Categories: Need to know

Ford chairs longest city council meeting in Toronto history

168 people come out to tell the mayor what he shouldn’t cut

by macleans.ca on Friday, July 29, 2011 11:27am - 9 Comments

Thursday and Friday marked the longest continuous city council meeting in Toronto history, The Toronto Star reports. Approximately 168 people accepted Mayor Rob Ford’s invitation to tell the city council what core services should and should not cut. Ford promised committee members and constituents that the meeting would go until the next morning if need be, and it did—officially ending at 6:30 a.m. after 22 hours and 25 minutes of civilian deputations and budget talks. Only 2 of 168 presenters (300 people were signed up originally) proposed any kind of budget cuts endorsed by KPMG, the agency responsible for drafting the controversial budget proposal, with the rest urging the mayor to keep core services like public libraries and the school crossing guard program intact. No official decision will be made until the next council meeting on September 19.

Toronto Star

Tags: Toronto

modster99

I could have saved them a lot of time. I would imagine that most people went up there and said some thing along these lines: “Don’t cut anything that affects ME.”
James O’Hearn

Seems like an impossible situation, really. Toronto needs an X-Prize style contest, with $1 million going to the person who can come up with the plan that can best satisfy the budget goals, while doing as little damage as possible to the services on the chopping block. That said, I doubt that any of those attending that meeting would submit such a proposal.
James O’Hearn

Seems like an impossible situation, really. Toronto needs an X-Prize style contest, with $1 million going to the person who can come up with the plan that can best satisfy the budget goals, while doing as little damage as possible to the services on the chopping block. That said, I doubt that any of those attending that meeting would submit such a proposal.
James O’Hearn

Seems like an impossible situation, really. Toronto needs an X-Prize style contest, with $1 million going to the person who can come up with the plan that can best satisfy the budget goals, while doing as little damage as possible to the services on the chopping block. That said, I doubt that any of those attending that meeting would submit such a proposal.
Anonymous

Rob Ford has just learned a valuable lesson.

Voters believe in magic…

And woe betide any politician that doesn’t deliver it