Neville ParkToronto City Council meets today! Second-to-last meeting of the term.
I'll be posting occasional updates. Follow/mute these hashtags as needed.
YouTube
@GraphicMatt is also posting updates, check his feed for slightly less snarky takes.
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)
Tributes pour in for Toronto officer shot in line of duty as police continue search for suspect | CBC News
The death of Const. Marc Pinizzotto, who was fatally shot while conducting a search warrant early Thursday morning, has drawn tributes from all over the country, ranging from Ontario's premier to the prime minister.
Tomorrow they'll also pay tribute to former councillor Howard Moscoe, who passed away recently.
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to the TTY (text-only interface) to save battery life but my scripts for grabbing data right from the TMMIS API are outdated and too many web pages won't open in elinks.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).
"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. 🙃
#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.
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.)
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.
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.
Cheng is like, what about all the infrastructure stuff that isn't roads, transit, water? What will be done about that?
Staff: DICK-ALL
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!
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.
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
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
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
the thing about Canada playing Switzerland is that it's not immediately obvious which team people are dressed up for
A slight procedural hitch: most of Council is still on the way back from PC Pinizzotto's funeral in Etobicoke, and are all appearing virtually while apparently riding the bus back. Deputy speaker Fletcher informs the audience (the large crowd of LiUNA union members here for some item or other) that unfortunately, the bells will ring until the meeting resumes.
She at last decides to recess the meeting until everyone gets back.
damn i can't believe how excited everyone is to watch city council
(I really wanted to turn some of the red shirts blue but it's very fiddly with nothing but the ThinkPad nubbin)
Did the PCs edit a Ford Fest photo to suggest there were more supporters? Here's what we found | CBC News
The Ontario government’s Official Opposition slammed Premier Doug Ford Monday after a photograph shared online by two PC MPPs showcasing Ford Fest — an annual community event held by the party — appeared to be edited to make protesters look like supporters.
In the interim Mayor Chow has arrived and apologized to the LiUNA members.
The BELLS have resumed. I should have been looking up what item the union is here for but I am fighting the urge to nap.
Perhaps of interest to fedi given all the Europeans and Brits talking about heat right now: Toronto inching its way towards a maximum indoor temperature bylaw. We have standards for how warm a building must be in the winter, but not how cool it must be kept in the summer.
Right, now back to speeches on the Development Charge Reduction Program $1.5 billion thing.
Perks is speaking about what he calls "the Great Download" (Toronto, and also Canadian municipalities in general, taking on increasing responsibilities for transit, social housing, etc.) He praises Chow, Conforti for "reversing" the trend (but falls short of pointing out that this is a one-time thing and doesn't address the unsustainable situation).
Now Holyday has several motions. Great. 🙄
(Look, I'm not getting paid enough to be nice to Holyday. I am not in fact being paid for this at all. If anyone sent me any money, I would spend it on stationery and keep being mean to Holyday.)
In addition to what @GraphicMatt says (https://mastodon.social/@GraphicMatt/116807104328769219), I also think Holyday is a bit put out that the $1.5 billion does not go directly into the pockets of developers. Like, he wants it to be a dollar-for-dollar rebate.
Nunziata thinks Council should be grovelling at the governments' feet to thank them for the money and get on with it instead of debating.
Carroll agrees heartily and says she isn't going to tell a cautionary tale about "what if the economy recovers" [and all of this, presumably, was for nothing]. "I have a different cautionary tale, the one where we mistakenly adopt Cllr Holyday's motions." BURN!
Carroll finishes by calling Holyday's motions "quite frankly goofy".
Cllr Alejandra Bravo points out that if the federal and provincial governments hadn't walked away from building and funding social housing, we wouldn't have the homelessness crisis we do today.
"When I was a young staffer around this Council chamber and we had a thing called Section 37…" Cllr Morley reminisces. Ah, Section 37, I knew ye well
typical city councillor: "finally, we can shower developers with money in exchange for all the good they have done our city. in fact we're not giving them ENOUGH money"
me: "you're lucky you developers aren't getting the guillotine"
And it's Cllr Colle with a pointless and cantankerous motion!!!
(He is aggrieved about land sitting vacant and people don't build on it and you can't make them hurry up.)
"You can pass all the legislation in the world, you can't get people to pay $600,000 for a shoebox," he says.
He also points out that residents in development meetings will be mad at everything no matter what you do (a complaint of Cllr Cheng's).
All this is quite true and relatable but unfortunately I fail to see how it is important to bring up right now in regard to this specific item, let's get you to bed Zeyde, etc.
Personally if I was deputy speaker I would have made all the councillors do the meeting sitting on the bus. Let chaos reign. Some real interactive performance theatre.
Cllr Chow says she will have a motion recognizing union workers (but first, her speech). I choose to believe she didn't plan this ahead of time and this is just to make it up to the LiUNA members for making them wait so long and missing the soccer game.
Chow eventually segues into a speech about the dangers of construction work (doing all the building of developments we've all been talking about), and how many workers are poorly protected and poorly supervised. The LIUNA members clap and are told off by Nunziata (bingo). The next time, they appropriately wave their hands, with varying interpretations of "wave".
Oh no, Holyday has Questions. Good thing he's not here in the council chamber or he might get booed.
(Chow's motion would have the City Manager negotiate Voluntary Recognition Agreements with industrial-commercial-instututional construction unions for residential development.)
Holyday is like, but won't less housing be bulit?
Chow's like, I don't know how that'll affect it, we already have the Fair Wage Policy ("and I know you've never supported it," she adds in an aside). See, everyone likes being mean to Holyday!
Cllr Burnside is like, so you're saying non-unionized workers suck?! Does the Crosstown suck?!
Chow: I don't know if those workers were unionized, that was a Metrolinx project??
He wants to know if the motion can include all unions. Chow is like, no that is not a friendly amendment.
Alt text'd
Holyday says Chow's motion is out of order as it has nothing to do with the agreement. Speaker Nunziata is like, well, I think it's in order. Holyday CHALLENGES THE CHAIR! (Insert idk some anime battle fight music.)
Council now votes on whether to uphold the chair 22-4. Nunziata jokes ("jokes"?), "Now I know who my friends are." Everyone laughs. Burnside: "Come on Speaker, that's ridiculous."
Now Cheng is the next to be like, are you saying other unions suck??? They don't deserve recognition?? I'm just asking questions!!!
Chow (who will have worked out this whole thing with the exact unions involved and is not inclined to rewrite it on the fly) is annoyed and is like, well, this is about building homes, if you know other unions doing this stuff you want to add, go ahead and suggest an amendment.
Holyday has another point of order. Nunziata (not recognizing his voice): "Perruzza has a point of order?"
Cllr Perruzza, speaking about himself in the third person: "Perruzza does not have a point of order. Perruzza wants to vote."
"I hear these voices and I don't know who they're coming from," complains Nunziata. Admittedly, Cllr Holyday's mic is not of the best quality. Okay, now we're voting.
Ah, finally the motions are up on the item page.
- Holyday's motion 1 fails, 2-24.
- Holyday's motion 1b fails, 7-19.
- Holyday's motion 1c fails, 5-21.
- Holyday's motion 1d carries 20-6? Uh, OK.
- Colle's motion on time limit for approved yet not commenced developments carries 19-6. Perks complains, "Every property in Toronto is zoned for 4 storeys!" (Does that mean they're "vacant"?) Colle is like, you know what I mean! Perks is like, there's no "use it or lose it" rule. They are still bickering even after vote is done.
- Chow's motion re: unions carries 22-4.
- Perks and Colle are still arguing.
- Parts 1-3 of the item carry unanimously. The rest (the actual money bits) carries 25-1 (no guesses who's against).
"Now you can wave your hands," Nunziata advises the union members.
There is a ten-minute break while, I guess, press scrums and the LiUNA members leaving (note: it was LIUNA in the motion, I have mostly written it LiUNA, but taking a closer look at their vests it is "LiUNA!183"), which is not enough time to dash down for a cup of tea or anything, especially now that I would have to go through the metal detector again. Now straight through till 8:30 PM.
Owen
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ Brie 🌞🚴🪿🫰✨@nev How much for you to be meaner to Holyday? I promise it isn't a kink thing, I'm just a top-tier hater
Ben Zanin@cargot_robbie @nev I will start the opening bid at fifteen dollars for you to sneeze in Holyday's hair