Results tagged “mayormiller”

Well, not really. It will live on in political grandstanding and pre-election speeches and in all manner of rhetorical asides for months to come. But, in real, day-to-day terms, it has come to a merciful end. By two 21–17 votes, after a day-long debate, City Council has just approved contracts with CUPE locals 79 and 416.

City Council is holding a special meeting today to debate funding for what has turned out to be a rather controversial fleet of new streetcars. Relocated from City Hall due to the strike, councillors convened at 10 a.m. at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to work through an agenda that consists of precisely one item: whether to rejig the TTC budget by delaying other planned capital expenditures and reallocate that money to 204 new Bombardier-built streetcars.

The first item on the agenda for the April 8th meeting of City Council's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee is headed "City of Toronto Receives the Canadian Motorcycle Association Government Award" [PDF]. As the agenda was released Wednesday, we considered it an April Fools' joke, in the brief moment before we remembered that bureaucrats don't have a sense of humour.

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry.

The organizers of Nuit Blanche held a launch event at OCAD this morning to announce this year’s curators—Wayne Baerwaldt, Director and Curator of Exhibitions at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design; Dave Dyment, Director of Programming at Mercer Union, Toronto; Gordon Hatt, a writer and curator who lives in Kitchener; and Haema Sivanesan, Executive Director of Toronto’s South Asian Visual Arts Centre—and allow them to outline their individual visions for the event.

Mayor Miller was in Etobicoke yesterday, trying to convince the people who regularly vote in Ford, Holyday, Nunziata, et al. that new taxes are a necessity. It went about as well as you'd expect.

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.

Mayor Mel was there for the opening, and Mayor Miller was here this week when news broke about the possible closing of the Sheppard subway line. Even the thought that a subway line could be retired within six years of opening is crazy. Torontoist feels the need to visit the Sheppard line and see the cool art that exists in the stations, before it becomes a Leon's.

It seems that many people believe that the City of Toronto doesn't need to levy taxes in order to maintain a high level of City services. If only the City had its finances in order and cut back on spending, they say, then there would be no financial crunch. In response, Mayor Miller likes to point out how many cutbacks there indeed have been and how much contracting out is already taking place and, above all, how the TTC was recently rated the "most efficient" transit system in North America

Exhibition Place has presented many new technologies since it was established in 1904, but a new pilot project outside the Automotive Building is using 40-year-old technology to lessen Toronto's energy impact: LED streetlights.

Every time it gets too easy to hate Mayor Miller, he does something like this.

Toronto's overwhelming reception of Al Gore yesterday prompted David Miller to toughen his stance on climate change. Mayor Miller promised an aggressive change in policy on pollution, transit and construction, which will be formally proposed in late March.

Photo of City Hall from Ride My Pony on Flickr.

These seats are empty now, but they won't be after today, as Mayor Miller and the 44 other city councillors take office. We found out recently that councillors are seated randomly, which explains why during the last council term loyal lefty Adam Giambrone sat right next to dogged mayoral critic Denzil Minnan-Wong.

In case you missed last night's candidates debate, then come to tonight's debate at Hart House on U of T campus at 6:30 pm. The listing on the Hart House website calls it a "Mayoral Debate with David Miller" but we're sure that Pitfield and LeDrew will be there, too.

Jane Pitfield got herself some media attention by calling Mayor Miller a liar. "He hasn't been truthful with the taxpayer, and there have been many people who unfortunately have been lied to by David Miller, and I'm one of them," she was quoted at a press conference. The Mayor's team calls the attack a desperate ploy. No word on whether pants were on fire. She also called the mayor "soft on crime."

Mayor Miller is announcing today that there will be a major competition to redesign Nathan Phillips Square.

We bet few of you have been to the Toronto Archives. We didn’t even know where it was until last night, when we attended theToronto Book Awards. But stepping into the foyer to be greeted by a room covered in photos and maps of our city’s history, it struck us at just how fitting it is to hold the ceremony here -- books honoured for their fluent portraits of Toronto stories in a building that houses the same.

An audit of litter on Toronto's streets shows that Mayor Miller is on to something. The amount of litter on our streets is down 40% from 2002. The Mayor credits investment in city streets (ie. garbage cans, street cleaners) and you, dear citizen.

If it's an election year it must be time to discuss the future of Toronto City Centre Airport. But you can't do that unless someone wants to build a bridge or, say, start a new airline to fly out of there - enter Porter Airlines.

He'd put these things on notice. Sadly we can only dream. Yes Mayor Miller, you're on notice and you know why.

City staff are hard at work looking for a place to dump our sludge. Fortunately Mayor Miller has said that the city is not considering dumping sludge into the lake. Like, we needed any more gunk in our lake.

Jane Pitfield is opening a campaign office in the Junction area, close to Mayor Miller's High Park home. Both campaigns are gearing up for the fall and raising money. Mayor Miller is going grassroots and offering anyone who puts up raises $100 for his campaign an "I <3 David Miller T-Shirt." Oh we want one of those.

This sounds like a potential teen flick, if it already hasn't been made. Four teenage girls case out and rob a west-end clothing boutique, the youngest of them is only 13.

Police announced this morning that eight men have been arrested for the Boxing Day shooting of Jane Creba. Police have pointed their fingers at two west-end gangs. The Creba shooting was a huge priority for the police and at one point 20-full time investigators were working on the case.

Things get worse for the TTC. In light of GM Rick Ducharme's resignation the TTC have decided to tell him to leave right away instead of waiting around till November. Ducharme is fighting this and threatening to call his lawyers. He also pins the blame for his resignation on interference by TTC Chair Howard Moscoe and even Mayor Miller . Many councillors are now calling for Moscoe to step down. Ducharme is the third TTC GM to quit under Moscoe's reign as TTC Chair.

Who’s behind Mayor Miller’s MySpace page? We don't know but he's certainly scooping up friends and he has local bands (and George Stroumboulopoulos) on his Top 8. His profile features a blurb about great cities and a video entitled “Our City. Our Future.” Mayor Miller wants to be your cyberfriend.

Turns out that the union was actually ready to walkout again yesterday. Fortunately a few last minute desperate phone calls prevented what would've been a disastrous second wildcat strike in as many weeks. The TTC and the union are still in intense negotiations. Hopefully they can avoid any future job actions.