Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto UPDATES

[Peanutbutter]

Seems to me that it's the left leaning council members who are the bullies. They are constantly trying to sling mud at the mayor. If this isn't bullying behaviour then I don't know what is. We don't allow our children to act in this manner but it's ok for adults to?

[Boges]

It's only Bullying when it's happening to you. Otherwise it's simply justified.

The Ford's say sending those e-mails to lobbyists was an error. They will refund any money raised from a registered lobbyist.

NEXT!

[GostHacked]

The Mayor is a bully.

[Boges]

The Mayor is a bully.

So were these lobbyists being bullied?

[Fletch 27]

The Mayor is a bully.

Example? Or is "bully" just another left leaning catch-phrase that ensompases everything that is disagreable?

[BubberMiley]

Example? Or is "bully" just another left leaning catch-phrase that ensompases everything that is disagreable?

How does a catch phrase lean left?

[MiddleClassCentrist]

He probably won't lose his job over this.

Toronto deserves him.

TBH, I want him re-elected. He generates great discussions on his reality TV quality antics in the lunch room/water cooler. Those social bonds he's created through discussion are invaluable in every workplace.

[jacee]

Example? Or is "bully" just another left leaning catch-phrase that ensompases everything that is disagreable?

Shall we debate whether most disagreeable bullies are 'right leaning'?

Edited March 3, 2013 by jacee

[jacee]

Does Ford have a track record for punishing people that don't donate to his football foundation?

The relevant question is ...

Does Ford have a track record of rewarding people that do donate to his football foundation with juicy city contracts?

Because that's how it looks. Ford is peddling his influence as Mayor to squeeze money out of people who are trying to get city contracts, and using city staff to do work for the private foundation ... again!

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/fundraising-letters-to-lobbyists-were-inadvertent-toronto-mayor-rob-fords-office-says/article9157997/?service=mobile

Andy Manahan, the executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, met with two councillors and city staff at various times this year and last, according to the citys lobbyist registry.

Contacted Thursday, Mr. Manahan confirmed he received a letter on January 28 from The Rob Ford Football Foundation asking for support. The letter, which includes a headshot of the mayor ...

...

Mr. Towhey said the foundation will review and look for ways to improve its processes, adding,

In any case, it is our understanding that the Foundation has not received any donations from lobbyists and it is Foundation policy to return such donations if they were to be received in error.

But even that statement raised a red flag with one councillor, who noted that Mr. Towhey, as a city staff member, should not be issuing statements for the mayors private foundation.

You cant use city resources to raise money for your private charity, said Councillor Gord Perks, a critic of the mayor.

Edited March 3, 2013 by jacee

[MiddleClassCentrist]

If the "Left" can decide on one person to go against Ford then he'll be in tough. But will all the "Progressives" fall behind the banner of Chow?

In 2010 Joey Pants refused to step aside and let Smitherman take on Ford One-on-One.

There are plenty of people on the left that might want the glory: Fletcher, Carroll, Vaughan. Will they all step aside and let Chow run alone. Of course assuming Chow runs. Polls like this still try to see what would happen if John Tory runs.

I hope so. Ford is way too entertaining to get rid of.

[Boges]

The relevant question is ...

You cant use city resources to raise money for your private charity, said Councillor Gord Perks, a critic of the mayor.[/i]

In this instance he didn't.

[Big Guy]

Functionally, Ford is a failure as mayor, has lost all leadership of (or influence in) his Council and is an embarrassment to Toronto. I do not think that the opposition to Ford is looking for a left leaning mayor but a competent mayor. An intelligent, moderate conservative leaning individual for Toronto (like John Tory) is what Toronto needs and would easily elect. The problem is that those who would qualify and be great mayors are intelligent enough to stay away from this zoo. The mere fact that someone would be interested in this job indicates that he/she does not understand the position and should therefore be disqualified.

[CaptainChatham]

- From the left-lib leaning Toronto Life and a left-lib leaning writer in Philip Preville comes a suprisingly sober, accurate and lauditory assessment of Rob Ford's real and significant and long term accomplishments as mayor.

- Perhaps Preville can come up with a similar list of accomplishments by David Miller if you give him a year or two to find and spin them but I doubt it.

- Miller's only accomplishment was selling out to and turning over control of the city to his long time pals in the monopoly public sector unions who proceeded to fiscally rape and pillage the good people of Toronto while the reliability and quality of actual services to citizens continued to decline.

- While I will argue that Ford deserves a second term to consolidate the real fiscal and productivity gains he has made on behalf of Torontonians whereas Preville makes a sop to his literary constituency by favouring a new mayor in 2014 who will continue on Ford's tranformational financial path, we both agree that while Rob has made entertaining and sometimes embarrassing theatre as mayor he has done the really important job exceptionally well. Unlike Ford the company where quality is job one, Ford the mayor gets it that ensuring reasonable and affordable value for money to the taxpayers and a solvent and efficient city government is job one as mayor of a megacity.

Philip Preville: A sober assessment of Rob Ford’s shining achievements

Ignore, for a moment, all the sideshow antics that have hijacked his mayoralty. Rob Ford has made some big changes at city hall that we’ll all feel, in a good way, long after he’s gone

By Philip Preville | Illustration by Steve Murray

You could be forgiven for believing that Rob Ford’s first two years as mayor amounted to nothing more than a riveting insignificance. He’s provided quite a spectacle. Talking on his cell while driving. Reading while driving. The Cut the Waist Challenge (and its dismal failure). The altercation with a Star reporter near his property. Allegedly flipping the bird to a kid and her mom. Calling 911 (three times!) to save himself from a Marg Delahunty bit. Yet none of these incidents tells us anything about his record as the city’s chief magistrate.

Even Ford’s conflict-of-interest charge, which was dismissed on appeal, was relevant to his mayoralty only in the same way that Bill Clinton’s imaginative use of cigars was relevant to his presidency: an error in judgment that exposed some sloppy habits and almost cost him his job, but that has little bearing upon his ability to do that job. As a body of evidence, Ford’s ceaselessly galling behaviour is proof of breathtakingly poor judgment in life—but not necessarily in politics.

While the entire city has been distracted by the giant blowhard on the screen, the man behind the curtain has accomplished some impressive wizardry. On the labour file, Ford pulled off a previously inconceivable trifecta: he got the city’s largest union locals to sign collective agreements on his terms and outsourced waste collection west of Yonge—all while avoiding any work stoppages. Compare that record with that of David Miller, under whose watch the union’s ranks and paycheques swelled and they still saw fit to wage a strike action that left the city reeking in its own filth.

Labour costs were the main reason that, during Miller’s seven years at the helm, the city’s annual operating budget grew by roughly six per cent per year. Only two years into Ford’s tenure, expenditures have essentially flatlined, from $9.405 billion last year to $9.432 billion this year. Ford’s detractors like to say he promised to stop the gravy, then found none. It turned out that the gravy didn’t flow in rushing brown-water rapids, but in trickles through every crack in the organization. Ford has spackled many of them shut. For example, he eliminated a “running lunch” program—code for a 30-minute paid lunch—in the vehicle maintenance department, which will save the city $391,000. He merged the shop that makes road signs with Transportation Services (why were they ever apart?), saving $110,000. At Fairview Library, an automated book sorter will save $160,000. It all adds up.

The entire budget process has been opened up for the better. Torontonians learned back on November 29 that their annual tax bill would rise by 1.95 per cent (later revised to two per cent), but the real story that day wasn’t the size of the increase. It was the timing of the announcement. During Miller’s tenure, the annual tax increase, along with every other detail of the municipal budget, was kept under wraps until February. It’s a crucial difference in management style. Miller waited so he would know exactly how much money he had left over from the previous year. Ford doesn’t want to know, because he believes not knowing will force the city to spend more cautiously.

So far, he’s been right. The city no longer needs to use its own prior-year surplus to balance next year’s budget. The 2012 surplus chimed in at $232 million, and instead of desperately shovelling it down the hole of the 2013 shortfall, council used it to increase funding for arts organizations and other programs.

Council also earmarked more than $100 million of the surplus to kickstart repairs to the Gardiner Expressway. Were it not for the Ford administration’s sound budget practices, we’d be paying for the Gardiner by delaying repairs to other things. Back in November, Olivia Chow, the MP for Trinity-Spadina, called upon Ottawa to pick up part of the expressway’s repair bill. Does anyone really want a return to the days when the city cried poor and begged others for money? We tried that for more than a decade, and all we have to show for it is decrepit infrastructure. In fiscal matters at least, Rob Ford has given Toronto its self-respect back.

Still, Ford’s lapses as mayor have been as substantial as his successes. He has failed to tame the police budget, which eats up the lion’s share of city revenues. This is a fight only a right-of-centre, tough-on-crime mayor can pick. Instead, Ford intervened in the police association’s bargaining to give them plump raises even as he negotiated hard with the city’s other unions.

Most crucially, the mayor’s rallying cry of “subways subways subways” cost the city two precious years on an ill-fated attempt to build a Sheppard subway extension. With no credible plan to fund it, council turned its back on Ford and resurrected Miller’s Transit City plan—not because it was better, but because it had money behind it. The transit issue exposed Ford’s fatal weakness: he’s a lone wolf in a job that now requires a consensus builder.

The long-overdue changes Ford has made will serve the next mayor of Toronto well—whether that mayor is Ford or someone else. It should be someone else. For the post-Miller era, voters wanted to toss a bomb into city hall and blow it up. Ford made a great bomb. Now his charge is nearly spent.

But what Toronto doesn’t need is Ford’s diametric opposite. Torontonians have the emotional bad habit of loving their mayors until they can no longer stand them, at which point they replace them with their worst enemies. Mel Lastman was an adorably colourful character until he became an unbearable clown. As a councillor, David Miller was a constant thorn in Lastman’s side, then enjoyed an extended honeymoon as mayor until his handling of the 2009 garbage strike led public opinion to brand him a bum. Councillor Ford, who could get under Miller’s skin and make him itch like no other opponent…well, you get the picture.

Auditions for the role of Ford’s Worst Enemy—Adam Vaughan? Shelley Carroll?—continue in earnest. Whoever earns the mantle will likely be elected mayor in 2014. When the new mayor takes office, that person should bear in mind that Ford was nowhere near as bad as he was made out to be, and take care not to squander the clean budget books he left behind

[Boges]

Functionally, Ford is a failure as mayor, has lost all leadership of (or influence in) his Council and is an embarrassment to Toronto. I do not think that the opposition to Ford is looking for a left leaning mayor but a competent mayor. An intelligent, moderate conservative leaning individual for Toronto (like John Tory) is what Toronto needs and would easily elect. The problem is that those who would qualify and be great mayors are intelligent enough to stay away from this zoo. The mere fact that someone would be interested in this job indicates that he/she does not understand the position and should therefore be disqualified.

Hilarious. John Tory is rejected by Toronto twice but now that you have Rob Ford he'll be the best thing ever.

[guyser]

Hilarious. John Tory is rejected by Toronto twice but now that you have Rob Ford he'll be the best thing ever.

Once boges , 2003 and narrowly lost to Miller who was the opposite of Lastman.

[Boges]

Once boges , 2003 and narrowly lost to Miller who was the opposite of Lastman.

He also was defeated in the 2007 Provincial election, he got no support from Toronto.

[Black Dog]

Still, the best thing people who oppose him can do is to just let Ford be Ford. He'll bumble into another problem soon enough.

Sarah Thomson wants apology after accusing Toronto mayor of inappropriate touch

[Boges]

Sarah Thomson wants apology after accusing Toronto mayor of inappropriate touch

Those are some serious allegations. You'd think if she really felt threatened she'd do more than make a Facebook post.

Also Ford's wife was apparently with him in Florida.

Not sure how you can confirm the truth either way here

Edited March 8, 2013 by Boges

[Michael Hardner]

Those are some serious allegations. You'd think if she really felt threatened she'd do more than make a Facebook post.

Also Ford's wife was apparently with him in Florida.

Not sure how you can confirm the truth either way here

She was on the radio this morning. What is "do more than make a post" - file charges ? Would there be less criticism if she filed criminal charges against him for 'grabbing her ass' (her words, not mine).

[Boges]

I'm not sure what the proper reaction should have been. Witnesses have said she didn't seem upset about her interaction with him.

She's not going to press charges, she just wants an apology, we still don't have a response from Ford.

If he doesn't apologize, how will she respond.

[BubberMiley]

He was looking good in the picture of the two of them together. I thought the wet food stain on his shirt was a nice touch. Toronto should be proud.

[PIK]

She should be thrown in jail, if she can't prove what she said. How low will these people go to get rid of ford. The whole country is laughing.

[Black Dog]

She should be thrown in jail, if she can't prove what she said. How low will these people go to get rid of ford.

On what charge?

The whole country is laughing.

All because of your boy Ford.

[WWWTT]

She should be thrown in jail, if she can't prove what she said. How low will these people go to get rid of ford. The whole country is laughing.

Ya laughing at Ford!

WWWTT

[WWWTT]

She should be thrown in jail, if she can't prove what she said. How low will these people go to get rid of ford. The whole country is laughing.

Ya and every cop that can't prove every charge they have given someone should be thrown in jail to???

Not much into thinking are you?

WWWTT