite union of the right: the police union. At least if he had tried to rein in law enforcement costs, I would have been a little more appreciative.

All that said, given the history of mayors in Toronto, he's squarely middle of the pack in my books. He's not proven as visionary as we thought he would be in the beginning, but nor has he been a total flop as many critics make him out to be. His re-election will depend squarely on what the other guy is offering because as it stands Miller's record is mixed.

 

[CDL.TO]

My new favourite example of M.D.S., from the comments section of The Star:

It's called the Beach yet signs identify each of 4 separate beachES. More twisted logic from Miller and his gang at silly hall.

 

[christiesplits]

My other gripe is the union friendliness. All those clauses promising the highest wage in the region or only agreeing to do business with companies that provide a 'living wage' (in reality a sop to the unions - why do they need this if they claim that unionized labour can be economically competitive?). Worst of all on this point is that he has not even taken on the favourite union of the right: the police union. At least if he had tried to rein in law enforcement costs, I would have been a little more appreciative.

Keep in mind, Lastman was in bed with the unions as well, arguably more so than Barbara Hall. People speak of the city unions as having organized some sort of coup in 2003, while such influence has been wielded for decades.

 

[sjc]

Does anyone really want to go back to any of the centrist or centre right mayors we had in the over two decades between Sewell and Miller?

Sure I'd take any of them (even Barbara Hall - holding my nose) instead of Miller.

Some of the things that I would like to see that will never happen with Miller:

• holding the line (or reducing) property taxes overall, although I think there is a problem with the ratio between apartment taxation and house taxation that needs to looked at
• expansion of the TTC, but also allowing other companies to provide competing services (such as rush hour express buses). More premium TTC services (what about first class cars on the subway)
• replacement and expansion of the gardiner (under the lake would be good), completion of the Spadina Expressway (drop it underground at least south of Bloor). Finance highway expansion with bonds and tolls
• continuing the expansion of the island airport (but not really anything beyond what is currently planned)
• reopen the gun ranges that Miller closed. I haven't used them, but I have no problem with those that do. I am almost certain that people that shoot at ranges are not the ones that tend to murder people.
• stop council from social engineering. I have no problem with densification but it should be allowed, not forced. Fix the roads and put the fires out. Leave people to live their lives how they like.
• repeal the smoking ban (or is that provincial now?)
• more contracting out of government services with companies allowed to compete without forcing certain wage levels

I live in an apartment and don't have a car which means that I rely on the TTC to get around. I also rely on the the island airport to get to Montreal and Ottawa. While I don't have a car, I realize that lots of people do and it would be a bad idea to disincent people from coming downtown -- all that will achieve is to drive business away from downtown. I don't see why we can't have improved highways and improved TTC.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Yep -- they'll never happen.

Sure I'd take any of them (even Barbara Hall - holding my nose) instead of Miller.

Some of the things that I would like to see that will never happen with Miller:

• holding the line (or reducing) property taxes overall, although I think there is a problem with the ratio between apartment taxation and house taxation that needs to looked at
• expansion of the TTC, but also allowing other companies to provide competing services (such as rush hour express buses). More premium TTC services (what about first class cars on the subway)
• replacement and expansion of the gardiner (under the lake would be good), completion of the Spadina Expressway (drop it underground at least south of Bloor). Finance highway expansion with bonds and tolls
• continuing the expansion of the island airport (but not really anything beyond what is currently planned)
• reopen the gun ranges that Miller closed. I haven't used them, but I have no problem with those that do. I am almost certain that people that shoot at ranges are not the ones that tend to murder people.
• stop council from social engineering. I have no problem with densification but it should be allowed, not forced. Fix the roads and put the fires out. Leave people to live their lives how they like.
• repeal the smoking ban (or is that provincial now?)
• more contracting out of government services with companies allowed to compete without forcing certain wage levels

I live in an apartment and don't have a car which means that I rely on the TTC to get around. I also rely on the the island airport to get to Montreal and Ottawa. While I don't have a car, I realize that lots of people do and it would be a bad idea to disincent people from coming downtown -- all that will achieve is to drive business away from downtown. I don't see why we can't have improved highways and improved TTC.

Sooo.... you'd like lower taxes, and you'd like Miller to spend a whack of cash. OK, then.

And, on the one factual as opposed to opinion-based error in this screed the whack job who shot a guy by MISTAKE after being kicked out of a peeler bar on Yonge was carrying his totally legal, gun-range-only pistol.