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Newsstand: July 6, 2012
It's Friday and 150 years ago today, Britain approved the union of British North America, in principle. Happy In Principle Approval Day! In the news: Hogtown, summer in the city; things got hot near Yonge and Dundas Square; City of Toronto bureaucrats are getting out while they can; Adam Vaughan and Giorgio Mammoliti disagree on the mayor’s work ethic; and telling on people gets a double treatment.
The Lovin’ Spoonful had it right; all of our necks are indeed getting dirty and gritty. Today is going to be another scorcher, with the humidex potentially hitting 50 C. Do a good deed and check on your friends, family, and neighbours. The heat might put them at a greater risk of health problems, or better yet they might have an air-conditioned basement in which you can hide out.
The corner of Yonge and Dundas streets just cannot get a break. Yesterday around 3:20 p.m., a fire broke out at the Paramount Middle Eastern restaurant, which is south of the intersection. No injuries were reported.
There is a shortage of experienced and senior employees at City Hall. Over the past year, a number of senior bureaucrats have retired or left for greener employment pastures. This high turnover poses a troubling gap in expertise and knowledge at Toronto’s top managerial levels. The fact that many of the former employees are baby boomers hitting retirement age is mentioned as a reason for the exodus, but the point that so many of them have been replaced with only acting managers and directors begs the question of whether or not the City realizes that people age. As you might expect, working with Mayor Ford is also cited as a possible deterrent for finding good people to fill these roles. Hmm, this couldn’t have anything to do with that, could it?
Maybe offering part-time hours is solution to City staffing issues? Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) went on Newstalk 1010 on Wednesday and called out Rob Ford for being a part-time mayor. Vaughan said that Ford actually has no follow-through on the telephone calls he spends a great deal of his day taking and that we should all go search YouTube for “Mayor Ford Entertainment District.” In response to the criticism, Ford-friendly councillor, Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West), explained that Ford is just a really good delegator. The Sun’s account of the same story mentions that “Mammoliti also claimed Ford doesn’t take vacations.” Oh really? Doesn’t take vacations, eh?
Being a tattle-tale just got easier. Crime Stoppers has released a new BlackBerry and iPhone app that allows users to anonymously send tips in the form of photos, texts, emails, and videos directly to the crime-solving service. An interesting counterpoint to this news comes in the form of this piece on why the media isn’t always all that quick to help out the police by handing over their photos and videos.