Toronto Community Housing board gone

City voted to remove housing board members
Interim director in place until new board appointed
Councillors question legality of decision
Kris Scheuer
(Written and revised March 10 for Town Crier)

THC tenant reps Catherine Wilkinson and Dan King were among board members removed by city. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Town Crier.

Mayor Rob Ford got his wish. The four remaining members of the Toronto Community Housing’s board were removed last night after a midnight vote by city council.
It its place a single managing director has been appointed to take over the board’s duties.
It’s been confirmed former deputy mayor Case Ootes will fill that role until a new board is formed no later than mid-June.
Councillor Raymond Cho, who along with Councillor Maria Augimeri and tenant reps Catherine Wilkinson and Dan King were removed from the community housing board, said during the debate he felt the mayor was telling him to get lost by asking him to resign from the board after he was just appointed in December.
Last week, the other two councillors appointed to the board after last year’s election, John Parker and Frances Nunziata, resigned at the mayor’s request.

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City’s garbage privatization plan

City informs union of intent to contract out trash removal
Council to debate privatizing Toronto’s garbage collection
Kris Scheuer
(Written for Town Crier Feb. 7)

Mayor Rob Ford announces a plan to privatize more of the city's garbage collection. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Town Crier.

Mayor Rob Ford is poised to deliver on another election promise, this time to privatize garbage collection.
“As you know I campaigned on contracting out garbage,” Ford said at a city hall press conference today. “Today is the first step in that procedure. We notified the union at 11 am that we will discuss contracting out in May.”
Ford added that he was taking this step to prevent the city suffering through another garbage strike as well as to save money and reduce the size of government.
“That’s what people elected us to do and that’s exactly what we will deliver on,” he said.
The city is looking to contract out three aspects of the current public service: daytime, residential curb-side collection west of Yonge Street to the Etobicoke border for about 165,000 homes (garbage collection in Etobicoke is already contracted out); collection of litter and recycling in all city parks  and an additional 25 percent of the city’s litter vacuum operations to bring it up to 50 percent privatization.

More women on Toronto council

A total of 14 councillors now women
Seven of the newly elected reps are females
Kris Scheuer
(Column written for Town Crier Nov. 4)

Move over, Mr. Councillor.
Toronto has elected more women to council.
The 45-member city council now has 15 females, up from the 10 elected in 2006. So city council is now 33 percent female.
This is impressive when you consider the United Nations has called for governments worldwide to have at least 30 percent of the political representatives as women.
I’d argue having more women means council is more reflective of Toronto’s population. Elected officials should bring the perspectives of the many people they represent to the decision- making table.
And what’s great is the current crop of female reps are a diverse group themselves.
There are lefties like Paula Fletcher, Pam McConnell, Maria Augimeri and Janet Davis. There’s more right-of-centre councillors like Francis Nunziata and Karen Stintz, and even they can differ immensely in their views. Gloria Lindsay Luby was part of Mayor David Miller’s executive committee and so was budget chief Shelley Carroll.
These eight re-elected female councillors are all very opinionated and passionate politicians who speak up for the causes they believe in. I love that.

Toronto councilors and mayor elected

Rob Ford elected new mayor
Some incumbent councillors lose
New faces on 45-member city council
Kris Scheuer

Mayor-elect Rob Ford at the Town Crier's editorial board. Town Crier file photo.

Here’s a run down of the winners, upsets, and top place results for the Oct. 25 vote.
Of the possible 1,546,732 eligible voters, voter turnout was about 52.6 percent, which is up from the 2006 election with 39.3 percent.
RESULTS: Toronto here’s your new mayor and 44 councillors.
Are you pleased with the results for mayor and council seats? Please let me know…
Mayor-elect is Rob Ford with 383,501 votes for 47.11 percent followed by George Smitherman in second with 289,832 for 35.6 percent, according to the city’s website. Of course, 38 other mayoral candidates were on the ballot and results for each can be found here and may vary as the city updates the election results.
Here are the councillors-elect for all 44 wards with a list of each winner and closest runner-up. For a full list of all candidates votes in each race, click here.
Etobicoke-North Ward 1:  Vincent Crisanti won with 40.75% of the vote ousting incumbent councillor Suzan Hall, who got 36.96%.

Shelley Carroll opts out of mayor’s race

North York councillor was contemplating mayoral run
Carroll registered today for re-election in her council seat
By Kris Scheuer

Toronto budget chief Shelley Carroll has made her decision.
After months of considering running for the city’s top political post, the Don Valley  East councillor registered this morning not as a mayoral candidate but for re-election in her ward 33.
To read the story I and my Town Crier colleague Karolyn Coorsh wrote about Shelley Carroll weighing her political options, click here.
Meanwhile as of mid-day Jan. 12, sixteen people have registered for the mayor’s seat.

Free lunch on the city

By Kris Scheuer

Almost 100,000 students will be getting free meals thanks to the city.
City hall already kicks in $2.79 million annually to feed over 90,000 students in 365 schools as part of a student nutrition program, said Toronto Public Health’s Jann Houston.
As part of the recently approved $8.7 billion operating budget, it approved an additional $400,000 to fund an additional 44 programs to help another 8,791 youth and children, Houston said.
From Budget Chief Shelley Carroll’s perspective the service is needed even more during current economic climes.