Toronto Mayor Rob Ford spoke out against the possibility of council pay raises Wednesday, ahead of a debate at the city’s executive committee on giving councillors a 13-per-cent salary hike.The committee will look at two options presented by city staff Wednesday: to either maintain salaries at the current levels adjusted for inflation, or to raise the mayor’s salary from about $177,000 to $200,000 and councillor salaries from about $105,000 to $119,000.When asked Wednesday what he’d like to see the committee do, Mr. Ford – who is running for re-election and has made spending at City Hall a key campaign platform – said “nothing. Do you get a 13-per-cent raise? No.”
EYE ON A CRAZY PLANET
I like the comment on moving to another level of government if you want more money. Adam Vaughn appears to be taking that advice.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you are not already I highly recommend you all follow "Hate the War on Ford" on twitter. It is excellent!
Hate the War on Ford
Hate the War on Ford
@LetFordBe
Official account of FB group I Hate the War on Mayor Rob Ford, http://www.facebook.com/LetFordBe Most tweets by admin Neil Flagg. You #topoli leftists are too angry!
First, the Fords made their name off of the fact that they inherited daddy's money and business. Further, their borderline retarded antics at least suggest that only the wealthy should run.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I have no problem with making officeholders wealthy. However, I would disallow them from outside income while in office, limiting it to real estate. The potential for conflict of interest is too great.
That means no playing the market, no outside law practices, daddy's company is sold (because Mitt Romney was right about one thing, blind trusts are worthless), and a lifetime ban on lobbying.
I'm refusing to vote for my councilor, who I like a lot, precisely because it was revealed that he's been lobbying while in office.
Of course, I understand that what I would do is draconian as fuck, so I would compensate for that in salaries.
But in focusing on salaries, in and of themselves, I think that folks miss the much bigger issue of what politicians, staff and consultants can legally get away with. And we're seeing some of that in the revelations about McGuinty squirreling money under the table to human garbage this week.
There are problems in dealing with this issue no matter which way you approach it. Part of problem is that a lot of the outside income that some city councilors are making isn't the sort they declare on their income tax form, if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteSo while I agree with you, Skippy, that we don't just want rich people running for office, there may be a reduced likelihood (though definitely no guarantee) that they'll be less susceptible to graft.
I have no problem with Councilors making a decent wage for what they do, but this city has too many of them (more than twice as many as LA, which is a bigger city) and their little slush funds that some of them use to pay off their buddies is a real concern. One of the reasons Ford is so hated by a lot of Council (yes I realize one among many) is that he pushed to slash their expenses which were notoriously being abused by lots of them.
Rich people are less susceptible to graft? Have you paid any attention to the investment banking industry over the last thirty years? Those motherfuckers gave broke people zillion dollar mortgages and took down the world economy betting on when they'd be defaulted on.
ReplyDeleteBonus points to me for explaining the 2008 crisis in a single sentence.
There's also been some news this week about Etobicoke Slim using TCHC as a patronage plum for shitheads. Better still, when that was pointed out, Ford wanted to fire the people doing the fucking pointing!
as for the size of council - I haven't pointed this out because I'm fantastically drunk and almost mythologically lazy - but I assume that the two wards per riding rule came from the province, either from the Municipalities Act, the City of Toronto Act, or both.
Now, if I was a Ford supporter, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't Queens Park tinkering with the composition of municipal government, mostly because somebody might have the logical thunderbolt of "Hey, can you believe that we can't remove a crackhead magistrate? Well, while we're at it ..."
Yes, I know that El Robbo's stenographers at the Sun, Warmington and Strobel, are both on auto-repeat about this, but it should be remembered that Sun columnists are universally stupid and have been for some time. Like he of the drunken stupors, things like consequences seem to escape them.
Speaking of which, I haven't heard Robbie advocate for recalls in over a year now. I wonder why that is?
Well, there;s an election coming up in 6 months, so if the voters want to recall (or more accurately, replace) Ford. They'll have their chance.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's a big difference in the types of graft and corruption we're talking about when you discuss the Global financial crisis and the opportunities for local councilors to pocket some off the books bonuses from developers. The latter of which would go a long way towards explaining the ongoing disaster masquerading as "urban planning" in Toronto.
Like I said, there are no guarantees here, and I'm not a Tory booster in this election, but I think someone like him, for example, is less likely to sell some leeway to a developer for a fifty grand perk than one of the ne'er-do-wells who have been municipal politicians for years and have nothing to fall back on but their Humanities degree.