November 11, 2011 Last Tuesday, Councillors Josh Matlow and Kristyn Wong-Tam introduced a motion at the Planning and Growth Committee meeting to do away with the Ontario Municipal Board. (Mississauga beat us to the punch by introducing a similar motion in June.) The committee voted unanimously in favour of asking the province to remove [...]
November 4, 2011 Taxpayers won’t be on the hook for the cost of Mayor Rob Ford’s gold-letter business cards. The cost of the cards, printed by Ford’s family business Deco Labels, showed up in the mayor’s office budget expenses last week. […]
October 31, 2011 The Toronto Star recently reported that the city’s beleaguered Mayor, Rob Ford, has stumbled yet again. The mayor, it seems, opted not to use the city’s standard (cheap) method of having business cards printed. Instead, he opted to go his own route. That might not be a surprising move, coming from [...]
October 26, 2011 There are 29,000 Catholics held captive behind a rusty, two-metre high, chain-link fence in the middle of downtown Toronto. Mind you, they’re not clamouring to get out. They’re dead and buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, a little south of St. Clair Avenue and hidden behind the stores on the west side of [...]
October 26, 2011 Yesterday city council voted in favour of banning the sale of shark fin products within the limits of Toronto. The proposal passed easily, with a vote of 38 to 4, despite a warning from the city staff that Toronto may have difficulties not only enforcing the bylaw but also dealing with [...]
October 28, 2011 Mayor Rob Ford has outsourced the printing of business cards for himself and his staff to his family’s printing company, billing taxpayers up to four times as much per card as councillors who have them printed by the city. Expense records released Friday include an Aug. 29 invoice from Deco Label [...]
October 25, 2011 Toronto Council has approved a contract that will see a private company collecting garbage from homes between Yonge Street and the Humber River. The contract, worth $186.4 million, will see GFL (Green for Life) Environmental Corporation, collect garbage from 165,000 homes. The bid was a low one – for $17.47 [...]
By TRISTAN CARTER October 27, 2011 It’s a rainy afternoon at city hall and Josh Matlow is wrapping up a staff meeting. A whiteboard in his office overlooking Bay Street is covered by more than 50 handwritten To Do notes, including reminders to update his website and obtain some new street signs for [...]
Wednesday, October 05, 2011 “Did you know that playing hockey in the street is illegal in Toronto?” asks Jeff Gruchy. As a kid who grew up playing ball hockey “and pretty much every sport there is” on the streets of Toronto, the adult Gruchy is still galled by a rarely-enforced city bylaw, which [...]
Toronto’s audit committee wants the city to crack down on improper untendered purchases after a Star investigation revealed staff disobeyed rules and made millions in purchases before getting approval. “I hope this sends a clear message to our staff that they need to abide by our purchasing policies, and to our managers that they [...]
