When the mayor is Rob Ford and the issue is garbage collection, high approval ratings apparently aren’t necessary for victory
Mayor Rob Ford made good on a campaign promise yesterday with council’s vote to contract out city garbage collection between Yonge Street and the Humber River. Lefty and centrist councillors spoke out against the proposed contract, from Green For Life Environment, saying that they lacked sufficient information to conclude whether it will turn out to be too good to be true. But in the end, the vote passed 26-16—naturally, along predictable ideological lines.
The Globe and Mail has the details:
The $186.4-million contract to pick up garbage at 165,000 households between Yonge St. and the Humber River was awarded to Green for Life Environmental East Corporation. The deal’s approval Monday by city council means that private collection could begin as early as next summer. A private company already does curbside collection in the former city of Etobicoke.
“This is a campaign promise that I have fulfilled – another one,” Mayor Ford said Monday on the eve of his one-year mark in office. “We are doing exactly what we said we were going to do and a lot of people are very happy about that.”
The Globe also reports that in Hamilton, $1.16 per home is all that separates the houses served by private collectors and those served by public employees. So the request made by dissenting councillors to look more closely at the GFL contract doesn’t seem off-base, especially when millions of dollars of public funds are at stake (what was Ford’s campaign slogan, again?).
The vote to grant councillors an extra month to pore over the financials was a close one (20-22). It’s somewhat surprising, then, that while 20 councillors felt they needed more time to mull things over, 26 of them were prepared to vote in favour of accepting the contract. This could mean a few things for Ford. For one, it might signal that while some councillors oppose the way he does business—like rushing a contract through council—they don’t necessarily oppose the business itself. And although it might be surprising that Ford can still get things done with such low approval ratings, the garbage collection vote yesterday could be further evidence of the political impact of the 2009 municipal workers’ strike.
• City approves private garbage pickup [Toronto Star]
• City’s rubbish goes private [Toronto Sun]
• Ford’s push for private trash collection pays off [Globe and Mail]
• City council votes to expand private garbage collection [National Post]
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Mayor Rob Ford made good on a campaign promise yesterday with council’s vote to contract out city garbage collection between Yonge Street and the Humber River. Lefty and centrist councillors spoke out against the proposed contract, from Green For Life Environment, saying that they lacked sufficient information to conclude whether it will turn out to be too good to be true. But in the end, the vote passed 26-16—naturally, along predictable ideological lines.
The Globe and Mail has the details:
The $186.4-million contract to pick up garbage at 165,000 households between Yonge St. and the Humber River was awarded to Green for Life Environmental East Corporation. The deal’s approval Monday by city council means that private collection could begin as early as next summer. A private company already does curbside collection in the former city of Etobicoke.
“This is a campaign promise that I have fulfilled - another one,” Mayor Ford said Monday on the eve of his one-year mark in office. “We are doing exactly what we said we were going to do and a lot of people are very happy about that.”
The Globe also reports that in Hamilton, $1.16 per home is all that separates the houses served by private collectors and those served by public employees. So the request made by dissenting councillors to look more closely at the GFL contract doesn’t seem off-base, especially when millions of dollars of public funds are at stake (what was Ford’s campaign slogan, again?).
The vote to grant councillors an extra month to pore over the financials was a close one (20-22). It’s somewhat surprising, then, that while 20 councillors felt they needed more time to mull things over, 26 of them were prepared to vote in favour of accepting the contract. This could mean a few things for Ford. For one, it might signal that while some councillors oppose the way he does business—like rushing a contract through council—they don’t necessarily oppose the business itself. And although it might be surprising that Ford can still get things done with such low approval ratings, the garbage collection vote yesterday could be further evidence of the political impact of the 2009 municipal workers’ strike.
• City approves private garbage pickup [Toronto Star]
• City’s rubbish goes private [Toronto Sun]
• Ford’s push for private trash collection pays off [Globe and Mail]
• City council votes to expand private garbage collection [National Post]){kind=link}
Great, $78 Millon, $3 per month for me.
Fantastic. Where should I spend my $3
Look, government spending at the current levels is simply not sustainable. Government should be delivering core services not endless programs that cost a fortune. We finally have a mayor who is looking for efficiencies and you criticize him because your personal savings are $3 per month. I am upset that he hasn’t done more of this. The police department gets carte blanche with their budget at a time of decreasing crime.. Every department should be looking for savings and cumulatively, we will get somewhere in so far as runaway spending.
I could respect Mayor Ford if he was consistent and made cuts across the board as in getting rid of that paid duty bonanza the police have been enjoying getting 65 an hour for doing absolutely nothing but standing on the corners watching others work , were a flag person for 15 an hour would do the job.
Cutting in half this inflated city council would be a big saver in tax revenues.
Waiting out Mr. Websters contract witch would have ended in less than a year , rather than paying him off 500 thou to go sooner.
Contracting out entire departments rather than clearing out the dead wood from all the departments would have been the first thing to do, starting from the top were there are many collecting huge salaries for little to no work because they are hidden individuals who do not wear uniforms and do not stand out as the others do.
I could respect a man for doing things the right way even if it meant my job , at least I would know he was a man of fairness and and had a genuine goal to eliminate waste.