Results tagged “shelleycarroll”

People tend to do a lot of shouting around budget time. They feel, by turns overtaxed, under-serviced, that the City is spending too much, and that the City isn't delivering everything it should. Usually lost in the shuffle are some basic facts about how the budget process actually works and what options are open to the City should it wish to effect any serious changes to its books.

Politics stops for no man, and no retirement.

       

A giant jigsaw puzzle was unveiled at the Rotunda in City Hall last week. It wasn’t much of a head-scratcher, since it had already been solved, but what it lacked in convolution it made up in sheer optical awesomeness. Commissioned for the Manifesto Festival of Culture and Community (which just wrapped up this weekend), the puzzle—entitled Toronto Artmap 2009—was created by artists representing each of Toronto’s forty-four wards. Ranging from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, each artist was given a slab of wood shaped like their particular ward, on which they were free to tinker as they so desired. Once the pieces were finalized, they were linked up Voltron-style to form a massive tessellated map of Toronto.

Today is budget day at City Hall, and the mood is grim but determined. In the face of rising unemployment, swelling welfare rolls, and glum economic forecasts, the rock of weakening revenue and the hard place of increasing social service costs are squeezing the City hard. In a press conference this morning, Mayor David Miller and Budget Committee Chair Shelley Carroll reassured the public that no major service cuts were on the table and that many planned improvements (such as the Tower Renewal program, various environmental initiatives, and TTC upgrades) were going ahead as planned. Miller made a point of contextualizing the pressures the City faces, lambasting the federal government for failing to expand EI eligibility requirements, and reminding us that the hangover of Mike Harris's welfare offloading is being felt to this day.

In this occasional feature, two Torontoist staffers face off to debate an issue that is important to our city. We invite our readers to join in the debate in the comments section after the post.

City Council is going to be crazy today. We highly recommend you watch. (Click here for the online feed.) The chambers are going to be packed to capacity, with the overflow relegated to watching the proceedings on the screen in the rotunda. This does not happen often. It will be loud. It will be hectic. It will be exciting.

The Liberal Party narrowly wins a minority government in Quebec. The ADQ came in a very close second, and Mario Dumont will be the official opposition leader when the Quebec National Assembly reconvenes. Many voters expressed their dissatisfaction with Premier Jean Charest, expressing their desire for a premier who looks less like Gene Wilder circa See No Evil, Hear No Evil.

David Soknacki, the right-winger picked by David Miller to be his budget chief, has announced that he is retiring from politics and will not be running for re-election in Ward 43 - Scarborough East this fall.

David "The Broom" Miller

Wither the local grocery store? It's hard to say for sure. Some nabes seem chock-a-block with good eats and better provisions, while others have sparse amenities, and long slogs to overcrowded markets. Most alarming is the idea that large, centralized monster marts are restricting smaller guys from opening shop, but an update to the Marketplace piece says efforts are being made to do away with these proprietary restrictions.