I’m here once again at the best municipal government event of the year: City Manager Chris Murray’s address at @imfgtoronto. This year’s is titled “The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be” which sounds pretty cheery and optimistic to me.
City Manager Murray says he has fifteen slides in his presentation today. Hoping at least six of ‘em have iceberg infographics. #imfgtalks
In the last year, Toronto grew by 77K people — more than double the 29K average growth of recent years, says Murray. #imfgtalks
Lots of growth, yes, and city spending is less per resident than it was 10 years ago, says Murray. He’s got a chart.
Citing the Vital Signs report, Murray notes big challenges in T.O.: worsening inequality, precarious work, congestion, housing affordability. #imfgtalks
Murray’s six priorities for Toronto:
1) Financial sustainability 2) A well-run city 3) Maintain and create housing that’s affordable 4) Keep Toronto moving 5) Invest in people and neighbourhoods 6) Tackle climate change and build resilience
Murray says it’s remarkable the city has maintained below-inflationary property tax increases while growing so rapidly. No kidding. He says a “revenue strategy” will be necessary going forward as growth continues. There have been many reports and Council debates about this.
“Just imagine for a second if Line 1 went down for a month,” says Murray, “How would we get around? You’d never be able to put enough buses on the road .. when your system is 60+ years old, how fragile is it? You don’t ever want to wait ’til you’re in that situation.” Cheery!
Murray is very careful with his words when asked about the idea of Charter City status from Toronto. He says he thinks staff probably have some thoughts on it. Kinda sounds like a councillor should ask for a report.
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It’s a B-Day on V-Day. Toronto Council meets today for a special Valentine’s budget meeting.
We’re expecting changes to Mayor Chow’s budget, including more suburban snow plowing and more police spending.
I will post things. It’s streaming live here:
The big news is that Mayor Olivia Chow has indicated she’ll support a motion to put $12.6 million into the police budget, matching the board request. This is a pretty significant climbdown for the mayor, who had seemed pretty resolute. thestar.com/news/gta/mayor…
This battle was always more symbolic than substantive. $12.6 million is less than 1% of police spending. It’s less than 0.1% of city spending. It’s a level of money you typically find in a variance report. Public safety will not hinge on this amount.
Council meets today! It’s a pre-budget appetizer of a meeting, with debates on noise, bus lanes and sledding. Yes, like tobogganing. It’s a magical world, ol’ buddy, let’s go exploring.
I’ll be posting things that happen.
The meeting live stream is here:
I’ve got a full preview of the agenda in last Friday’s issue of the newsletter, complete with this cool archive photo.
Mayor Olivia Chow has set the RapidTO bus lane plan as her first key matter, so that should be up first, barring any changes.
We start with a few notes. Councillor Fletcher pays tribute after the passing of her longtime executive assistant Susan Serran. Councillor Moise welcomes us to Black History Month. Mayor Chow offers congratulations to retiring City of Toronto Controller Andrew Flynn.
Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster announces he CAN’T announce a new opening date for the Eglinton Crosstown. He says he has a good sense of the schedule, but builder Crosslinx still finding “issues and defects that require additional time” so he’s made choice not to offer a date. Wow.
Metrolinx CEO says there will now be updates every two months on the progress of the Crosstown line. So maybe in two months we’ll get an opening date? Maybe! But maybe not! Schrödinger's LRT.
To recap: In early Aug, Verster said he’d provide range of opening dates by end of summer. Last week, Metrolinx acknowledged they’d miss that deadline. Metrolinx later scheduled an announcement for today, where dates were expected. But the announcement is there is no announcement
Toronto Council meets today! Their agenda includes yet another report telling them their financial situation is — surprise! — bad. Also Bike Share price hikes, SmartTrack, docking Matlow’s pay & more.
Toronto Council meets today! We’ve got a really Schrödinger's Mayor situation here — will John Tory stay or will he go? Will he be the mayor or an uncanny ex-mayor?
Also: a budget debate! The meeting is streaming here. I’ll tweet.
We’ve now got a strong indication that Tory will actively participate in this debate. He’s marked the vote to lock in the tax rate as his first “key matter”, meaning it will be debated BEFORE council votes on any amendments to programs and services.
As I note every budget season, this is a @towhey strategy pioneered under Rob Ford. It frustrates people who would like to move budget amendments because they can’t, once the tax rate is locked in, increase services and fund that increase with, like, a 0.05% property tax increase
Toronto Council meets today! Consider this an appetizer of a meeting before next week’s budgetary main course.
The mayor has set his request for a report on revenue tools as the first item, followed by CafeTO.
Streaming live here. I’ll be tweeting.
For a preview of the meeting, including a look at items related to 24/7 warming centres and updated Gardiner costs, I’ve got you covered with this week’s @cityhallwatcher. toronto.cityhallwatcher.com/p/chw213
Oh look, it’s the Grey Cup. Councillors are taking photos with it before the meeting starts.