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The Toronto Public Space Committee's excellent new Municipal Elections website contains a veritable treasure trove of information about each candidate in the 2006 election (and a pretty sexy Google maps mashup). The site also features sometimes-hilarious quotations from and anecdotes about our to-be-elected officials in poster format. We have selected some gems from the site for your reading pleasure:
Ward 20: "[Adam Vaughan] is on record as wanting to gate alleyways in the ward, including Graffiti Alley, and ban the sale of art supplies to minors."Ward 19: "Joe [Pantalone] had no problem with the megabins TPSC fought to remove, saying, "I believe it is not appropriate for City Councillors to override the overall intent of Council's decision to keep bins generally in place.""
Ward 19: "'You don't need a councillor, you need representation for your neighbourhood. You need a superhero for your neighbourhood!' Stripping down to a Superman costume, [HiMY SYeD] jumps off the stage, through the crowd and out the door."
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I spent about half an hour the other day discussing/arguing with Vaughan about his stance on graffiti and alleyways. Although I still believe that he would be a good councillor, there is no doubt in my mind that he would not be a friend of (lower-case) public space.
I don't think it's an excellent site at all. They should have obtained information on everyone before launching (apparently many candidates didn't even get sent their questionnaire before they launched), and the grading system seems arbitrary. Vaughan, for example, was originally assigned an A, then it switched to a C overnight. In ward 18, what exactly has candidate Simon Wookey done to deserve an "A" grade? What's the difference between a grade of "MIA" and "not yet rated"? TPSC risks losing a lot of their credibility over this, methinks.
The information on this site is atrocious, especially the commentary about Adam Vaughan. Mr. Vaughan is an A+++ candidate. You folks have totally taken things out of context, and perhaps it is because you have a narrow and limited understanding of issues.
If ever there was anyone who worked with residents to open up private spaces to the public, it is Adam Vaughan.
If ever there was someone who gave all the grafitti artists space on his television shows, it was Adam Vaughan.
I can only assume it is some desperate supporter for one of the other candidates who is posting these lies.
Whatever high opinion I had about the Public Space Committee is just about to the flushed away.
How do you expect anyone to take your work seriously when you post rubbish about one of the best candidates there ever was for city council, namely Adam Vaughan.
Did you not know that was Olivia CHow while she was City Councillor who managed to gate off the public walkways in the Village by the Grange -- all three of them.
Did you not know that it was Olivia Chow who managed to sell of public sidewalks for the Art Gallery Expansion.
Did you not know that it was Adam Vaughan who tried to stop these shameless activities carried out by Olivia Chow aided and abetted by Helen Kennedy.
At least the public record will back me up.
Does Dave Meslin - boy wonder of the Public Space Committee - not have a CONFLICT of Interest, i.e. using this web site to attack Adam Vaughan in order to prop up Desmond Cole, his City Idol choice?
It is not often I comment on one of my own posts, but have you seen the video "We must not let our streets fester in a mess of crime and drugs" on Vaughan's website? The statements in this video are the reason his public space record (ie. what he is being graded on) is so poor.
Uhm... while Dave Meslin founded the TPSC he has very little direct involvement with the TPSC's election website and in fact has decreased his involvement with the TPSC.
And Desmond Cole's was not Dave Meslin's City Idol choice. Cole was voted winner by a group of people at events open to the public.
Lots to clarify:
Yes, Mez founded the TPSC and ran it for years, but his involvement these days is minimal and is mostly limited to occasionally serving as an advisor on some of the advocacy campaigns and helping us to sort out our structural issues. He has not, to my knowledge, been involved with any of the TPSC's election-related activites.
Yes, Mez is helping to organize Desmond's campaign, but he is a personal friend of both Kennedy and Vaughan and has officially endorsed them both (check their respective websites). Mez also runs a non-partisan election project aimed at promoting democracy called Who Runs This Town (http://www.whorunsthistown.to)
Yes, there is controversy over Vaughan's stance on certain public space issues. The "We must not let our streets fester in a mess of drugs and graffiti" video on his site (http://www.adamvaughan.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=147&Itemid=72) is quite disappointing and unfortunate. I spent half an hour discussing/arguing with Vaughan about this video last week, and I came away satisfied that he has thought more deeply and intelligently about these issues than the video, which seems like a Pitfield level of pandering, implies. I urged him to remove or modify the video, since it is misleading and makes him seem much more reactionary than he actually is. For example, he proposes that the alleyways he would gate would only be locked at night. While I'm still not sure I agree with this, it's a far more tenable position than permanently closing off these spaces to the public, as he seems to be suggesting in the video. Nevertheless, the video remains on his site, and he never emailed me the article he recently wrote on the subject, that apparently more fully explains his opinions, as he promised to do. (If you're reading this, Adam, you can still send it to me at jonathan @ publicspace.ca, making sure to remove the spaces before and after the "@".) He has since posted a new video on his site, "Lets secure our public spaces and make them safer for our community," but I can't get it to work on my computer, so I don't know what he says in it.
Yes, Olivia Chow had some public space fuck-ups as councillor, perhaps most notably the approval of those fucking Pattison ad pillars, in exchange for money that may or may not have gone to fund Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market (I've heard conflicting things about whether the promised money was actually delivered). At the same time, she was often a champion of public space and one of the TPSC's main supporters in the early years. How much of the respective blame and credit should be attributed to Kennedy is obviously a controversial matter, as it's often difficult to know how involved a councillor's EA or CA has been in a particular issue. And since Kennedy herself has not held elected office since she was an East York councillor from 1988-91, whoever assigned the rating was probably going by the statements she has made during her current campaign.
All of that being said, my own involvement with the election campaign has been limited to providing my own opinions of the incumbents, to be taken into consideration when assessing their friendliness to public space, as well as correcting the odd spelling or factual error.
hey dudes,
thanks for clarification Ron and Jonathan! I have nothing to do with the TPSC Election Site. In fact, I haven't even looked at a single candidate profile. I don't know how they graded candidates or where they got their info. TPSC is a fantastic group, but as with any volunteer group, there are always bumps and gaps.
As for Adam, I think he'd make a great Councillor (as I said in my endorsement), but as far as public space issues go, Adam's video about drug use and graffitti is the worst stuff I've seen in this entire election and he deserves a bad grade from the TPSC.
~ mezzo
I'd like to make a few corections to the discussion going on here.
First, none of the candidates have received questionnaires as of yet. They will be sent out this week and their results will be displayed on the site, as they have been entered by the candidate. We will not be altering their responses. The information that is on the site is the result of hundreds of hours of research by dedicated volunteers.
Secondly, the purpose of the site is to inform and create debate. Obviously it has been successful. We are not rigid in our assessments, and I will not stand on a soapbox and defend our grades beyond all reasonable arguments. Profiles and grades change as new information is received and I welcome any information from anyone who wishes to contribute. The e-mail is visible at the bottom of every page of the site.
Also to clarify, the TPSC as a body did not sit down and decide what the group thought of any candidate. There is no way that we could possibly have agreed on ANYONE.
I have done much work with the TPSC. Some of the assessments I agree with, some I don't.
The elections site is the work of the people who worked on the elections site. Makes sense, yes?
TPSC does not endorse any candidate. That decision was made explicitly in meetings.
As a member of the TPSC, I too would like to clarify -
The TPSC does not endorse ANY candidate.
The TPSC did not, as a group, sit down and decide on a position on any candidate - it would have taken hours for each one and we NEVER would have come to a consensus.
The TPSC formed a committee of people who wanted to work on the elections site, and the site is the work of that committee. Makes sense, yes?
Some of the assessments on the site I agree with, some I do not.
There are major debates between members on all sorts of candidates, including Kennedy and Vaughan.
Alison
Just wondering if Mezzo's comment is about the quality of the video taken in isolation, or what he understands Vaughan position to be. As someone who has actually worked with Vaughan, I don't think that anyone can seriously believe that he believes in "gated" communities, selling of public land, etc., etc.
Mezzo needs to talk to the owners of the Cameron and some of the people who live down and around Queen Spadina. If he doesn't believe that shooting up is a problem, then he needs to get out of the political fray. I can't believe that he thinks that a description of the problem down there is the "worst" thing he's seen in the election. Get real, Mezzo
I can't believe I'm getting pulled into a blog discussion. I hate these things.
I'll just respond quickly to J's two questions. My comment was not about Adam's position, it was about his video. That said, a candidate's website is there to give the voter an idea of what their positions are. I'm glad to see that the clip has been removed. It was negative, and it was designed to tap into people's fears about drug users and graffiti artists.
As for people 'shooting up', I belive strongly that drug users are vicims and that they need help. I've worked with the harm reduction community and I've had a heroine addict stay in my house. I learned a lot from both experiences and I'll never look at a drug user the same way again.
Please find me examples of people being attacked by drug users in Ward 20. Is there really a problem of violent drug users in our alleyways, or is it just a fear?
Do we want to exacerbate those fears, and further marginalise the poor, or do we want to learn more about the complexities of addiction and learn how to create hope in the lives of users by taking a compassionate approach.
Drug addiction kills. It doesn't kill the condo owners who have to look at people "shooting up". It kills the users.
I could go on and on about this and also about negative stereotypes of graffiti artists and youth in general, and whatever. But I really hate blog discussions. J, if you want to chat give me a call: 416-654-8741.
~ mez