City Council — December 2015

Final City Council meeting of 2015 starts today. Here's @neville_park's cheat sheet. http://torontoist.com/2015/12/city-council-preview-december-2015/

If councillors don't want their votes reported on social media, they can always opt to be conveniently absent for the contentious ones.

Tory wants taxi protest to stop. "This is not advancing the issue." Regulations are in the works, he says.

So many frustrating things about this story: the tedious political history, the lazy & obstructionist cab industry, the absurd Uber worship.

Let's just forget about this whole thing and all get ourselves go-karts.

Never are some councillors more intent on finding "efficiencies" than when they're debating their accountability offices.

It's like, "hey, let's reduce our energy use! We'll start by disconnecting our smoke detectors!"

Mike Layton's annual attempt to get polluters to pay full freight for their wastewater FAILS 17-22. Next year!

De Baeremaeker motion to increase user fee for XL garbage bin by ten bucks FAILS 15-18.

Councillor Sarah Doucette successfully moves to save an Etobicoke tree from getting chopped down. 29-5.

Here's a picture of the tree council saved. Pretty great tree.

Pie chart from KPMG's TPS review: the police spend a lot of time dealing with parking issues.

Thought this was interesting too: maybe the police are too reliant on their cars.

Motion to expand "Don't ask" policy for police interactions with undocumented Torontonians passes 22-11.

Here's the text of the motion. Only two councillors voted against part one: Kelly & Karygiannis.

Okay, but who's going to be the next impatient ombudsman? https://x.com/DrEricHoskins/status/675058061430648832

Coun. Gord Perks motion to save this North York tree barely passes. 18-17.

Coun. Holyday wants to look at changing the city's tree bylaw to allow homeowners to remove 1 or 2 trees per year.

Coun. Di Giorgio speaks in favour of Holyday's anti-tree motion. But most of council seems reliably pro-tree.

Holyday's tree motion FAILS 8-29. Go Planet. Wong-Tam voted the wrong way, though, so we're re-voting.

On the re-vote, Holyday's tree motion FAILS 7-30.

Ah, a Classic Council Motion. We want to do a new thing but without new money. Hey, why isn't this stone bleeding?

Coun. Cho says he won't support ice testing for Grenadier Pond because, basically, climate change will make skating impossible.

Shelley Carroll says (even though she knows it'll disappoint @mattgallowaycbc) she can't support Grenadier pond skating.

If you really want to dig into some of the wonky stuff behind things like this Grenadier ice issue, look into Joint and Several Liability.

Jaye Robinson motion to fund ice testing solely through existing parks budget fails 17-20.

Sarah Doucette motion to request $25K for Grenadier Pond ice testing in 2016 passes 23-14.

Stephen Holyday motion to keep legal report on Grenadier ice confidential passes 28-9 for some reason.

And the Grenadier skating item as a whole passes 28-9. Strap on your skates, Galloway.

Seriously, though, municipal liability law is all kinds of wacky. Check out this 1% Rule thing.

New motion on the council agenda. Looks like Steam Whistle wants to take over the Leon's space in the Roundhouse. http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2015.MM11.51