@GraphicMatt is also posting updates, check his feed for slightly less snarky takes.

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They are going to take an extra-long lunch break and end later so councillors can go to the funeral of recently killed police officer Marc Pinizzotto (CBC news story)

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Tomorrow they'll also pay tribute to former councillor Howard Moscoe, who passed away recently.

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I switched to the TTY (text-only interface) to save battery life but my scripts for grabbing data right from the TMMIS API are outdated and too many web pages won't open in elinks. :(

Don't worry, you're not missing anything important, just everyone hashing out the Order Paper (calling dibs on items to debate, quickly voting on some small items).

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"Going a little too fast today," says Speaker Nunziata after accidentally calling for a vote to pass the order paper at only an hour into the meeting. HAH! There is still more stuff to arrange (items to schedule for specific times).

edit: Now they adopted the order paper. Good, now we only have to debate 177 of the 191 original items. 🙃

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#TOcouncil livetweeting is a lot like #Monsterdon: it's interminably long, just about everyone is unlikeable, you're not sure if it's dark outside or not, and when there are props (over the years, a few councillors have made a Thing of bringing props in to illustrate various points), they're cheap.

Many thanks to the, like, 3 people tuning in. Seriously.

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Anyway, City CFO Stephen Conforti is giving a presentation on the current item, a deal between the City and the Province for $1.5 billion (from a federal-provincial funding agreement) to fund development so the City can charge developers less.

Developers are (unsurprisingly) strongly against development charges, meant to fund the new infrastructure the City has to build to service new developments, arguing it prevents new stuff from being built. However, the City, like, needs to pay for that infrastructure somehow. Over the years the Province has basically slashed how much the City can get in development charges and what they can be used for. This deal kind of kicks the can down the road.

(What do developers/the Province want the City to do? Have less infrastructure, basically.)

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Conforti says municipalities are responsible for like 60% of public infrastructure in the province, but only collect 9% in—taxes? fees? Sorry, I can't rewind in real life. You get the gist, anyway—municipalities are increasingly responsible for things like transit, housing, etc., but do not have the revenue/funding to match.

Please read the full report (PDF) for the deets on the program, what the funds are going to, what developments will get charges offset, etc.

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Someone just said "growth pays for growth" (the perennial aphorism about what development charges are for), DRINK

Conforti says (quite correctly) that growth hasn't paid for growth for a long time.

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Cheng is like, what about all the infrastructure stuff that isn't roads, transit, water? What will be done about that?

Staff: DICK-ALL

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Questions to staff over, next debate, but first, lunch. (They do some quick releases [quickly voting on stuff the person holding the item decided they didn't want to debate after all] first.)

Back at 3:30 PM!

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Oh my god there was a small gaggle of casually dressed young people (activists-in-training? civics/journalism class?) with hilariously apropos City Council bingo cards, with squares like "Procedural confusion", "Matlow moralizes", "people clapping", "Perks flexing procedural knowledge", etc. I should probably have asked who they were.

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Currently there is a small rally against homelessness in the Peace Garden, organized by Crisis in our City and the Catholic order the Loretto Sisters' Mary Ward Centre, with the slogan #NoOneLeftOutside. People from various ages, walks of life and ethnicities. A large orange banner reads "Join us in our mission to build a compassionate city. Why are people sleeping outside in the wealthiest city in Canada? Everyone should have a safe place to sleep." People's signs say "Access to shelter is a human right", "No home no future", etc.

They went over to the Indigenous garden, however I got distracted by a large patch of lamb's ear attracting many different bees and wasps.

edit: saw a CBC reporter with camera among them so it will be reported more fully later

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Council's not back for 45 minutes but I went through the baggage check and metal detector just to use the top secret spotlessly clean unisex washroom on the second floor. there were no spare outlets at the library so now i'm recharging at the unaccredited media gallery (a bench against a wall next to an outlet) and just hoping no one hassles me

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some random guy: where is the seating area to watch—

me, in head: City Council? Oh, they're not back till 3:30 but when they are, just go to the elevators over there a—

guy: —the match

me: oh. i don't know anything about that

there's only one spectator sport i care about and it's MUNICIPAL POLITICS

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the thing about Canada playing Switzerland is that it's not immediately obvious which team people are dressed up for

#fifa2026