If I was to be a politician.

If I was to be a politician …

Have you ever asked yourself that question?  If not, sometime you should and maybe, just maybe, you should think that one through before you go to vote this October 25^th. I have asked that question to friends and colleagues over the last while and what emerged was very interesting.

Most people I asked based their response on their own experiences.  Since politicians at the Federal and Provincial levels are somewhat removed and distant, people seem to relate more (if at all) to their City Councillor.  In Toronto’s Ward 16, we have a large number of residents who tend to live here for a long time. If they move, they do their best to move within the Ward.

So, for the past 7 years we have had just 1 Councillor.  Before that we had 1 that was around for 15 years.  That's a small sample - 2 councillors in 22 years. However, some who are actively engaged in City issues have seen how other councillor act, behave and interact with their constituents.


The sceptics' view is that all politicians are, shall we say, less than trustworthy and follow the interests of big business, developers and other large organizations. This has given rise to the notion that the local folk living in the Ward have a diminished influence on important issues.  Others have the feeling that politicians adopt a certain type of “attitude”.  Some call it “arrogance”, some call it “holier than thou” and others refer to it as “self-serving”. Whatever it is called, it too nurtures a feeling of disconnect on important issues.  

This last sense of impotence is the one that folks seem to resent most.  They feel a councillor is elected to serve the electorate. It is they who put the person in office. In turn residents feel the councillor should support the Ward and in the larger view, the City.

So, asking oneself … “If I was to be a politician …?”

Most people therefore would say they wanted to be a councillor to serve those who voted.  
To serve their constituents.  
To stand up for all residents.  
To inform and promote programs and developments (changes in traffic patterns), that would enhance the quality of life for the people in the Ward, and the City.  
To be honest and up-front with people.  
To be clear about their position on any given issue.  
To uphold City policies and guidelines. 
To arrive at a position based on open, informed and fair dialogue.  
To have the courage and conviction to change their own position if, through open, informed and fair dialogue, other points of view make sense.  
To not be intransigent.  
To be an active listener and to consider the best advice of residents.

Revitalising and refocusing Toronto.

George Smitherman has issued a statement on the revitalising and refocusing of Toronto, should he become Mayor. 


its2big sent the following comments to John Sewell.


1) We need to refocus City Hall so that local issues can be addressed more efficiently and effectively.


That sounds great but the last time this happened things got worse. Right now we have 4 Community Councils that bring motions that have been "debated". In our case, that's just not true. Decisions on agenda items are decided before the meetings start. It's how councillors have crafted a way of dealing with many issues they don't know anything about (a development) or which are remote from their constituency.


2) At the same time we need to ensure that our city is capable of addressing the regional issues and is able to focus on those issues.


This doesn't resonate with us at its2big.


3) We need more transparency in decision-making, budgeting and the spending of money.


Agreed, especially in decision-making. The budget thing gets all fired-up once a year and then gets forgotten for the rest of it. Let's hope spending isn't covered-off by reference to some bullshit rules either. For example, Karen Stintz spent $4,500 on private speech lessons to further her political ambitions and when challenged said, "it was approved", end of story.


4) We need to be more creative in using the tools available to us to facilitate development not only in our downtown but across the City, to ensure that all City neighbourhoods have equal access to good neighbourhood facilities and services, jobs and housing choices.


I'm sure Mr. Bedford is disappointed with the implementation of his New Official Plan. The last 2 councils have made a good job of punching holes it it already. So much so that we might need another "Newer Official Plan" soon. (And, we don't mean the 5 year review that is upon it next year.) Development is the area where the greatest corruption has occurred. As Adam Vaughan said about Karen Stintz's approach to development, “a corruption of planning principles. I’ve never seen anything more unprincipled.”


Let's hope the next Mayor of Toronto can finally get the job done and tell him to not bother with David Miller's broom. We have a better one here called - www.its2big.ca.

A Parcel of Rogues.

SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES T'WAS THAT ORGANIZATION!

Farewell to Ward 16 fame

Farewell our old glory

Farewell even to the name

So famed in municipal story

Now Stintz runs over the Official Plan

And Tall Buildings tower over the horizion

To mark where Miller’s province stands-

Such a parcel of rogues in an organization!

What force or guile could not subdue

Through many troubled stages

Is wrought now by an elected few

For parties, suits and speeches.

A councillor’s arrogance we disdained

Secure in honest condemnation;

But developer’s funds have been our bane-

Such a parcel of rogues in one organization!

If only we had seen the day

That blind ambition could sell us,

My cool head would remain

With Sewell and loyal Jacobs!

But with Mills in Ward 16, till the last hour

I will make this declaration :-

'We were bought and sold for developer’s gold'-

T'WAS SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES IN THAT ORGANIZATION!

What was Karen Stintz thinking?

The TTC subway doesn't work. Our sewers are bursting. The water supply is leaking. We're out of open space. Our roads are gridlocked. Summer smog, winter choke. Yet, willy-nilly we stuff more condos into our neighbourhoods. Where's that plan taking us?

There should be no plan but the Official Plan.

Some readers may see parallels in this poem to the Council of the past 7 years with it’s ‘Political Elites’ handing Toronto over to the greed of developers. Through a sense of entitlement, a corruption of planning principles, we've become a 'condo-nation'. All at the expense of the ideals in Toronto’s Official Plan.

The "corruption" at City Hall is best exemplified by the practice of "ward politics". It has to stop, we must raise the level of integrity in decision-making on Council. 

Development is good, over-sized development is not!

Deja Vu for Karen Stintz

The Eglinton-Lawrence councillor, who rode into office on the wave of community opposition to Minto Towers at Yonge and Eg, is facing some unlikely opposition. It's from some of the same folks who drafted her to run against Anne Johnston way back when.

Enter Patrick Smyth, one of five in the Coalition for Municipal Change who paid for the Councillor Wanted ad that drafted Stintz in 2003. "She's never met a developer she couldn't trust!" now says Smyth. Ouch.

Residents are angry, says Smyth, at Stintz's efforts to push through a number of developments, creeping into established residential neighbourhoods.

Enzo DiMatteo, NOW TORONTO, October 6, 2010.

How low is "too low" for Karen Stintz?

There is much to consider in the video record of the exchange between Councillor Walker and Karen Stintz on the last day of Council in August. The part after where she says she screwed-up on her 7 year career on Council, Karen Stintz says "there is nothing to tell us if it's too hign or too low"is a stunning admission that she is largely ignorant of the many rules and regulations that do exactly that - if they are applied properly.

It's clear Karen Stintz is development-challenged. The Tall Building policy has a number of limitations that determine if a building is too high. The 45 degree angular plane tests are designed to mitigate any loss of quality or equality in the neighbourhood. Design Guidelines, adopted by Council, contain minimum setback measurements that ultimately limit height and density.

That all of these protections were circumvented by the developer has given rise to anger in the community. That the development has fettered the development choices of the publicly owned land next door has far reaching consequences for affordable housing in Toronto.

Remember as you watch this episode that Michael Walker has represented North Torontonians for 28 years. Karen Stintz took a long shot in 2003 and has been around development issues, in between preening her PC political ambitions, for less than 7 years.

Oh, and when you get near the end when Karen Stintz reverts to her signature shrill routine (what did we get for the $4,500 speech training?) she bemoans the fact that Terry Mills helped the Orchard View and Duplex community in dealing with the developer, the City and the Ward Councillor. Her "political opponents" attended public meetings, were paid nothing for their contribution and served the community well.

It's not a pretty scene - political warning strongly advised. 

A councillor who is a stranger to the truth.

Michael Walker knew he was fighting a losing battle. The community members who remained in the Chamber wanted to be witness to what was about to happen. Their loyalty was to the hundreds of local residents who opposed the development. The last leg of Karen Stintz's journey were about to unfold. There would be a video record for the electorate of Ward 16 to consider prior to October 25, 2010 when she would ask to be given a third term as Ward Councillor.

Councillor Walker asked Karen Stintz if the Working Group came to the consensus she claimed in her address to Council. She avoided his question and responded by saying that "the residents that are directly impacted by this development came to the consensus we have achieved".

This of course is not at all true. Remember the deputations of the EPRA Board Members? Remember the deputations from the members of the Stanley Knowles Cooperative? These, and others not shown here but which exist, prove that no such consensus existed. In fact, the unanimous consensus reached by the community was ignored by Karen Stintz when she presented only her own private agreement with the developer.

Councillor Walker was aware too of some 200 names on petitions and speculated that there was more. He knew many of these people and knew them to be from the immediate area. Karen Stintz then extends the lie by claiming the Working Group and the Stanley Knowles Cooperative came to "an informed decision".

This statement is not true either. There were many questions still unanswered on that last day of Council. Questions for which Councillor Stintz had refused to secure answers. These answers would have weakened the developer's case and exposed the farce.

Politicians have a shelf-life and we have seen in the past what happens to representatives whose shelf life has expired. As we sweep the lawns of leaves, Ward 16 residents should be thinking about the needed change of who represents us at City Hall.

Have a look at this episode and ask yourself if this is the level of integrity you want from your local councillor?

The fog of 'Ward Politics'.

Councillor Michael Walker made a brave attempt at raising the many planning issues associated with the proposal to erect a 20 storey condo building on the small Orchard View and Duplex site. He had already demonstrated that there was much opposition to the plan from within the local community. Now he rose to debate the planning anomalies. He dealt with each, one at a time.

At a 1000% increase in density, Councillor Walker felt justified in believing this was excessive. He referred to the previous item on the agenda that day where much lower densities had been recommended and accepted by City Planning Staff.  He intimated that the same should happen at this site.

He made the case for something being terribly wrong because the Angular Plane Tests had not been applied. These tests are incorporated in the City's policies with respect to Urban Design.

He highlighted the 10.2 times coverage planned for the site. Nothing of this magnitude exists in the YE Urban Growth Centre and never likely to exist given the Design Guidelines Policies for the area.

He cited the Tall Buildings Policies with respect to the size of the floor plate of the proposed building. At 850 square metres it exceeded the recommended 750 square metre maximum contained in the policy.

He questioned the correctness of the lack of discussion about the rental housing stock that existed previously on the site. The same situation had existed on the Berwick site to the south and remarked how the rental stock there had been preserved through that redevelopment process.

He commented on the appropriateness of the setbacks provided for in the plan and bemoaned the fact that so little valid information was available. He had been unable to get exact information on setbacks stating that the figures changed at different times during his questioning of Mr. Keefe. He commented that the setbacks did not represent good planning or good design.

He believed the issue of the impact on the Library had not been adequately addressed. He noted that many of the views in the building above the Library would now be lost. Building so close to the east property lot line he feared the publicly owned Library land could be fettered. He referenced a letter to that point from the Library Board.

All in all, Michael Walker made the case for a community concerned about excessive development in the neighbourhood. The transition to a two storey community to the west was not in keeping with neighbourhood stability policies within the Official Plan. He suggested that the City had good policies and they should be applied.

His recommendation was that the matter should be sent back to Community Council after a public meeting to resolve these issues. His motion was put to a vote but it failed by 26 to 4. The three councillors supporting the motion were Rob Ford, Ron Moeser and Cliff Jenkins who had voted in favour of Councillor Stintz at the North York Community Council on August 17th.

Here's a link to Councillor Walker's attempt to cut through the fog of Ward Politics.

"The community, sensing this application was on a juggernaut to approval decided it was prudent to prepare a "Conciliatory" proposal that might mitigate some of the major excesses. This was presented to the NYCC on Aug.17 last in some detail and supported by numerous deputations. Nonetheless, NYCC gave this no consideration and instead proceeded with a number of amendments arranged between the Applicant and the Councillor the week before. In that this NYCC meeting was declared a Capital "P" Public Meeting it's highly doubtful if it's process satisfies that purpose"