[denfromoakvillemilton]

He has..thats a good one, for heavens sake he has only been in office for a little over 2 months.

Fair enough.

But he should cut the police budget for real impact.

 

[MetroMan]

^ He did. 200 less police officers are on the payroll this year than last. That's a considerable cut. What I'm concerned about is the type of cut.

I think the real impact on the Police budget is not in forcing the TPS to not fill 200 retiring police officers' jobs by cutting the budget. A real impact will be achieved in changing policies so that they find themselves not needing the current budget.

An example: create a division within the TPS that deals with policing road work, construction sites, film sets, etc. Qualifications for this job would be at the same entry level as Parking Enforcement, and paid as such. This would first free the Police budget from paying double time to a fully qualified Police Officer to stand around checking Facebook on his cell. It would also begin to earn the city money when film studios and construction developers would pay the city to provide these officers who are getting paid a wage, not $40 to $70 p/hr paid duty to the officer. This division might even turn a profit, which in turn would go back into the TPS budget, meaning that their budget today could actually be reduced without affecting service levels, and most importantly without taking officers off the street. Perhaps, we might even be able to reduce the force size since we wouldn't need highly paid, fully qualified officers flicking Angry Birds around on their iPhones. The whole force would be doing actual policing.

 

[toraerach]

First of all, under the CUPE contract, all permanent garbage collectors must be offered other jobs at equal or greater pay within the Toronto gov't workforce, so there will not not be hundreds of people unemployed. In fact, to many of the garbage collectors I imagine they see this as a career opportunity, get out of the garbage business and instead do other work, for the same or better pay and benefits. It's a win for the workers, and the taxpayers.

Where are these jobs at equal or higher pay going to come from? Will other city workers get the axe, or will new positions have to be created for them? And if it's the latter, how is this supposed to save the City any money? They'd be paying the old collectors for the new jobs created plus the new private collection company.

Either a lot of people are going to lose their jobs or the City's going to end up paying a whole bunch of people a whole lot more.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I emailed Brian Ashton about some stuff a while back. I got personal replies by email.

He didn't run again in my ward, and was replaced by Gary Crawford. I emailed the new guy about some stuff too, and he gave me personal replies by email, and then called me a couple of days later.

I'm impressed with both of these guys.

The problem with e-mail is all the spam and junk mail one gets. I personally get 75 e-mails each day. Most get trashed by my filters, but a lot get through. Probably better to telephone and e-mail at the same time.I shudder to think about how many spams and junk mail the councilors get, and how many legit mail get caught by their filters.

 

[MetroMan]

In today's vote to cancel salary increases for councillors and the Mayor, Rob Ford voted to cancel but his brother Doug Ford and his deputy voted against the Mayor. Am I reading this wrong?

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2011.MM3.2

 

[PinkLucy]

It's kind of confusing because, according to this article (http://www.thestar.com/news/article/935309--councillors-freeze-their-pay?bn=1), Doug Ford spoke out against the increase, but he seems to have voted against cancelling it. Is it possible he misunderstood the question or something?

 

[toto]

In today's vote to cancel salary increases for councillors and the Mayor, Rob Ford voted to cancel but his brother Doug Ford and his deputy voted against the Mayor. Am I reading this wrong?

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2011.MM3.2

The way I see it, the no votes are for the motion to amend by Paula Flecter, that reads as follows - That City Council amend Recommendation 1 by deleting the words "cost of living salary" and inserting instead the words "Consumer Price Index" so that the Recommendation 1 now reads as follows:

 

[MetroMan]

Toto, you're right. Immediately below that vote is one for the actual cancellation of the increase. 3 councillors including Mihevic voted against cancelling their salary increase. It's petty savings but Mihevic should know better. Turning down a salary increase will put the city in a better bargaining position when negotiating new contracts this year.

 

[GraphicMatt]

The issue is that debating this amounts to nothing but grandstanding. It's a dumb political football - the worst kind of populism.

Raising council salaries a small amount each year, in line with the Consumer Price Index, is a smart idea and it's unfortunate that this still gets dredged up when there are far more pressing issues facing this city.

 

[Eug]

In today's vote to cancel salary increases for councillors and the Mayor, Rob Ford voted to cancel but his brother Doug Ford and his deputy voted against the Mayor. Am I reading this wrong?

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2011.MM3.2

According to the radio, it was 39 for, 3 against.

EDIT:

Here we go:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ote-to-freeze-their-own-wages/article1899553/

Mr. Mihevc was one of the three councillors to vote against the pay freeze. The others were North York Councillor John Filion and Scarborough Councillor Ron Moeser.

 

[Riverman]

An example: create a division within the TPS that deals with policing road work, construction sites, film sets, etc.

That was done here and it is working very well. Plus, it gives the police service a great place to recruit from.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/policerecruiting/cadet/index.aspx

 

[adma]

According to the radio, it was 39 for, 3 against.

EDIT:

Here we go:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ote-to-freeze-their-own-wages/article1899553/

Mr. Mihevc was one of the three councillors to vote against the pay freeze. The others were North York Councillor John Filion and Scarborough Councillor Ron Moeser.

Again, that's where the absence of Howard Moscoe is felt--he probably would have whipped more than three "anti" votes...

 

[Frankie1984]

So while the Mayor is in the hospital getting a kidney stone removed (ouch!), his brother heckles a protestor.

After Ontario Coalition Against Poverty protesters stormed a meeting of city council’s budget committee Thursday morning, committee vice-chair Doug Ford told a confrontational protester to “get a job†— echoing comments his brother, Mayor Rob Ford, made to OCAP protesters during similar City Hall demonstrations in 2002 and 2005.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/936252--doug-ford-denies-get-a-job-quip-during-protest

So is this the "new" customer service they were preaching about?

 

[CDL.TO]

What bugs me more than the comment (which is par for the course for the Fords), is this:

The radio station 680 News captured Doug Ford’s comment on tape. Asked about it during the budget committee’s lunch break, Ford said, “I didn’t say ‘Get a job,’ not at all. Show me on tape when I said that.” Told that reporters had listened to the tape, he did not respond; a security guard then escorted him out of the committee room.

It really seems like the brothers Ford have some problems with the truth. Their first reflex is to lie, even over small things that don't really matter much. Witness the Air Canada incident, the arrest in Florida, and (possibly) the university question. Heck, saying "Yeah, I told him to get a job. What of it?" would IMPROVE people's view of him in many circles. But no... lie lie lie and when faced with your lies just walk away.

 

[nfitz]

It does seem concerning that Doug Ford seems to be as much a pathological liar as his brother. Why would one even think to lie about something so minor as this?