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Newsstand: March 29, 2011
Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.
No two Tuesdays are ever the same in Newsstand land. Today: Holyday asks for money to prove that no other councillors can ask for money, City Hall reporters may get even less access, no more street meat in Yorkville, and nobody likes an emerald ash borer.
Deputy mayor Doug Holyday has a favour to ask of we, the taxpayers. He’s requesting that the City cover almost ninety-thousand dollars in legal costs he incurred while suing the City for covering the legal costs of two other councillors. Holyday took on a personal crusade to prove the City should not have bailed out councillors facing campaign-related law suits. Turns out Holyday was right about that, and the councillors were ordered to reimburse the public purse. But Holyday is different, special even. According to him, he’ll save the City in the long run because his requested repayment is less than the other councillors asked for, and after him no one else can do what he’s asking to do. Because that was the whole point of the lawsuit. Aw, how can council say no to that face?
Now for a Gloria Estefan musical interlude: “We realize we’re being mayored by someone new / We don’t believe we know him like we could do / His temperamental moody side, the one he always tries to hide from us / But we know when he has something on his mind / He’s been trying to tell us for the longest time / Before he breaks City Hall in two, there’s something we’ve wanted to hear from him / But the press gets in the way / There’s so much he wants to say / But it’s locked deep inside, and if you work for the Star, you might not ever unlock it.” But seriously folks, the City’s government management committee is meeting Tuesday—in private—to discuss reducing accredited press members’ access to councillors, purportedly for security reasons. Restrictions could include barring reporters from popping in on councillors’ offices, instead requiring them to sign in (creating a potentially damning record) and sit in a waiting room until called upon, if ever. We sing because we’re scared.
The Bloor-Yorkville BIA has effectively put a stop to the ol’ Toronto pastime of eating hot dogs and gawking at tiny dogs on Bloor Street. Recent renovations to the street scape of the Mink Mile have made the street inhospitable to street meat vendors, who are required by bylaw to keep their carts at a distance from street furniture. This was no accident, suggests the BIA’s executive director, as they were never crazy about this whole “vending on the street” concept. “Aesthetically we are trying to create a different street,” says Briar de Lange.
Street modifications on St. Clair are the focus of a one-hundred-million-dollar class action law suit. Businesses and landowners along the strip that recently underwent an over-schedule over-budget streetcar right-of-way project are seeking compensation for losses incurred during the construction. But lawyers for the City and the TTC could have the case against them thrown out if they ask convincingly at a hearing on Thursday.
It’s not easy being green. No, not when you’re an emerald ash borer and everyone wants you dead. The park and environment committee is urging the City to spend $1.139 million fighting off the invasive bug in order to save $570 million worth of ash trees.