The Week at Toronto City Hall #3
Budget season begins, public appointments, audits galore, and more.
Next week at City Hall, budget season (the best season) kicks off with the water, waste, and parking budgets. There’s also a doozy of an Audit Committee meeting, Toronto Zoo and Ex Place board appointments, two Committee of Adjustment meetings, and more. Also, spiders make their debut in the Bug Report.
—Neville Park
@neville_park / me@nevillepark.ca / CityHallWatcher.com
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The Week at Toronto City Hall: Budget season begins, public appointments, and audits galore
MONDAY: 👉 The Civic Appointments Committee will appoint members of the public to the Toronto Zoo and Exhibition Place boards.
By the way, if you’d like to be considered for a position on a public board or committee, you can apply here. Even if there isn’t a space available, they’ll keep the application on file for two years. Also, you get paid for some of them.
TUESDAY: ✅ The Audit Committee has a wide-ranging swathe of reports on its plate, including everything from cybersecurity to WheelTrans to RGI (rent-geared-to-income) housing applications to arena snack payments. If you’ve gotta pick and choose, try the report on not-fully-implemented high-priority recommendations (PDF) and the list of backlogged audits (PDF).
WEDNESDAY: 💸 At the Budget Committee, it’s the launch of the annual Rate-Supported Budget—water, waste, and parking, divisions that are entirely funded by fees rather than taxes. These budgets typically have few surprises1, but because it kicks off budget season, this is a festive occasion nevertheless. The most wonderful time of the year, baby.
🏆 Bid Award Panel contract of the week: $1,342,138 for maintenance hole rehabilitation at Bathurst & Front. Maybe it’ll get rid of that mysterious smell.
🛠️ The standout item at the Toronto & East York Committee of Adjustment [PDF] is a 16-storey development on the same lot as the Museum of Contemporary Art. But there’s also a building near Gerrard St. E. and Parliament being turned into a community centre.
THURSDAY: The 🛠️ North York Committee of Adjustment [PDF] meets. If you want to live (or work) above a patisserie, stay tuned?
FRIDAY: 🌬 The Board of Directors of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund will get an update on the Zero-Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program, launching publicly in December. Yes, it will have a snappier name by then. The program will help fund the installation of electric car charging stations throughout the GTHA. (So far, availability is pretty meagre.)
🏗 CreateTO, the city’s real estate agency, meets. We’ll update this space when the agenda goes live.
THE WEEK AFTER NEXT: City Council!
Nev’s Bug Report: If you see a typical round spiderweb that seems to have a slice missing, it’s not Charlotte trying to portray Pac-Man—it’s the work of a missing-sector orbweaver (Zygiella).2 These small orbweavers have white or silver leaf shapes on their abdomens with blushes of red or grey on the sides. They wait in concave-tube retreats, with a few legs resting on the signal line that runs through the missing slice to the centre of the web. At this time of year, small, leggy males are often hanging out near females’ webs, plucking out courtship messages.
In Monday’s edition of City Hall Watcher: Lobbyist Watch runs down what lobbyists were up to in October! Find out about the controversial company pitching AI that’s been used by police officers to monitor protests, the controversial oil company seeking some sort of land rezoning, and the return to City Hall of a controversial ex-councillor — this time as a lobbyist. Wow, that’s a lot of controversial things! Subscribe today to get it all straight to your inbox.
— Matt Elliott
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Save perhaps 2019, when Councillor Mike Layton finally triumphed in his seven-year quest to reform the industrial waste surcharge program.
There are a few species in this area (Z. atrica, Z. nearctica, and Z. x-notata) and it takes an expert to tell the difference between them, so I’m keeping it at genus level.