Results tagged “howardmoscoe”

Ah, IKEA. Bastion of the comfortably quirky; originator of accessible (read: cheap) design; first stop for first apartment decorators everywhere.

like a city council scorned? North York Community Council, fed up with the Ontario Municipal Board in general and piqued at their recent approval of a new condo development in particular, has taken a novel approach to expressing its discontent. The name that's been assigned to the road leading into the complex? OMB Folly. The motion was introduced by Councillor John Filion and passed in a 7-2 vote. Hallstone Homes is developing the 36-unit complex of townhouses and is so far failing to see the humour in this turn of events. The OMB, set up by the province to administer municipal planning, has been frequently criticized by City Council and local community groups for favouring developers over neighbourhood well-being. North York Community Council's pith has apparently rendered them speechless: as of yet, the OMB has made no comment on their Folly.

Photo of Howard Moscoe at March's OCAP protest by Miles Storey.

Following the unveiling of the EcoCab in Toronto last week Torontoist spotted the pedi-cab being presented to councillor Howard Moscoe outside City Hall yesterday. Moscoe, chairman of the Licensing and Standards Committee, turned down the offer of a ride around Nathan Phillips Square, but got a complete tour of the $13,000 vehicle's features as a small but curious crowd gathered.

The proposal: With the U.S. greenback falling in value, Councillor Howard Moscoe wants to ban the use of American coins in parking meters and on the TTC. The stupid statement: "The city's going to lose millions if it continues to accept them." The upgrade cost to reject non-Canadian currency: $450 per parking meter (there are 3,000 of them). The likelihood that TTC employees are going to sort through the fare box: No chance in...

Equal Voice, a group which advocates for more women in government, reports that there are 22% more women running in this year's provincial election than in 2003. However, they also note that because many women are competing in ridings where they have no hope of winning, the numbers may not translate into more female legislators. You know, rather than spending time and money trying to elect more women, the whole inequity thing could be solved through a program of gender reassignment surgery on sitting MPPs.

From mid-September through year-end, all City Community Centres will be closed on Mondays. Skating rinks won't open until January. Fewer potholes will be repaired. Snow won't be cleared unless there is at least 15 cm of it (the current minimum is 8 cm). New materials from Public Health will only be available in English.

City Council plans to create as many as 21 new leash-free areas for dogs by the end of the year. Councillor Howard Moscoe calls for fences to separate people and canines, saying, "The problem is the dogs can't read the signs. We'd lose control completely unless they're fenced areas." Alarmed local media dub 2007 "The Summer of the Dog."

It's something that usually only comes up during election time, but in the City of Toronto, wards are designated by numbers. For example, the area bounded by Dovercourt Road to the west, Christie Street and Bathurst Street to the east, the CPR tracks to the north and Lake Ontario to the south is officially known as Ward 19. Nobody really calls area by its numerical name (hey dude, let's party in the 19th tonight!), but just to keep things interesting, both Ward 19 and Ward 20 are unofficially known as Trinity-Spadina. It's kind of a weird system.

Howard Moscoe proposes a licensing fee or tax on temporary downtown parking lots with the revenue directed towards building more commuter parking lots at public transit hubs. Moscoe argues that this would induce more people to take transit and encourage temporary lots to be redeveloped more quickly.

Howard Moscoe to jerks: "Hey, stop abusing disabled parking permits!"

North Korea agrees to shut down its main nuclear reactor and "eventually" shut down its nuclear weapons program. In exchange for a million tons of fuel oil, of course, but frankly nobody so far has come up with a better plan regarding North Korea than "keep bribing them to do nothing," so it boils down to a no-score win.

blogUT has stepped into the crowded Toronto blogosphere (blogaverse? blorld? blearth?) to fill an as of yet uncovered niche: everything about the University of Toronto.

It seems its website isn't the only thing embarrassingly behind the times at the TTC these days: the above scan is of a current January Metropass. (Councillor Howard Moscoe was TTC Chair from 1998-2000 and 2003-2006; his successor, Councillor Adam Giambrone, was elected by the Commission as its Chair on December 6 of last year.) What makes this a particularly odd error is the fact that it's not simply a case of the TTC forgetting to change the wording on the back of the pass between months; rather, the information and legal text is always tweaked and revised from month to month, and this is actually the first Metropass since August 2005 to bear the name of a Commission chair.

Toro Magazine, free to Globe and Mail subscribers, released its Men of the Year issue yesterday.

Some game system made by some game company named Sony launched today. And sold out in about five minutes. The jury is still out on whether this will be a bigger letdown than was.

When the feds handed out $37 million for improving security on transit systems nationwide yesterday, Go Transit received $5.3 million, $4.3 million went to Union Station, but the TTC received only $1.46 Million, just shy of the $17 million it asked for. "It's like handing a bum a dime and saying, `Go buy a cup of coffee,'" said Howard Moscoe, distractedly pushing a rusty shopping cart full of discount surveillance cameras.

Robert Wiszniowski gets 14 years for killing and dismembering his wife, Rose McGroarty, in Parkdale last year. Motive? She caught him smoking crack and threatened to call police.

United Church Minister Cheri DiNovo and the NDP have taken Parkdale-High Park away from Sylvia Watson and the Liberals. The NDP won the riding with 41% of the vote, despite the Liberals summoning 11 cabinet ministers and high profile members like Bob Rae and Gerard Kennedy to campaign with former city councillor Sylvia Watson.

Maybe they're just tired of Howard Moscoe but the TTC committee unanimously voted to approve the Bombardier deal. The $499 million deal still has to go through council where we're sure there'll be an acrominous but ultimately futile debate.

Hello, class! Ron isn't here today. I will be your substitute Ron.

So obviously no one listened to us yesterday and as a result we broke a power usage record. People cranking their A/C, turning on fans and sticking heads into fridges caused us to use over 27,000 megawatts of electricity. That's over 800 megawatts more than our previous record set last July. We may even break that record again today, fingers crossed that we don't.

We know it's hot out there. It's so hot that last night was on record as the hottest night in Toronto ever. According to electricity companies we were just shy of the power record yesterday so keep up the good work everyone, don't do stupid things like blast your air conditioner and open your windows. Heck, try to avoid the A/C all together.

Howard Moscoe is harder to kill than a vampire. The TTC chair survives yet another non-confidence motion and pissed off councillor Mark Grimes so much that he actually quit his comissioner spot on the committee. So not only did he pass the vote he also successfuly flabbergasted an opponent into quitting. Now that's what we call a skilled political operator.

The TTC has apparently joined the 20th century and given its customers the ability to buy their metropasses with debit cards! According to IT Business.ca, the TTC signed a contract with IBM over three years ago but has just started to roll out two machines at Finch and one at Eglinton stations. The TTC will be installing seven more machines throughout the system. Sadly only one of the three machines are currently functional.

The Coalition for Municipal Change, a citizens group that rallied together to unseat Anne Johnston and elect Karen Stintz in her place, is scouring the city for candidates to take down Kyle Rae and Howard Moscoe. We've expressed our dislike of these two councillors before. Particularly Moscoe, whose incompetence at the head of the TTC has caused numerous debacles. But if the replacement is another Karen Stintz clone we hope that the Coalition falls flat on its face. In this case we're better off with the devil we know.

Cops were surprised to learn that secret cameras were installed in various areas of the Toronto Police Association HQ. They were apparently installed some two years ago on the orders of a union director. Many are filing grievances others are wondering the building should be swept for bugs and other listening devices.

For all time we spend slagging councillor Howard Moscoe even on the worst of days he doesn't come close to the Mouth of Etobicoke, Rob Ford.

A man was stabbed to death in North York at a party celebrating Ghana's victory over the USA at the World Cup. Apparently gang colours may have been a trigger for the tragic attack.