Dead animal pick-up, the beginnings of the police budget, and the value of old buildings
The Week at Toronto City Hall for September 9 to 13, featuring notes on the police board, 311 response times, security guards, and the past — and future — of Exhibition Place
Hey there! It’s been a hell of a busy week with back-to-school festivities and stresses. If you’ve missed some of the news coming out of Toronto City Hall, here’s a quick summary and a look at what’s on tap for next week. — Matt Elliott
What happened this week
🏟️ Council met ever-so-briefly this week for a special meeting to mostly consider some planning items with looming deadlines.
The meeting also included a send-off celebration for Matthew Pegg, Toronto’s long-time fire chief. He’ll be leaving on October 4.
🦝 The Service Excellence Committee got to see a presentation about the Municipal Licensing & Standards (MLS) department’s Service Standards for incidents reported via 311. The Excellence Committee heard that MLS meets their standard for the top-five requests just 72% of the time on average, which seems a bit less than excellent.
On one common service request, councillors also learned that one of the measures taken to improve performance was to give staff more time. The “service standard” for removing dead animals was recently pushed from 48 hours to five business days. At the meeting, MLS Director Carleton Grant said their priority is live animals, not dead ones, as live animals can pose a much more serious threat to public safety.
They also made changes to give themselves more time to respond to dangerous dog reports where no one has been bitten, and there’s no “act of menace.” The standard used to be 24 hours. It’s now 48 hours for incidents with menacing incidents with no bite and five business days for incidents that aren’t menacing. I’m not sure how an “act of menace” is defined. Maybe we can ask J. Jonah Jameson.
The Star’s Ben Spurr — definitely not a menace — has more.
🚇 The TTC Board will meet this afternoon to name an Interim CEO, who will replace the Acting CEO, who replaced ex-CEO Rick Leary. The search for a new permanent CEO is expected to wrap up next year. Transit expert Steve Munro has a thoughtful post about what the interim leader should focus on:
The TTC must also look inward to its own culture and recent history. There is a long-standing tendency to blame all problems on external forces including politics, funding, traffic congestion and those pesky passengers.
Revitalizing staff and restoring system pride are essential to get the most out of the workers and the infrastructure. This cannot wait six months or more for a permanent CEO. At the very least, the Interim CEO must flag problems for the Board and set the stage for real renewal. This must not include the artificial preservation of Rick Leary’s legacy. An eyes-open approach is essential to keep whatever might be worthwhile, but be prepared to amend and trim what is not.
⛴️ Reset the clock. One of the Island Ferries is broken again.
🚪 “Toronto’s public sector pension funds need to take some direct responsibility for housing the next generation of public sector workers in our city at rents that they can afford. To date, they have failed to do so,” writes Mark Richardson, technical lead at advocacy group HousingNowTO, in the Star. A good point. It’s often overlooked how involved various public pension plans are in real estate development.
🔬 At Canadian Architect, Elsa Lam examines some floor plans to figure out what a new Science Centre at Ontario Place might look like. Analysis suggests it’ll be a lot less efficient: “In the current Ontario Science Centre, a one-way trip that includes all of the exhibitions entails a 730-metre walk. In the proposed science centre at Ontario Place, that same trip would be 1.3 kilometres long—almost twice the distance—to see less exhibit space.”
🚨 Ombudsman Kwame Addo is out with a new report looking at a Toronto Police program to create a voluntary registry of vulnerable people. Four years after it was created, only 305 people have registered with the program. “Communication failures and poor management have meant that few of the people the registry aims to support have actually registered for it,” says Addo.
Monday, September 9
🩺 The Board of Health meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.BUDGET CHECK-UP: It’s beginning to look a lot like budget season. The Board will be asked to approve a budget submission for 2025. Public Health is asking for a $1.8 million increase in its $285 million gross operating budget, primarily attributed to the inflationary cost of food provided via the Student Nutrition Program. They’re actually planning for a net reduction in FTEs, with nine fewer positions.
The biggest change in the budget is the end of a $2.3 million “safer supply” program by the federal government:
The [Injectable Opioid Agonist Therapy (iOAT)] program was the first safer supply project in Toronto that offered injectable hydromorphone. The goal of the program is to provide another, much needed, intervention to assist people who use drugs who are at a higher risk of overdose. Other goals of the program include helping clients access and remain connected with health, housing, income, and community programs.
The program is slated to end in March 2025, the report says.
AND ALSO:
Councillor Chris Moise, the Board chair, has an update on the timeline for replacing the departing Dr. Eileen de Villa as Chief Medical Officer of Health. Interviews will start on September 26. The choice will be made by the Board of Health in November. Council will confirm the pick in December. I have decided to withdraw my name from consideration after some mindful reflection and also because I am not at all qualified.
Is anyone in the market for a well-used dental bus? A report outlines plans to decommission and auction off a mobile dental clinic that has been in service since 2012. “The interior and exterior of the bus has significantly declined over the past year,” the report says. Buyer beware. Another report will be coming as part of the 2025 budget, allocating about $460,000 for a new teeth bus.
Tuesday, September 10
🏗️ The CreateTO Board meets via videoconference at 1:30 p.m.HOUSING NOW — EVENTUALLY: Only a couple of very minor updates to the Housing Milestone report for CreateTO’s various affordable housing projects from the last update in June.
777 Victoria Park moves from a construction start of “Fall 2024” to “Q4 2024.”
50 Wilson Heights belatedly moves from Q4 2023 to Q4 2024.
The Bloor-Kipling Housing Now project, with 725 total units and 218 affordable units, is the only project under construction. Occupancy is slated for 2027. 140 Merton Street is expected to begin construction this month, while 275 Merton is set for Q3 2025. Construction forecasts for every other project are listed as TBD.
AND ALSO:
By request of Councillor Michael Thompson, the board will consider a request to “maximize the amount of public parking” on or around a planned development at 2444 Eglinton East.
🍁 The Federation of Canadian Municipalities Board of Directors meets in Windsor. City Hall will send Councillor Paul Ainslie and Councillor Jennifer McKelvie as its reps. The meetings will continue on Wednesday and Thursday.
Wednesday, September 11
🏆 The Bid Award Panel meets via videoconference at 2 p.m.CONTRACT AWARD OF THE WEEK: Up to $12 million over four years for security guards to patrol encampments.
The winning bidder, GardaWorld Security Systems, has been touting their recent work in an encampment in Peterborough. They installed “16 strategically placed cameras” around the encampment site, then used “loitering analytics” to “alert security personnel to suspicious behaviour, enabling proactive measures to prevent conflicts from escalating.”
They also note that they’re holding discussions about implementing facial recognition technology in Peterborough. “This feature could help identify repeat offenders, providing early warnings to guards about potential safety threats,” their website says.
Previously, in City Hall Watcher
For paid subscribers of City Hall Watcher, this week’s issue has:
LOBBYIST WATCH for August 2024, with tidbits about a whole lot of Live Nation lobbying, the latest on the island airport, and more.
Next week:
Guest contributor Laura Anonen makes the case for a renovictions bylaw as consultations ramp up.
Subscribe today for ad-free access to weekly subscriber-exclusive issues.
Thursday, September 12
🚔 The Toronto Police Services Board meets at Police HQ at 9 a.m.
MORE RESPONSIVE: The Police Board will review data showing a positive trend in response times for high-priority (P1) calls to the cops. According to data, response time has improved from about 25 minutes last August to 17.5 minutes this year.
AND ALSO:
As they continue to prepare their 2025 budget request, the board will review details about three scenarios. A “replacement hires only” strategy where the cops stick to their current staffing levels will cost $15.6 million in 2025 and $47 million more over the next five years. A “maintain current cop-to-pop” strategy where hiring is increased to match population growth will cost $16 million in 2025 and $119 million more over the next five years. A “meet current provincial training allocation” strategy where hiring is increased so there are positions for people in training programs will cost $29 million in 2025 and $183 million over the next five years. In all three scenarios, the 2025 budget impact is pretty marginal, but the long-term impacts vary a lot. To be continued.
The board will tangle with a budget variance report showing the police are digging themselves into a big year-end budget hole due to spending on overtime and premium pay. The projection for year-end premium pay spending is $99.5 million, which is $40.6 million more than budgeted.
🐕 The Dangerous Dog Review Tribunal meets via videoconference at 9:30 a.m.MIXING IT UP: At the request of Tribunal member Ron Balinsky, there will be a review of a September 2022 dangerous dog order issued against Rottweiler Mix Stanley. The Tribunal initially upheld the muzzle order on November 9, 2023, but Balinsky was later convinced by arguments that the hearing was unfair because the key witness to the event at a dog park in 2022 did not attend the hearing.
The dog is owned by John Spence, who has been represented by Robert Spence during these proceedings.
🎭 The Board of Directors of TO Live will meet at Meridian Hall at 12:30 p.m.CENTRE STAGE: The Board will get an update on the St. Lawrence Centre redevelopment project. Alas, details were not posted online as of press time.
Friday, September 13
🎡 The Board of Governors of Exhibition Place meets at Beanfield Centre at 9:30 a.m.
PRESERVING THE PAST: A presentation to the Board outlining successful efforts over the last few decades to retain and refurbish old buildings on the Exhibition Place grounds seems relevant given recent discussions about the Ontario Science Centre. Especially since these buildings are all much much older than the Science Centre.
For instance, The Music Building — constructed in 1907 and known initially as the Railways Building — was first slated for demolition in 1971 and later closed to the public in 1985 due to safety concerns. But the public rallied and saved the building.
“Despite a fire in 1987, the building was eventually fully restored with funds from the federal and municipal governments as well as public donations,” the report says.
The presentation tells similar stories about the Arts, Crafts & Hobbies Building (circa 1912), the Ontario Government Building (circa 1926) and the Horticultural Building (circa 1907). In all three cases, the buildings had been allowed to deteriorate to a shabby and dangerous state, but public investment saved them from the wrecking ball. Maybe there’s a lesson here.
AND ALSO:
A report from HLT Advisory tallies the economic impact of Exhibition Place in 2023. Across 1,098 events, the Ex Grounds attracted 4.41 million people who spent more than $300 million in direct spending.
The Board will consider a recommendation to sign a deal to bring back the Honda Indy for another year. Drivers will start their engines on July 17, 2025.
The Week After Next
The General Government Committee meets on Tuesday, September 17.
The Economic & Community Development Committee meets on Wednesday, September 18.
Scarborough Community Council meets on Thursday, September 19.
The Far-Flung Future
The next regular Council meeting is set to kick off on October 9.
The by-election to fill the vacancy in Ward 15 is on Monday, November 4.
Feedback? Tip? Email Matt Elliott. For advertising inquiries, email Sean Hansel.