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Council Highlights
Archive
September 2008 |
 Highlights
of the City Council meeting of September 24, 25 & 26,
2008 are provided as a service to residents of Ward 25.
1. Council gives green light to Tower Renewal Initiative
(EX23.1)
The City is moving forward with a Tower Renewal
initiative designed to make the city’s aging apartment
towers greener (energy efficient) and to use this as a
catalyst to help revitalize communities. The project
provides incentives, funded largely by the provincial
government and other agencies, to building owners to
make their buildings more energy efficient. For
example, wrapping an apartment building with a layer of
insulation (a bit like putting on a winter coat) could
reduce energy use by 50 per cent or greater, ultimately
reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Program participation could allow building owners to add
to the buildings on their site (through the usual
planning processes), such as commercial or retail space
and features that better serve community needs.
Revenues generated by that additional space could
provide the funds to support energy efficiency and other
eco-friendly measures including: installation of wind or
solar power generators, development of green roofs and
community gardens, enactment of site water conservation
and better on-site management of waste. Tower renewal
would lead to the creation of local green jobs. Four
pilot sites have been selected for the project.
2. Joe Pennachetti appointed
new City
Manager (EX23.2)
Council approved Mayor Miller’s recommendation and
appointed Mr. Pennachetti as the new City Manager. He
had been the City’s Chief Financial Officer for seven
years, with 25 prior years of experience in municipal
government, including prior experience as the treasurer
and commissioner of finance for Peel and York regions.
The appointment was controversial, not for the caliber
of the appointee, but for its method.
The Mayor ignored the
conventional protocols for hiring senior city staff and
made the recommendation without any public posting of
the opening or search for suitable candidates. Not
coincidentally, Mayor Miller has been seeking the power
to unilaterally hire/fire the City Manager from the
provincial government for several years. While the
Province never provided that new power, it appears as
though the Mayor has appropriated it for himself. Many
Councillors, including myself, remain very concerned
about the potential for politicization of the City’s
civil service. Will the
new City Manager be a servant of Council – or of the
Mayor? Will he now feel more obliged than his
predecessor to implement the “Mayor’s mandate”, instead
of taking direction from Council? Will those tendencies
also extend through the entire city bureaucracy?
3. Official Plan Amendment on Complete Applications
approved (PG18.2)
Council adopted a very significant and positive
amendment to the City’s Official Plan that will
strengthen the City’s ability to properly scrutinize a
development application - before the applicant files a
“routine” appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. The
amendment requires the applicant to submit a complete
set of studies and, very importantly, a draft Zoning
By-law before the 180-day OMB clock starts ticking. It
also encourages the applicant to do genuine community
consultation prior to submission of those studies – thus
enabling community-recommended changes to the
application (as agreed by the applicant) before certain
major expenses of the application are incurred. This
amendment was championed by Councillor Karen Stintz
and received crucial support from Councillors Frank
DiGiorgio, John Filion and Adam Vaughan at the
committee stage.
4. City to celebrate its 175th anniversary in
2009 (EX23.10)
Plans to celebrate the city’s 175th
anniversary, including a major event on Nathan Phillips
Square, were approved by Council. The City of Toronto
was incorporated on March 6, 1834 and the event on the
square will be marked on that same day in 2009. The
public celebration will enhance civic pride and raise
awareness about city history. The activities will
include the creation of a special Toronto song, a book
published by the Toronto Archives on city history, and
Toronto in Words and Images – an exhibit at the
Market Gallery (in the St. Lawrence Market) that marries
art with Toronto literature.
5. City to invest federal funds in youth gang prevention
work (CD18.4)
Council directed that $4,932,954 from the Government of
Canada’s Youth Gang Prevention Fund be used to support a
new pilot program for youth gang prevention. The new
anti-gang strategy is intended to improve safety and
will support work with parents, schools and the
community, to provide intervention strategies for
neighbourhood youth, enabling communities to decrease
the risk factors that lead youth to join gangs.
6.
Fort
York
to be revitalized for bicentennial celebration (ED16.4)
Council approved plans for the City’s Bicentennial
Commemoration of the War of 1812 and the transformation
of Toronto as an urban centre. Spread throughout 2012
and 2013, the celebrations will serve as a catalyst to
revitalize this national historic site. Fort York is
the only authentic fort from the war in Canada, and was
the first site of a provincial parliament building.
Included in the plans are: a new visitor information
centre, a new pedestrian/cycling bridge from Stanley
Park over the rail lands to the fort and waterfront,
full restoration of the fort buildings and the addition
of new exhibits, a heritage trail established noting
sites of significance in Toronto during the war, and
nomination of the fort as a UNESCO heritage site. The
site revitalization will increase the fort’s profile as
a major tourist destination.
7. Fiona Crean appointed
Toronto’s
first Ombudsperson
Council unanimously approved Fiona Crean as the City’s
Ombudsperson, a position required under the City of
Toronto Act,
2006.
The Toronto Ombudsperson will receive, resolve and
investigate public complaints related to the delivery of
City services and programs. The service will be
accessible to all Torontonians. The City’s other
accountability positions include the Auditor General,
the Integrity Commissioner and the Lobbyist Registrar.
All of the accountability positions are independent of
the City administration and report to City Council.
Non-Council
and Committee Items
1.
Assessment Notices – October 14. After a
three-year assessment freeze ordered by the provincial
government, the Municipal Property Assessment
Corporation (MPAC) has reassessed all properties to a
valuation date of January 1, 2008. MPAC will start
mailing notices of the new assessments to Toronto
property owners beginning October 14. There are several
changes to the notice – in response to recommendations
of the Ontario Ombudsman. Secondly, the process for
assessment appeals is changed. Before filing an appeal,
you must first initiate a Request for Reconsideration (RfR)
to MPAC prior to March 31, 2009. Following MPAC’s
decision on your RfR, if you remain unsatisfied, you
then have 90 days in which to file an appeal of the
assessment to the Assessment Review Board (ARB).
2.
Help Make the TTC an Essential Service
- After much procedural wrangling, Council will finally
have an opportunity to debate the question of whether to
designate the TTC as an essential service. The
Executive Committee, on October 6, declined to recommend
to Council that it request the provincial government to
declare the TTC an essential service. Council, however,
will make its final decision in this matter at its
meeting on October 29. Please make your opinion
known on this issue by emailing Council at clerk@toronto.ca.
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