John Tory a phony mayor of contradiction in action?

[boodog]

John Tory announces city will pay to finish some projects, but not others

John Tory said spending more to finish work on the Gardiner Expressway early is good, but spending more to add a granite sidewalk at Queen’s Quay may not be.

Toronto’s mayor announced Thursday, Dec. 18 the city will pay up to $2 million to finish work on a Gardiner section from the CNE grounds to Garrison Road in May.

Tory said he doesn’t think he’ll have to defend the decision because people, “to a point,” want congestion-producing construction projects sped up.

Finishing that part of the elevated Gardiner rehabilitation “as fast as we can within reason” – within 14 months instead of 16 – ensures all lanes will be open for the city’s Pan Am/Parapan Am Games next summer.

When the city has priorities, Tory told reporters, “we will find a way to do them and that’s what the budget process is all about.”

Though the mayor has suggested citizens wouldn’t mind paying a bit more to accelerate the pace of major roadwork, he takes a harsher tone on overspending for civic improvement projects.

Lately, he’s criticized Waterfront Toronto’s oversight of renovations at Queen’s Quay, which is also to be completed in time for the Games.

The Waterfront board decided to spend $4 million more on granite sidewalks – boosting their costs in the project up to $12 million and contributing to around $36 million in cost overruns.

Waterfront executives defended its spending on granite December 17 as being part of the project’s “design excellence.”

Tory said he understands circumstances can change, but said Waterfront, funded since 2000 by all three levels of government, had downplayed decisions made to use extra granite, “conscious decisions taken that dramatically increased the price.”

People are angry, he said, because, “these discussions have not taken place in a public setting and you find out after the fact.”

In an age of constrained resources, we have to do better, said Tory, though he also agreed Toronto’s once-neglected waterfront should be improved in an “excellent fashion.”

The mayor said he thinks Torontonians can be proud of Sugar Beach and Corktown Commons – parks produced by Waterfront Toronto which some city politicians criticized for their high costs – and yet seemed to question whether Waterfront “in its present incarnation” should be doing such projects at all.

“I think we have to have that discussion.”

The Games will have its own impact on traffic, and Tory said the city is trying to “minimize” the extensive network of allocated high-occupancy lanes reserved for the games, and who beside athletes and officials can use them.

He wants the Games to succeed, he said. “But they cannot be allowed to shut the city down in the meantime.”

http://www.insidetoronto.com/news-s...l-pay-to-finish-some-projects-but-not-others/

 

[destillat]

So he is assessing each project on it's own merits and making individual informed decisions... who woulda thunk that the mayor of Toronto could do that?

 

[Butler1000]

And he is stating by this that core repairs to infrastructure should take precidence over beautification projects. Especially when large expenditures are involved while things like roads and public housing are in disrepair.

I don't see anything here that is hypocritical. In fact it's quite refreshing to see him walking the walk and not just whining without doing something about it.

 

[Aardvark154]

So nice to see TERB is continuing its fine tradition of Mayor bashing.

 

[Chloë.]

I see nothing but proactivity on his part..
He is being rightfully assertive in making decisions to mitigate problems he feels Torontonians deal with far too much.
Things that are STILL in line with the platform he built his campaign on.
I didn't vote for him, but I am steadily changing my view based on his current action.

I smell a hater.

 

[boodog]

So nice to see TERB is continuing its fine tradition of Mayor bashing.

Did John Tory friendly aka Toronto Star join Terb to carry out this fine tradition?

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/12/26/what_is_john_torys_endgame.html

 

[boodog]

I see nothing but proactivity on his part..
He is being rightfully assertive in making decisions to mitigate problems he feels Torontonians deal with far too much.
Things that are STILL in line with the platform he built his campaign on.
I didn't vote for him, but I am steadily changing my view based on his current action.

I smell a hater.

Toronto Star is a hater? Thats a first!!!!!

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/12/26/what_is_john_torys_endgame.html

 

[boodog]

What is John Tory’s endgame?

Toronto mayor’s early decisions miss the point about city living.

Heading into his first full year as mayor of Toronto, John Tory might want to sit down for a moment to ponder why we love the city, not just why we don't.

A series of recent decisions reveal a chief magistrate unclear about what makes a great city. His confusion between means and ends, between the city as a place to drive through and a place to be causes concern.

Tory's threat to cancel or move charity and cultural events because they slow traffic is especially troubling because it reveals his failure to understand what cities are about and why we choose to live in them.

In fact, the activities that worry him — festivals, marathons, open streets and the like — are the very reasons people want to be here.

Yes, traffic matters, but so does quality of life. The fact Tory missed the point so completely, and so casually, should give Torontonians pause.

Just as disappointing was his decision to appoint Denzil Minnan-Wong to the board of Waterfront Toronto. The councillor, who dismisses the desire for excellence as wasteful and extravagant, has established himself as a loud, proud and consistent advocate for mediocrity. (What does that say about Tory, whom Minnan-Wong has long supported?)

Focused on selected details — most famously the cost of custom-made umbrellas at Sugar Beach — the councillor from Don Valley East practises the sort of philistine conservatism that always finds an audience among the resentful.

For these enemies of urbanity, the city is an obstacle, a streetcar stopping traffic to pick up a passenger, or a pedestrian crossing at the Yonge and Dundas scramble while drivers wait and wait and wait.

Perhaps Tory hopes that by appointing Minnan-Wong to the waterfront board and naming him deputy mayor he will look tough. “There is a new sheriff in town,” Tory declared after being elected. Clearly he wanted to strike a note of threat. Do what I say, or else.

Fair enough; but to what end?

The city is undergoing profound transformation. Though we have tried to ignore it, even stop it, Toronto has changed. The community in which Tory's generation grew up no longer exists, except in their collective memory. The new city is younger, denser and a lot more sophisticated. The 21st-century urban experience has less to do with commuting than communing. To make congestion the sole measure of a city is out-dated and counter-productive.

Tory's focus on eliminating illegal parking will help; but only marginally. His “major” announcement — that passengers on the King streetcar can now enter through the back doors back — was an act of noblesse oblige presented as progressive policy.

Still, we reveal ourselves in small ways. Tory's decision to leave council's most objectionable members — from Frances Nunziata to David Shiner — in senior positions reinforces the sense that he's not just conservative, but an unprogressive conservative.

And like all conservatives, Tory relies on people's fears. The city costs too much, slows the drive, gets in the way.... The truth is quite the opposite; without the city we couldn't survive. The story of our lives is the story of the city.

Above all, the mayor's job is to keep his eyes on the big picture, not busy himself micro-managing files about which he knows next to nothing. If he'd paid attention, Tory would, for example, realize that the same Waterfront Toronto has pulled off the impossible and brought life to an industrial wasteland.

Instead, he turns to the class cretin, smiles and takes a bite from the apple he has just been handed. It tastes good, not at all poisonous.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014...s_endgame.html

 

[Anbarandy]

Hitting the ground running it is quite obvious that Sir Tory's vision for his Toryonto is a backwards quest and journey for a Toryonto long ago supplanted by the Toronto of today. Most of his agenda if not backwards blinkered thinking, is also entrenching the status quo of what should rightfully be reformed in addition to an extreme bias towards private developers and corporations to the detriment of the city and it's citizens.

1) The car is NOT king anymore, though all of Tory's thoughts, directions and decisions certainly do point to a consciously contemptuous attempt to ensure that nothing, nada, nil interferes with the congesting causing car. Transit, transit service improvements, transit expansion, pedestrians, Open Streets, Street Festivals, Marathons and the vibrancy of neighorhoods and of the city which has long supplanted his 50's and 60's Toryonto MUST NOT intervene with the car.

2) Tory's sacking of Michael Thompson, the most vocal TPSB critic of the TPS and it's TPA, and the sacking of Michael Del Grande and the contemptuous Francis Nunziata, the two most vocal adversaries of the TPS budgets, and his public denunciation of the TPSB Chair,signals that the TPs and it's TPA are sacrosanct and supreme and beyond any form of criticism and much long ago needed reform.

3) His stated, "I'll have to study' the Island Airport expansion issue belies his true feeling and intent which is unfettered expansion. It is as obvious as the dye in his coiffure. What is officially designated as parkland and what was to be at most a limited use short takeoff and landing island airport is envisioned as a long haul, commercial jet airport with unlimited flights and expansion in his Toryonto. This is in direct contradiction to the official plan and direct contradiction to the vision of Toronto and Torontonians today.

4) His GhostTrack scheme will most certainly cause the scuttling of the already approved Finch W and Sheppard LRT projects. It also not fundable in it's present format. It is also grossly under costed. Sir Tory claims that is is 'free and at no cost' to Torontonians. If it is approved the certainty of Torontonians subsidizing rich private developers to build on the richest and choicest lands in Canada, lands that they are currently developing with NO subsidies, to the tune of +5-6billion dollars is not only wasteful but scandalous.

5) His executive appointments basically consist of conservative hounds of hell. You know the type. The ones that screech to the media about the cost of a pencil, a door knob and a toilet. The ones that are so narrow in focus that they miss the important overall picture. Certainly at play with Waterfront Toronto. Once derelict industrial lands are being transformed into vibrant neighborhoods. Areas of the city that are destinations for it's citizens and for tourism. Landmark parks and landmarks developments. What has become a gem, Sir Tory and his conservative hounds of hell would like to reduce to the less than ordinary, the utilitarian and destinations and neighborhoods void of vibrancy and life.


Sir Tory's Toryonto:

Motor City Mania. Two cars in every driveway and open roads. Police State City. A runaway and unaccountable TPS, it's TPA and budget. The Jetsons, a waterfront dominated by commercial jet flight after flight. Corporate subsidy City. Uninspiring and bland Toryonto.

 

[jcpro]

Hitting the ground running it is quite obvious that Sir Tory's vision for his Toryonto is a backwards quest and journey for a Toryonto long ago supplanted by the Toronto of today. Most of his agenda if not backwards blinkered thinking, is also entrenching the status quo of what should rightfully be reformed in addition to an extreme bias towards private developers and corporations to the detriment of the city and it's citizens.

1) The car is NOT king anymore, though all of Tory's thoughts, directions and decisions certainly do point to a consciously contemptuous attempt to ensure that nothing, nada, nil interferes with the congesting causing car. Transit, transit service improvements, transit expansion, pedestrians, Open Streets, Street Festivals, Marathons and the vibrancy of neighorhoods and of the city which has long supplanted his 50's and 60's Toryonto MUST NOT intervene with the car.

2) Tory's sacking of Michael Thompson, the most vocal TPSB critic of the TPS and it's TPA, and the sacking of Michael Del Grande and the contemptuous Francis Nunziata, the two most vocal adversaries of the TPS budgets, and his public denunciation of the TPSB Chair,signals that the TPs and it's TPA are sacrosanct and supreme and beyond any form of criticism and much long ago needed reform.

3) His stated, "I'll have to study' the Island Airport expansion issue belies his true feeling and intent which is unfettered expansion. It is as obvious as the dye in his coiffure. What is officially designated as parkland and what was to be at most a limited use short takeoff and landing island airport is envisioned as a long haul, commercial jet airport with unlimited flights and expansion in his Toryonto. This is in direct contradiction to the official plan and direct contradiction to the vision of Toronto and Torontonians today.

4) His GhostTrack scheme will most certainly cause the scuttling of the already approved Finch W and Sheppard LRT projects. It also not fundable in it's present format. It is also grossly under costed. Sir Tory claims that is is 'free and at no cost' to Torontonians. If it is approved the certainty of Torontonians subsidizing rich private developers to build on the richest and choicest lands in Canada, lands that they are currently developing with NO subsidies, to the tune of +5-6billion dollars is not only wasteful but scandalous.

5) His executive appointments basically consist of conservative hounds of hell. You know the type. The ones that screech to the media about the cost of a pencil, a door knob and a toilet. The ones that are so narrow in focus that they miss the important overall picture. Certainly at play with Waterfront Toronto. Once derelict industrial lands are being transformed into vibrant neighborhoods. Areas of the city that are destinations for it's citizens and for tourism. Landmark parks and landmarks developments. What has become a gem, Sir Tory and his conservative hounds of hell would like to reduce to the less than ordinary, the utilitarian and destinations and neighborhoods void of vibrancy and life.


Sir Tory's Toryonto:

Motor City Mania. Two cars in every driveway and open roads. Police State City. A runaway and unaccountable TPS, it's TPA and budget. The Jetsons, a waterfront dominated by commercial jet flight after flight. Corporate subsidy City. Uninspiring and bland Toryonto.

The car might not be a king anymore along the subway corridors and the high density downtown area, but that is only a small fraction of Toronto. Scarborough, Etobicoke, large swaths of North York are woefully under serviced by the public transit. So far, Tory is only focusing on downtown, but that will have to change, if he wants to be reelected since he did not carry Etobicoke and totally lost Scarborough in the election. The island airport is really a non issue outside the downtown core. The whole argument about noise is bs because new jets are just as quiet as the turbo props that are there already. FYI, the turbo props are powered by jet turbines.

 

[Anbarandy]

The island airport is really a non issue outside the downtown core. The whole argument about noise is bs because new jets are just as quiet as the turbo props that are there already. FYI, the turbo props are powered by jet turbines.

The 'whole argument' is not about noise.

If' whisper jets' land, take off and fly every few minutes along the waterfront, does it mean they do not effectively alter the waterfront forever?

 

[Butler1000]

Chris Hume is a whiner. I prefer Royson James. I may not agree with him all the time but at least his points have substance.

Anyone take the time to read the articles after comments? Seems a lot of Star readers disagree with him including downtown transit using dwellers who tire of the constant closures as well.

What's wrong with moving some of these runs and spreading them around the city? Does everything have to be downtown?

Anyway Hume's rant is a minority voice. Most people want events and construction to be coordinated. Right now Tory is sitting at a 74% approval rating. That says to me even supporters of Chow and the Ford's like what he is doing. Sure as contentious issues come up that will fluctuate. But overall he is doing it right.

So suck it up Boodog, and go smoke a joint Anbarandy. His policies may not all be yours, but they are the majority's.

Rants and occasional links won't change that.

 

[happ]

How the public sector unions buy elections. During the election they kiss up to the government who'll give them what they want in exchange for their votes. After the election they trash the same government to pressure them for more. The cycle seems strongest at the provincial level where you have the teachers and nurses unions. We've all seen the ads where they threaten to kill students and patients if their party doesnt win.

 

[Anbarandy]

Chris Hume is a whiner. I prefer Royson James. I may not agree with him all the time but at least his points have substance.

Anyone take the time to read the articles after comments? Seems a lot of Star readers disagree with him including downtown transit using dwellers who tire of the constant closures as well.

What's wrong with moving some of these runs and spreading them around the city? Does everything have to be downtown?

Anyway Hume's rant is a minority voice. Most people want events and construction to be coordinated. Right now Tory is sitting at a 74% approval rating. That says to me even supporters of Chow and the Ford's like what he is doing. Sure as contentious issues come up that will fluctuate. But overall he is doing it right.

So suck it up Boodog, and go smoke a joint Anbarandy. His policies may not all be yours, but they are the majority's.

Rants and occasional links won't change that.

It appears that the real whiners' are the same Toryonto 'bootlickers' such as yourself who:

1) Believe Toryontonians should take a back seat to the supremacy of the car.

2) Believe that the TPS, it's TPA and it's taxpayer draining budget is fine and dandy as a jawbreaker candy.

3) Believe that the waterfront belongs not to it's citizens but to unhindered commercial jets and their corporate backers.

4) Believe in subsidizing private property developers to the tune of +$5-6billion to build on land they are already building without such subsidies.

5) Believe that cost of a pen, a file folder or a door hinge is more important than creating a more livable, vibrant and inclusive city.


Welcome to your Toryonto, bootlicker1000.

 

[jcpro]

The 'whole argument' is not about noise.

If' whisper jets' land, take off and fly every few minutes along the waterfront, does it mean they do not effectively alter the waterfront forever?

And? The waterfront has been changing since the first colonists arrived here.

 

[Chloë.]

Hitting the ground running it is quite obvious that Sir Tory's vision for his Toryonto is a backwards quest and journey for a Toryonto long ago supplanted by the Toronto of today. Most of his agenda if not backwards blinkered thinking, is also entrenching the status quo of what should rightfully be reformed in addition to an extreme bias towards private developers and corporations to the detriment of the city and it's citizens.


3) His stated, "I'll have to study' the Island Airport expansion issue belies his true feeling and intent which is unfettered expansion. It is as obvious as the dye in his coiffure. What is officially designated as parkland and what was to be at most a limited use short takeoff and landing island airport is envisioned as a long haul, commercial jet airport with unlimited flights and expansion in his Toryonto. This is in direct contradiction to the official plan and direct contradiction to the vision of Toronto and Torontonians today.

Doesn't he have a conflict of interest in this matter due to his son being an airline executive?
Deflecting the issue and leaving that type of comment seemed just in my eyes..

^Sensationlist journalism to me.

 

[basketcase]

So nice to see TERB is continuing its fine tradition of Mayor bashing.

After years of anabrandy, boo has a lot to live up to.

 

[boodog]

After years of anabrandy, boo has a lot to live up to.

Just following our finest "hater" leader Toronto Star.

FYI Toronto Star has been one of the hundred of John Tory friendly media.

Maybe we are the ones who are thinking outside the "basket-case"?

 

[boodog]

Doesn't he have a conflict of interest in this matter due to his son being an airline executive?
Deflecting the issue and leaving that type of comment seemed just in my eyes..

^Sensationlist journalism to me.

Only time can tell how he will orchestrate his cronies in the Executive Committee and in the City Council, behind the scene, to vote for the Island Airport expansion for his son financial benefit.

Not that I disagree with the expansion which is good for employment and travel convenience.

 

[fuji]

The fact that he can "orchestrate" at all makes him a fantastic mayor compared to that useless crack head who only ever brought council together when it voted unanimously to strip him off his powers.

We WANT a mayor who can orchestrate. Orchestrating is what mayors do. That is how stuff actually gets done and why Ford was an all talk no action buffoon while under Tory the city will finally start moving forward.

Do I share Tory's politics? No. But I am glad we actually have a mayor who will do something, instead of yapping a lot but doing nothing like Ford.

My first preference is a politician who solves problems in the way that agrees with my ideology. Second best is someone who solves problems using a different ideology. Both are infinitely better than someone like Ford who only created problems and never solved problems at all.