Councillor Karen Stintz has put together a solid 25 vote block and she is now the de facto Mayor. What she says, so long as her block is solid, goes.
The Mayor has appointment power, scheduling power and a bully pulpit but the Mayor has one vote the same as any other councillor. Tonight, by defeating Rob Ford on one of his key initiatives Karen Stintz showed the wizard was not all powerful -- indeed, the wizard has almost no power at all:
There is no way anyone can spin this one in Ford's favour - he finally got what has been coming around for some time. The groundswell started with the budget and it turned into a tsunami. 'Way to go Cllr Stintz.
ReplyDeleteI think they would have been better off with subways. It would enhance productivity, weather you are a commuter or a motorist. Ever been to NY city? Now replace the subway with a LRT and you would have a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteFord is thinking the next hundred years. Its better in the long run.
Rotterdam,
ReplyDeleteYou may be right -- Toronto has a terrible history of shortsightedness. That said, as a practical matter Stintz got the votes...
Councillor Karen Stintz has put together a solid 25 vote block and she is now the de facto Mayor. What she says, so long as her block is solid, goes.
ReplyDeletePeople voted for Ford because they wanted change. All this is going to do is incencse the people that wanted that change, and those members of that "vote block" will be the ones gone after the next election.
Rotterdam, I don't think anyone in the city disagrees with the proposition that a subway would be better than LRT, except for one very important fact - no one in the city wants to pay for a subway, including and most important, the Mayor. Yes, Ford was "thinking the next hundred years" - under his plan, in 100 years we'd still be talking about how subways are better than LRT, without having built a single one.
ReplyDeleteThe C-Train in Calgary, AKA LRT, has served Calgarians for over 30 years.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly much colder in Calgary than Toronto during a typical winter.
The number of international cities with successful LRT systems is immense.
Rob Ford doesn't use transit and certainly doesn't understand it's importance to so many of us.
Politically:
ReplyDeleteKaren, on this issue, got the votes on council. But Rob will get re elected as Mayor. That guy is very well liked. I have never seen a grass roots politician like him.
Sort of like Obama. He has and will lose votes with congress. However the house will stay Republican, the senate will turn Republican and Obama will get re elected.