7 Comments June 20, 2012 at 5:49 pm

Extra, Extra: Less Speaking for Councillors, Longer Wait for Presto

Every weekday’s end, Extra, Extra collects just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

Those who follow city council closely know that among the minor but persistent irritations of Rob Ford’s term in office has been a crackdown on speaking time. Specifically, if a councillor wants an extension of his or her five minute speaking allotment, council needs to go through an annoying process of holding a formal vote to decide whether or not to grant an extra two minutes. It is a pain, and many think the requirement to have a recorded vote was instituted to discourage councillors from speaking longer. Next week the Government Management Committee will consider doing away with speaking extensions altogether.

The TTC is paying close attention as Ottawa’s transit system struggles with their planned conversion to the Presto fare card system. Ottawa is now delaying a planned system-wide implementation of the smartcards while they try to sort out those issues; the TTC is slated to move to full Presto use over the coming years.
Rio+20, the United Nations sustainability conference, is underway in Brazil. Playing an increasingly large role in combating climate change are cities, where a growing number of the world’s inhabitants live, work, and pollute. C40 cities met yesterday as part of the Rio conference (Toronto had no representation, though we are a part of the C40 group of cities); Treehugger and the Washington Post both have some useful summaries of what they discussed.