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rfmcdonaldThe big news in Toronto is the city manager's recent report calling for massive cuts to deal with the $C 774 million budget deficit, cutting down on library hours and on actual library branches, phasing out city-subsidized daycare spaces, cutting down on TTC services, diminishing social spending, cutting back on police and firefighting ...
Journalist Royson James had made the point earlier this summer that, contrary to now-Mayor Rob Ford' campaign promises, there was in fact little waste in the city government, that the only way to reduce spending would be to reduce city services. Reacting to this news, James has been fairly angry.
That last figure is correct: all these cuts would cut the projected deficit by less than a seventh.
The pervasive distrust of city government workers and city bureaucracy that helped get Ford elected is going to end by getting rid of many of the little things that matter, the background details in Toronto's urban life that help to humanize the city. Where this will end? I hope only that this might discredit Ford's approach somewhat. The long-term damage is all that remains to be determined, I fear.
Journalist Royson James had made the point earlier this summer that, contrary to now-Mayor Rob Ford' campaign promises, there was in fact little waste in the city government, that the only way to reduce spending would be to reduce city services. Reacting to this news, James has been fairly angry.
City manager Joe Pennachetti came clean Monday and dipped his hands into the blood. When he pulled them out, few city services remained untouched by the axe. Ah, yes, Joe P is recommending many of the very cuts, er, opportunities, KPMG listed in July.
Now, the bleeding mess has been dumped in the mayor’s hands, where it belongs.
It is the same mayor who looked voters in the eye a year ago and swore on their votes that he could find close to $2 billion in savings at city hall without chopping a single service. Waste, he said, littered the city hall corridors like the leaves of autumn.
Rob Ford, of course, found teaspoons of “gravy” where he pointed to vats of waste. So, next Monday his hand-picked executive committee of 12 sycophants must vote on Pennachetti’s recommendations and advise city council where to cut:
[. . .]
Caught, hoisted on his own petard, as they say, the penny-pinching mayor must preside over the destruction of the city so many built to become one of the most livable places in the world.
Those heady days are gone — as we’ll discover years hence, when the ranking agencies discover a deteriorating city.
Urban observers already know this: Small grants to community groups are the seeds of peace, social harmony, economic development, and a sense of belonging.
K’naan, he of “Wavin’ Flag” fame, is now a world-scale ambassador. But it was a small city grant that helped him put down roots in Rexdale, germinate, and find his place in the music universe.
Kill those grants and no one knows the dreams that are rendered stillborn in our priority neighbourhoods.
City council is the only buffer against such a future. Many councillors delude themselves into thinking the current ruinous exercise is a careful examination of the city’s fiscal condition. It is not. It is a deceitful exercise devised by a mayor who cares nothing about the collateral damage of his rampage against city services and programs he never needed and never took the time to understand.
Pennachetti has served in all the regions around Toronto. He believes that one way to relieve Toronto’s cash crunch is to reduce service to the levels of its neighbours in York, Durham and Peel.
Another way is to increase Toronto property taxes to the level of its neighbours. Ahh, that, of course, is not on the table in this exhaustive fiscal review.
Instead, we have a mayor who killed a vehicle tax source that delivered $64 million a year and plans to kill a land transfer tax that nets up to $250 million annually.
And to pay for these he sinks the city into a divisive debate that, even if every recommendation were approved, gets us just $100 million this year.
That last figure is correct: all these cuts would cut the projected deficit by less than a seventh.
The pervasive distrust of city government workers and city bureaucracy that helped get Ford elected is going to end by getting rid of many of the little things that matter, the background details in Toronto's urban life that help to humanize the city. Where this will end? I hope only that this might discredit Ford's approach somewhat. The long-term damage is all that remains to be determined, I fear.
