Seriously, is there a link to how-to's on posting the quote stuff? I tried twice and butchered it.
I find that frequent use of the preview post button helps, as at least then there is saved version to go back to.
... he appears human and truthful.
He appears truthful? He's been caught in so many lies. During his campaign he talked of having to leave university a couple of courses short of graduating. When the truth came out, he dropped out in first year. That's truthful? That's falsifying a resume, and it's an automatic firing offence almost anywhere. And the lies have kept coming. Not political bending of the truth - but simple, mindless, unnecessary lies.
Debt? Good if ours is lowest, I'd still prefer it lower, or I'd like to find out if the city can still afford the same amount of debt if the interest rate goes up 2%. I'd prefer the city when looking to take on more debt, also evaluates if they can still afford it at an interest rate that is 2-3% higher than currently. Rates are stupidly low now, but it won't last forever.
What's Toronto's debt? $4-billion? So a 2% interest increase is less than $100 million? That's a rounding error on the city's budget. Your point was the city is broke. However we have relatively low debt levels (
Moody's says Toronto has a low debt level), and low taxes compared to surrounding municipalities. Not only is Toronto not broke, the city's finances are quite healthy. You've fallen for those on council who choose to state otherwise in order to scare votes.
I just remember every year Miller going to McGuinty to beg for money, when that didn't work, he'd start threatening services to get his way and his budget passed.
As opposed to Rob Ford's announcing there's a fictional 700-million shortfall so as to justify him breaking his no service cut promise? And hasn't Ford also gone to the province every year to beg for money? He's asked for the province to fund subways, and at the same time made it very clear that he won't. And the annual city request to the province for funding of various projects looks about the same as it always loooks.
No begging to the province, no high stakes financial chicken. It passed with little argument - and that hasn't happened in at least a decade.
Hang on - there was so much drama this year the budget chief quit in protest ... that hasn't happened in a decade. The right-wing didn't even try their usual stuff, and quickly agreed to increase taxes. And no begging to the province? The city has asked for long-term transit funding. Long-term and sustainable funding for affordable housing. And has presented the province with a long shopping list of funding needed for capital projects. Just like they do every year.
I have no issue with Ford's football coaching. For 10-12 weeks a year he leaves early 2 or 3 times a week.
And if he, himself, did only this 2-3 time a week for 10-12 weeks, I'd be fine with it. But he himself said that it's “Every day from 3 to 6 o’clock for September-October, and depending on how far the team goes in the playoffs, it could go to the end of November.” And even that would be find. However, taking office staff with him, including city vehicles, every day, is not right. And if the staff were helping him work at the same time, perhaps. But they are helping him coach football! It even came out that there was a person in his office who had pretty much been hired to help with the football program, and this is what they spent most of their time on. That's corruption. And that's stealing from the tax payers. How can Rob Ford have so little respect for the taxpayers?
Miller had his own pet projects and would be gone a lot as well.
He was gone from time-to-time on city business. He certainly didn't take afternoons off on a regular basis to indulge a hobby.
It was shortly after Ford was elected, and I feel they didn't want to strike against Ford - and especially after the bad taste the garbage strike had left in many people's memory.
Not sure why you call it a garbage strike - there were 24,000 workers on strike, and only a small fraction were dealing with garbage. There was no garbage collection for about 6 weeks - it's hard to imagine this impacted most residents much - personally I simply stacked the newsprint in the basement, and put the rest in the blue bin. I had a second green bin that got pressed into action, and had an extra garbage bag of stuff in the basement by the end, that I'd never got around to taking to one of the nearby facilities. Now, it if had gone on much longer, I'd have had to have started taking a lot of stuff to the collection facility ... but it was hardly a big deal.
Don't forget, the main reason Ford got elected was Miller. When he bent over for the garbage workers, he realized he was toast and announced he was leaving.
Your missing something here ... Miller fought the city workers, and that's what caused him the issues. If he'd have simply rolled over before the strike, without forcing the concessions on sick days, this would have been a non-issue.
Ford (or whoever he had negotiating) knows this, and that's why they didn't push a strike with the city union, and the police union. They know the voters don't really care about the cost, are are much more upset about the strike. Sure, the strike cost Miller ... but surely it wasn't rolling over!
There was such a backlash at the time, if you could have taught a monkey to say 'I'll fight the unions and privatize garbage collection, he would have got elected.
And yet Miller fought the unions and won concessions. It's paradoxical. Ford meanwhile rolls over completely on the police union and the TTC union (despite their protests about the "essential service", it's more a "twist my rubber arm" thing, as they know full well that they'll get healthier settlements over the long-run from the arbiter than negotiation.
The 2 billion in savings would have been great. But I'd still rather have nickels and dimes saved versus Smitherman or Pants in charge. Smithers was Mcguinty lite, and Pants was Miller lite.
Miller was a fantastic mayor. The man was intelligent and found ways to improve the city. Something Ford doesn't even have the mental skill to comprehend - let alone replicate.
If you think Ford's corrupt, what is McGuinty? Just curious. Only difference I see is McGuinty was a better liar.
Not sure what McGuinty has to do with it. He's not mayor. And I certainly haven't ever heard any suggestion he's corrupt. The man seems quite pleasant, family-oriented nice guy. Even Hudak has nice things to say about him. He's certainly done a lot to improve Toronto and the GTA with funding for projects like Waterfront, and the $10+ billion of transit infrastructure. Sure, there's been some scandals, but I've seen no suggestion that ORNGE reached the minister's office, let alone the Premiers ... that's not to say they shouldn't have spotted the corruption earlier. And the power plant issue is hardly corruption ... it's simply politics ... Hudak had also promised to cancel them, so I have a hard time understanding how they are so high and might about it after them. It was a huge mistake ... they should have built the things and to hell with the NIMBYs. They had no problem dropping a similar plant near my house in Toronto without the incessant whining of the over-entitled suburban elite.
The paradox is, that in the mind of many, all Ford has going with him is his fiscal responsibility. And yet he's responsible for little of what was achieved - Del Grande should get the credit - before he quit in protest because Ford was not supporting him. And yet when you start digging into the numbers, Ford has actually accomplished very little in trimming the budget - other than perhaps delaying capital spending by a year, and some relatively small savings on contracting out garbage collection. Nothing like the huge savings Miller succeeded by eliminating the trucking of waste to Michigan by buying a fully-licensed private landfill in Ontario with lots of capacity (a very rare commodity!).
Any business who wants to come here is more concerned about the 5 million wallets in this city, they don't care who the mayor is.
