Municipal Politics – Page 30

The Mirvish kid is late for the party.

October 2, 2012 by Peter Lowry

David Mirvish, son of Toronto icon the late ‘Honest Ed’ Mirvish has a new vision. With his father laid to rest, the younger Mirvish seems to have almost free rein with the family’s entertainment and retailing empire. He is cutting back on the family theatre holdings to enter new entrepreneurial heights as a condominium developer.

It hardly seems to matter that the younger Mirvish has no background or experience in the condo field as he has an architect and a development manager to help him replace the Princess of Wales Theatre with three condo towers up to 80-stories in height. Nobody is expected to miss the theatre that has looked temporary since it was opened in 1993 for a production of Miss Saigon. The facts are that Toronto has overbuilt the number of 2000-seat theatres it needs or wants, as it has also overbuilt condominiums in the market.

It was Ed Mirvish’s wife Anne who encouraged him to get into the entertainment business and buy the old Royal Alexandra Theatre on King Street. He paid $250,000 for the theatre in 1962 and then spent far more refurbishing it over the following year. It was back in business as a legitimate theatre in 1963. Part of Ed Mirvish’s genius was that he bought up some of the derelict warehouses west of the theatre on King Street and opened a series of restaurants to entice people back to that part of the city. The restaurants are long gone but today King Street, west from University Avenue, constitutes one of the most vibrant parts of the city as the entertainment district.

The people most upset with young Mirvish’s condominium caper are the bar and restaurant owners in the area. These people have enjoyed the fat years of having two large and active theatres in the area helping to draw customers for them. Having just 1500 or so new condominium dwellers in the neighbourhood will never replace the ever changing traffic the area previously drew.

But the real tragedy is that a condominium development could drive a stake into the heart of the Mirvish success in Toronto. The condo market in Toronto has already started to show serious signs of decline and the Mirvish vision could just ride that slippery slope to oblivion. To give up on the Princess of Wales Theatre for a pig in the poke such as condos is not something that ‘Honest Ed’ would have tried.

If David Mirvish would like a freebie he should consider refurbishing the Princess of Wales to create three smaller theatres in the 700-seat range and lower his sights from big hit musicals to reviving more intimate and more intellectually stimulating off-Broadway type productions. Oh well, for what it is worth.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

If you build it, the players will come.

September 23, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Ontario Lottery and Gaming boss Paul Godfrey used to be a politician. He knows that if he is going to find the location for the Toronto area casino, he has to pit the area municipalities against each other. Each of them wants the jobs and tax revenues and they need the tourism.

But Paul also knows that you have to let politicians posture for the voters. It can be as ignorant and simplistic as alluding to some mysterious dark and evil side to gambling and as complex as weighing tax advantages against pressures on existing infrastructure. That is not Paul’s concern. He is trying to meet the revenue demands of his political masters at Queen’s Park. The province needs the money.

Politicians who think they are serving their voters by railing against casinos are more often, unwittingly, helping criminal elements continue their illegal gaming establishments in industrial and banquet hall facilities throughout the Metro area. Legal casinos can be policed. Illegal casinos are an invitation to trouble.

But, in many ways, for a politician to stand Canute-like to stem the tide of the public demands for pleasure palaces is just plain dumb. There are smart politicians in the Toronto area waiting to eat Toronto’s lunch. Markham, Mississauga and Vaughan all have land available for a gaming cum entertainment complex if Toronto does something stupid and leaves the opportunity for others.

Nobody argues that a prime location will be the west half of the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. A second favoured choice is the existing Woodbine Entertainment grounds in Etobicoke. Shoehorning the casino and other amenities into the existing Toronto Convention Centre would probably be a very dumb and overly expensive idea.

Mind you, expense is not a concern that is on the plate. It is the need to ensure that any monies coming into the endeavour are clean and legitimate come first. Apropos of some remarks made recently to the Charbonneau Commission in Montreal about Ontario organized crime, we certainly need to be vigilant about that.

It will be a shame though if we cannot find Canadian entrepreneurs for the casino and entertainment complex undertaking. To send profits south will be a shame.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

You can fight city hall.

September 21, 2012 by Peter Lowry

“You can’t fight city hall’ is an American idiom for the frustration people feel in dealing with bureaucrats and politicians. The only problem with the statement is that it is not true. You not only can fight city hall but you should.

And we are not just talking about municipal politics. You will often hear people say it about all levels of bureaucracy. You can be talking about the appalling levels of bureaucracy you will discover in business. You can be talking about any level of police, the military, a hospital or the medical profession, the local law society, in fact any professional organization or union. You should never be afraid to fight any of them.

But do not get your hopes up about winning. Sometimes in losing we are nudging the bureaucrats closer to reform. And sometimes, you are just making your point.

But that makes the times you win even more delicious. For the past three years, for example, the taxes for our condominium unit have been the lowest per square foot in Babel. We might have been the only owners in Babel who read the instructions for appeal of the assessment and made a successful appeal. After you got through the initial rejections by the bureaucracy, the process was surprisingly easy.

The trick is often to work your way through the bureaucracy to find the person who can see things your way. One of our favourite stories is about the time we broke through in the parking ticket bureaucracy and were offered unlimited free parking at any time in the largest city in Canada. It took the combination of discovering a really stupid error made by the department and a carefully crafted letter to tell the bureaucrats about it. They were so pleased with the error being pointed out in such a nice way that we received a very surprising telephone call. During the three years and the many thousands it cost the city to correct the error, we had free parking. It was like winning at Monopoly.

Mind you, finding the right bureaucrat is not always a successful approach. We recently asked the mayor of Babel if approaching a particular bureaucrat might help resolve a concern with the municipality. The mayor responded that meeting with that bureaucrat would be an ideal solution. And the meeting could not have been more pleasant. The bureaucrat was warm and friendly, delighted to discuss that subject and to share thoughts on it with a concerned citizen. At the end of the conversation, we were emboldened to ask, “How can we help further in this regard?”

“You can’t,” we were told. “We will keep doing it our way, thank you.”

We will, at least, get an “I told you so!” out of that meeting. And that is just one more reason why fighting city hall can be worthwhile.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The terror of technology for tyros.

September 19, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Tyros are beginners, people who are learning. They are much like many of the staff of the town of Babel. Among the staff are people who come to a small town such as Babel to learn their craft. They come to make their mistakes. They try to minimize those mistakes though and put caution in the way of any progress. It is a caution they carry throughout their careers working for Canadian municipalities.

The reason little happens in Babel is not as much the conservatism of the members of council as it is the conservatism of the tyros. It makes for some frustration with what does not happen with any alacrity in Babel.

An interesting example is the computerized voting system used by Babel for municipal elections. With the speed of change in computer technology, this voting system was obviously out of date the first year it was used. Having been asked to help troubleshoot the voting process for a mayoralty candidate in the last municipal election, it became a lesson in what can go wrong with this type of system. The conclusion of the experience was that the system is too cumbersome, too slow, too expensive and causes too much confusion for support staff and voters.

And the tyros of Babel think they are with it because they use a ‘computerized’ system!

What they are really using is the rough equivalent of the punched cards in Florida state and federal elections with their hanging chads and questionable counting procedures.

But when you ask why the town has not turned to Internet voting, you find that the tyros do not trust the Internet. When you consider the federal and provincial government agencies that use the internet for very confidential information, the millions of citizens who do their banking and bill paying on-line and the billions spent with credit cards on-line, you wonder if these tyros know something the rest of us do not.

Internet voting is something that is starting to take place elsewhere. Babel would hardly be the first if it moved into the 21^st Century in this manner. It might not improve voter participation but it would make it convenient for the caring voter to vote anytime over a period of a few days from the convenience of his or her computer or smart cell phone.

We regret to inform you, there will be a ward by-election in Babel in December. City council passed a by-law the other day without a single question from any of the politicians either in committee or as council. The by-law allows for three days of actual voting, at different times and at different places. It will use the old voting machines with their awkward computer counting of the results. It seems that democracy in Babel is at the convenience of the tyros, not the voters.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

In defence of civility.

September 16, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Sitting beside someone the other evening who admired Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was a bit of a trial. When he went on to laud Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s award of Statesman of the Year, there was an urge to use brute force to silence him.

But he had a right to his opinion. While he appeared (to us) to be ignorant and misled, you try desperately to understand where this person is coming from. What will it take to educate him? You try to analyze the situation. Can he convince others to think as he does? If the answer is ‘no,’ maybe you can dismiss him from your mind and go on to weightier matters. And, even if the answer is ‘yes,’ the physical act of hitting him will feel good but will solve nothing.

A reader wrote the other day that I fear for civility and our ability to get along with one another in very basic and practical ways. He was writing about Mayor Ford’s seeming propensity for breaking laws that were inconvenient for him. The reader could not understand a man, who wants to be a leader, not realizing the impact of leading by example.

The reader goes on to say: I believe I have been witnessing a decline in civility in recent years. Our social fibre is less rigorous, certainly less responsibly social. Unthinking and selfish individualism has been on the rise. It’s part of the “Government back off, this land is my land” ignorance and selfishness. He concludes with the comment: They just haven’t been civilized. They think such behaviour is for wimps.

This thinking was in mind when trying to understand Romney and Ryan’s reaction to the death of American diplomats in Libya. These shallow, crass people used this ugly, tragic event to further their own ambitions, to attack the president of the United States of America. The president is required to speak on behalf of the nation in reaction to incidents such as this and all they are proving is that they are inadequate to the task.

Looking at the incident, the quickly assembled riots throughout the Muslim world seem to be gross over-reaction to a piece of garbage video that had no purpose other than to insult. It seems promoting racial hatred is not illegal in America when it hides behind freedom of speech. The problem is that there are elements within the Muslim communities around the world who constantly seek out supposed slights to continue their war of hatred against America.

The world is going through bad times. Civility needs to start at the top. We need leaders who can set an example.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Can Toronto afford to lose Mayor Ford?

September 4, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Mayor Rob Ford’s bombast and bluster aside,Toronto’s electors should pay heed to the effort to put him down. No replacement mayor will ever be safe if it is too easy to dispense with a sitting mayor. It will become open season on mayors and councillors who fail to meet a constantly moving set of standards.

Rob Ford’s only mistake in this rumble was to defend himself. It was a natural, knee-jerk thing to do. And, you have to admit, Rob Ford is a knee-jerk kind of guy.

Not that we condone any flimflam from politicians but you have to wonder if the $3150 of donations to Ford’s football foundation involved in this situation are enough to justify the destruction of a career. Not, we quickly stipulate, that he should screw around with the ethics commissioner or deal with issues on council where he has a conflict of interest. He deserves a firm reprimand, a large fine if you wish, a few days in jail maybe, but not his job. The job is a matter to be left to the voters.

There will certainly be a lot of high-flying rhetoric in the courtroom but the key to the case is Mayor Ford’s intent. Sure he ignored the city’s integrity commissioner. He also ignored the Gay Pride Parade people. He will tell anyone who asks that being the mayor of a big city is a big job and he has no time for these annoyances.

Clayton Ruby, lawyer for the complainant, Paul Magder (not the furrier), is going to argue that Rob Ford should neither have argued in his own defence nor have voted on the issue. The judge should listen to this argument very carefully. There is a principal in this somewhere! It probably has to do with the right to defend oneself.

Mind you, Ford has finally smartened up on that. He has hired a lawyer. This is a fairly expensive lawyer and that means somebody convinced Rob Ford to take the matter seriously. It is the same lawyer who kept former mayor Mel Lastman out of trouble back when Lastman was mayor. Back then, it was the MFP Computer leasing fiasco and the overrun of unapproved costs of over $40 million. Compared to $3150, that inquiry had meat to it.

Clayton Ruby claims that his action is not because he is left of centre politically and Rob Ford is further right than Rob’s friend Stephen Harper. It is because he does not think Rob Ford’s approach to governance is in the public interest. If Ruby’s claim gets Ford dumped, we have a long list of politicians for Ruby to turf from office.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Stating the obvious for police boards.

August 17, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Why should the Province of Ontario further clarify the role of our police services boards? While it has been obvious for many years that these highly politicized boards are largely inadequate for the role they undertake, they have sufficient powers needed to do their job. To outline those powers in more detail to the members of the boards would almost guarantee their usage when not necessarily warranted.

What brings up this concern is the request by the chair of the City of Ottawa police services board for clarification of the role of the boards. The Ottawa board and others across the province appear to be confused by the report from retired judge John Morden on the Toronto G20 fiasco. You hardly need to read between the lines of Morden’s report to see why Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair should be fired and the Toronto Police Services Board should resign for failure to do their job.

But they are like many police board members across Ontario who seem to think they have no right to question those police operations that are managed by the police chief. They appear to be forgetting that the chief works under contract for the board. The board hires and fires the chief.

It is similar, with a few differences, to the relationship of the board of directors of a company and the company’s chief operating officer. The quasi-military chain of command and discipline needs of a police force require the board members to keep their distance from any action that could constitute interference in day-to-day operations.

But questioning policing policies and interaction of the police with the public are very much the right of the board. The board members are responsible for policing on behalf of the community. They work for the public and not the police.

This is one reason why it is very annoying to see police service board members acting as spokespersons for the police. As it stands today, municipal councillors and mayors who serve on police service boards should be declaring a conflict and not voting on police budgets. For the chair of the police services board to present the police budget to the council instead of a representative of the police officials who created it, is a corruption of the role of the police services chair.

But if we continue appointing unqualified people to police services boards, we are going to continue to muddle along. The problem is the people, more than the rules.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Driving Mr. Ford.

August 16, 2012 by Peter Lowry

One of the first assignments in political campaigns that used to be given young political apparatchiks was driving the candidate. A smart campaign manager would always ensure that a distracted and busy candidate had time between assignments such as coffee parties and speeches to read briefing notes and to rest for a few minutes, if needed. The good driver was the one who knew when the candidate needed to deal with personal thoughts and when serving as a sounding board might be helpful.

What brings this up is the current flurry of concern that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is going to kill someone—likely himself—if he continues reading, texting and using his cell phone while driving his very large utility vehicle. The police are in the forefront of those recommending that he have a driver. The mayor has no idea what the fuss is about.

It is amazing that in recent years people have forgotten that Toronto City Hall used to have a fleet of city cars and drivers at the beck and call of the city’s mayor and controllers. (The aldermen had to fend for themselves.) In Ottawa or at Queen’s Park at that time, all members of cabinet had a car and driver assigned to them.

The exception to this was the time when a grand-standing Liberal Premier Mitch Hepburn publicly auctioned off the previous Conservative cabinet’s limousines after he was elected in 1934.

Another event that underlined the need for political figures to have drivers was in 1977. The then Premier of Quebec, René Lévesque struck and killed a homeless person while driving a lady other than his wife late at night. He paid a fine of $25 for not wearing his glasses at the time but this was an object lesson in why political figureheads should not drive themselves.

Obviously there is an ebb and flow of opinion on what political positions, if any, should merit being chauffeured. In an egalitarian society such as Canada, it is not common for people to need to be driven on their routine commutes. There are also politicians who prefer to drive themselves. Pierre Trudeau made a point of showing off his sports car and driving it himself after being defeated by Joe Clark’s Conservatives in 1979.

As for Mayor Ford, he should heed the advice of the Toronto police. There could be a flurry of tickets for minor infractions if he does not pay attention.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Brown’s bounty.

August 14, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Babel is certainly blessed. Where would we ever be without Brown’s bounty? Just yesterday, Babel’s city council voted to once again provide the Barrie Molson Centre for his annual Brown Appreciation Night at a small portion of the real cost. This was after a lengthy debate earlier in the meeting about taxpayers having to foot the bill each year because our local hockey palace does not pay its way.

New readers should be advised that we are referring to the guy Babelites know as ‘Little Boy Brown MP.’ In his role as Impresario Brown, he has never found a charity that he could not use for self-promotion. As he has no role in Ottawa other than as ‘King of the ten-percenters,’ in which he has proved he can out-spend all other members of parliament. In Ottawa, he is a fetcher, carrier and voter for the Prime Minister. In Babel, he is always looking for ways to ingratiate himself with voters.

His favourite of all his promotions is his hockey night every summer at the Barrie Molson Centre. It is year five this Thursday night and he has yet to provide the voters with an audited statement of how much goes to promote him and the Conservative Party and how much goes to Royal Victoria Hospital.

As churlish as it might seem to complain about the crass propaganda of these events, there is no doubt that such an event could be even more successful without the political overtones. For example, it is something that could be arranged and promoted by the hospital’s highly regarded volunteer organization. Then, we could all contribute.

We could also move the event to a cooler time of year when it costs less to cool the building and create an ice surface.

Of all these events, the one in 2011 was the most blatant propaganda for the Conservative Party as Conservative Leader Stephen Harper took part.

While city councillors never once mentioned Brown’s role in this event, it was obvious that some had been getting static from voters. Council has regularly turned down requests from charities for reduced costs of recreational facilities for fund-raising functions and the fact that most of the councillors are Conservatives has been duly noted. Now staff is being asked to recommend a policy on charitable use of city facilities.

But that is a standard answer to many questions in Babel: it is under study by city staff.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Burghers bet on Babel by-election.

August 12, 2012 by Peter Lowry

It looks like Babel’s Ward 8 voters will get to vote in a by-election this December to replace their councillor. It will require council to agree but that is the staff recommendation. What the staff recognized is that it is the more democratic solution. And that is tough to argue against.

But the real question is can Babel trust its out-of-date voting system in even a tightly controlled by-election? Working with the antiquated computer system in the last municipal election was an exercise in concern. The good news was that the old software could not be hacked because the machines operated off-line. They only came together after the votes were cast to tally the total votes. That final tally period was a lengthy, hand-wringing period of deep concern.

Contrary to what is expected of a computerized voting system, each bank of the machines had to come with a human care-giver. This election official had to change modules for specific wards and school system support for the individual voters. This person was also the trouble-shooter to assist voters confused by the system. And they were confused.

There is an adage in the computer industry that ‘user-friendly’ is a ghost—something that people talk about but have never seen. The basic problem is that what is self-evident to a computer programmer might not be self-evident to a human.

Some of the more interesting problems Babel experienced in the last municipal election were that the election officials were mainly city employees who must have been handed an instruction manual rather than having to attend training. They tended to take their written instructions literally, without comprehending the rational behind the instructions. One polling official had tried to place the candidates’ scrutinineers on the other side of the room to ‘witness’ the procedures. This was changed once the official understood that the scrutinineers had to both see and hear what was taking place.

With today’s software and high speed Internet capabilities, there would be few problems in setting up an Internet voting system for the by-election in December. What might take longer are the demonstrations needed to convince all concerned that the system is secure.

It will be essential though for the next municipal election. The outmoded voting machines will no longer be practical as there are insufficient numbers of them available to handle the potential number of voters. An Internet system is the only practical answer. And if we want to ensure the franchise to the citizens of Babel, it is the essential answer.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]