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City Sindex

Giambrone spent city money on cab trip to meet Kristin Lucas

Adam Giambrone practises hailing a taxi (Image: Tsar Kasim)

Adam Giambrone is back in the news. Last year, he apparently expensed $3,000 in cab fares: that’s one $11.50 cab ride (fare, plus tip) for every working day, including a $10 ride to the Drake Hotel to meet future campaign ruiner Kristin Lucas for their first date (he expensed it as a “ward visit”). Giambrone will be paying back the 10 bucks, but now focus has shifted to the TTC commissioner’s other expenses, such as subscriptions to Yo’ Mama Magazine, The Economist and, um, Toronto Life.

But enough about us. What’s most interesting here is not the list of expenses; it’s the revelation that not even Giambrone will use the TTC.

• Giambrone expensed cab ride for date [Toronto Star]
• Adam Giambrone: Office Expense Reporting 2009 [City of Toronto]

| 1 Comment » March 19, 2010 | 1:03 pm | Toronto Life Staff

Cityscape

Times Square gets aquarium from Torontonian; CN Tower might get aquarium from Orlandoan

(Image: Smudge 9000)

If there’s anything Times Square needs, it’s more people. Luckily, Toronto developer Jerry Shefsky was on hand last month to sign a preliminary agreement to build a seven-storey aquarium smack in the middle of the chaos. Maclean’s took a look at Shefsky’s past projects, and it appears that the 76-year-old developer, who was once a senior executive with Toronto mall overlord Cadillac Fairview, is hell-bent on populating the world with aquariums. In the ’90s, there were plans to build one across from the Eaton Centre, but they were scrapped when Eaton’s filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997. Later, Shefsky and his partners wanted to put an aquarium in the CBC building. (No word on why that plan fell through, though we think it’s because an aquarium in the CBC building seems like a waste of fish.) Other bids failed in Las Vegas, Ottawa and Paris—near the Eiffel Tower, specifically.

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| 1 Comment » March 19, 2010 | 12:56 pm | Karon Liu

G20 Cometh

G20 plans include giant two-square-kilometre headache for downtown Toronto

A is for Convention Centre: proposed security area for the upcoming G20 conference (Map: Google)

As more details emerge about the upcoming G20 summit in central Toronto, the more we are hoarding Advil to sell at inflated prices to hoteliers, restaurant servers, Mounties and anyone who has the misfortune of needing to be downtown this June. Right now, the RCMP says it will need 5,500 rooms for each of the nine nights of the summit. According to the National Post, this about doubles the number of rooms needed for the summit last year in Pittsburgh—and it’s not because there’s something romantic about Pittsburgh that makes people want to share rooms. By comparison, our location for the summit is much more complicated and much more annoying. Further details of city-crippling security measures, motorcades and monstrosities after the jump.

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| 3 Comments » March 19, 2010 | 11:32 am | Greg Hudson

March of Crimes

The case of the purloined pram: man suspected of stealing stroller from parents, poppies from veteran

(Image: Ed Yourdon)

High-end stroller thefts continue to be a problem in Toronto, but at least the latest reported incident has the benefit of providing a bit of schadenfreude for local parents. Three hours after allegedly stealing a $750 pram, a thief posted a picture of it on Craigslist. He hadn’t cleaned it, painted it or in any way attempted to disguise it. The owner of the stroller, Web-savvy dad-vigilante Lindsay Taylor, got his property back by arranging to meet the seller, recognizing the item and yelling at the man while a friend swooped in to reclaim the pram. To erase any possible sympathy for the suspect, one Michael Pavlova, the Star revealed that he is also the man accused of storming a Legion hall with a replica gun and trying to take poppy money from an 84-year-old veteran.

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| Leave a Comment » March 19, 2010 | 10:17 am | Greg Hudson

In Transit

City tempts either disaster or nirvana as it moves closer to 24 km of bike lanes along Bloor-Danforth

(Image: Neil Ta)

Despite apocalypse-heralding opponents, the city of Toronto is pushing forward with a controversial proposal to establish a 24-kilometre bike lane along the Bloor-Danforth corridor. An evaluation by city staff last year concluded that such bike lanes would likely disrupt traffic and parking (yes, they needed an evaluation to determine this), and the city is looking for a third party to conduct an environmental assessment, after which a consultant will determine feasibility and look at bike lane design options.

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| 5 Comments » March 17, 2010 | 8:31 am | Jon Sufrin

City Sindex

Nothing to see here: OPP ends one of the sexiest scandals in Toronto history without laying a single charge

Those of us old enough to remember the MFP scandal were surprised by yesterday’s announcement that, after five years of investigation and $14 million, the OPP will not lay any criminal charges against those involved in the dubious doings. It’s been a decade since the computer-leasing brouhaha—in which a $43-million deal between Toronto and MFP Financial Services almost doubled without the city’s authorization—and eight years since the Bellamy Inquiry, which found that “former City of Toronto Treasurer Wanda Liczyk…awarded millions of dollars to an American software consultant with whom she had a sexual relationship.” And yet, here we are.

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| Leave a Comment » March 16, 2010 | 12:02 pm | John Michael McGrath

Streetcar Named Disaster

Drunk bus driver: phone-wielding passengers embarrass the TTC (again)

(Image: Roland Tanglao)

Last Friday, passengers on a TTC bus called the police to complain that the woman behind the wheel was driving erratically. Turns out, there was a perfectly logical explanation: she’d been drinking. After a breathalyzer was administered on Dawes Road near Danforth Avenue, the TTC employee’s licence was suspended for 72 hours. Because the driver wasn’t illegal-drunk—she was just shouldn’t-be-operating-heavy-machinery drunk—criminal charges will not be laid. Instead, an internal investigation will proceed.

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| 3 Comments » March 16, 2010 | 11:39 am | Greg Hudson

City Sindex

An ode to Councillor Michael Walker for his years of comic relief

Mel Lastman once called him a “good excuse for birth control,” but to Michael Walker, long-time city councillor and self-appointed member of the “loyal opposition,” that may be an endorsement, not a slight. After 28 years on council, our city’s most colourful rabble-rouser is hanging up his gloves for good. Over the decades, the representative from St. Paul’s has been the devoted nemesis of two mayors, a crafter of otherworldly policy, and an outspoken critic of gas-powered leaf blowers, downtown delivery vehicles and a city clerk. “I enjoy a good fight,” Walker told news outlets last Thursday after announcing he would not seek re-election this October. And fight he did. Among other achievements, the Ward 22 councillor gave utterly new meaning to the term “policy wonk.” Here, in no particular order, are five career-defining reasons why.

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| Leave a Comment » March 15, 2010 | 1:04 pm | Robert Furtado

Mayor May Not

George Smitherman coddles the car crowd, suggesting the city put bike lanes on hold

(Image: Commodore Gandalf Cunningham)

George Smitherman is a thoughtful lover when it comes to drivers—he likes to take things slow. According to the mayoral front-runner, the city’s 2001 bike plan, which aims to build 500 kilometres of on-road bike lanes across the city, is moving way too fast. “What’s necessary is for everyone to take a time out here,” says Smitherman in an exclusive interview with Toronto Community News, going on to say that the nine-year-old plan hasn’t been communicated properly to residents and that drivers, caught unawares, are digging in their heels.

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| 4 Comments » March 13, 2010 | 11:35 am | Greg Hudson

Pantry Raid

New York considering banning salt in restaurant kitchens—no, really

(Image: TheGiantVermin)

Big Brother is watching, and his name is Felix Ortiz. The New York lawmaker has introduced a bill that would forbid chefs from adding salt to their dishes in an effort to reduce consumers’ sodium intake. Instead, diners would add their own salt at the table. “In this way, consumers have more control over the amount of sodium they intake and are given the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles,” Ortiz told Nation’s Restaurant News.

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| 6 Comments » March 11, 2010 | 10:24 am | Karon Liu