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Weekend Newsstand: September 18, 2010
Illustration by Matt Daley/Torontoist.
Ripped from the headlines this weekend: Rob Ford is MIA, Steeles is healed, and how bureaucracy robbed us of street kabobs.
Oh, Rob Ford, what shenanigans are you up to now? It seems getting sued is the flavour of the week for Ford, as George Foulidis, who operates the waterfront Boardwalk Pub, began legal proceedings against the mayoral candidate this past Thursday. Ford had publicly announced that the deal, which won Foulidis a twenty year operating contract for the pub, “stinks to high heaven.” Now it turns out that on July 5, a meeting was held with the auditor general to decide if an official probe of the deal should occur. The motion for an inquiry died after a two-two vote, but only because a crucial member of the auditing committee was absent: Rob Ford. Oh, Roberto, what deliciously ironic hijinks will you get up to next?
Yesterday, the Globe and Mail provided some excellent brain fodder on the upcoming election when they brought together four former mayors to discuss the options currently on the table for Toronto. John Sewell, Art Eggleton, Barbara Hall, and David Crombie had some very thoughtful and enlightening comments and prognostications for us to ponder and perhaps put to good use come October 25.
Guess what happens when you throw fifteen million dollars at the worst road in Ontario? It becomes the best! That’s the happy outcome of the Steeles Avenue rehabilitation project, which raised the road from worst in the province—as ranked by CAA’s online poll—to one of the top twenty favourites. It’s not all good news, though: Toronto still has some contenders near the bottom of the list, including Finch Avenue from Leslie Street to Yonge Street and Islington Avenue to Highway 27, and all of Dufferin Street. Voting continues until September 30.
The failure of the fledgling Toronto a la Cart ethnic street food program represents an opportunity to expand the city’s street snacks beyond hot dogs tragically lost. An article today in the Star sheds some light on the mismanaged effort to bring international food to the streets of Toronto that has financially ruined many who participated. Most blame outlandish regulations, poor management, and miles of bureaucratic red tape for the virtual collapse of the program.
The kids these days, with their newfangled technology and their fancy, smart talkin’ phones, why it’s almost enough to…let them use them in the classroom? What at first seemed like a flippant idea from Premier Dalton McGuinty has now become a major campaign debate for Toronto’s trustee candidates. While some think there is potential for the phones to be put to educational use, the majority worry that students will have unequal access to the technology, and that having a smartphone shouldn’t give students an educational advantage, to which smartphone-wielding students responded, “LOL! :)”
And just for fun and in case you missed it, Rob Ford got caught in a serendipitous gust of wind on Thursday, the cameras caught it, Torontoist clipped it, you Photoshopped it, and now we can all enjoy everyone’s favourite constantly blundering yet miraculously poll-leading mayoral candidate in a delightful array of humourous and compromising positions. It’s the best thing that’s happened to any of us in a long, long time.