@LALegault OK... let's deal with the "endless debates" thing Ford complains about. Council has met 44 times in this 4 yr term. /a
The average meeting lasts 3 days. Rarely do they go late into the night & they have about 300 items on the agenda. About 40 get debated /b
The vast majority of items come to council with committee, agency or board recommendations (ABC's)There are 123 that report to council /c
Boards inc TTC Health Police Library, Budget Committee Planning & Community Councils etc. ABCs are blend of elected & Citizens appointees/d
Because a lot of thought, time consultation & perspectives are explored at Committee by the time an item is at council there is consensus/e
If you have ever been to council, the first hour passes hundreds of items by consent. What gets debated are the controversial items. /f
Some items are held for clarification and released after talks off line. Its very efficient and the epitome of a functional system /g
The ABC's of council is where council does its best work in concert with citizens who actively participate. Democracy at its best. /h
By provincial law you need a set number of councillors on most of these ABC's. There are barely enough elected officials to go around now./I
The Fords never showed up for committee work. When they did they often belittled the folks who showed up or made a point of grandstanding/j
They would often vote against a motion based simply on which Ward the idea came from and almost never read the reports. /j
Council is effective & efficient.It breaks down if politicians use council as a forum for understanding an issue instead of engaging early/k
Fewer politicians will see less consensus & more pointless debate at council meetings. It's taken 20yrs to fix a system amalgamation broke/L
You can always tell at council who has attended the committee meetings & who has read a report by the quality of their questions to staff/m
The dysfunction at council was lazy politicians, luckily in a large council they were always out numbered and out worked. Not sure now./n
With a smaller council & a big city councillors will either be at committee all the time or in the ward...not both & both jobs will suffer/m
This is how democracy erodes, attention to detail suffers & effective engagement & policy work falls apart. The back up plan is more staff/o
This is why Fords plan will fail. It will cost more and do less. Ford doesn't really want smaller government. He wants less government . /p
More private power & a lot less public power. My guess is that he will get rid of the ABC's next & put all of the power in one office /q
The Mayor's office. The Strong Mayor System. This is why this election for Mayor and council now becomes so important. /r
Either we elect local politicians who decentralize and share power or we don't. Once power is concentrated it rarely swings back. /s
Local Democracy matters. /t
