Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, April 20, 2012

Toronto budget: Fate of outdoor pools, wading pools still up in the air

The fate of seven city pools is still up in the air, three months after council decided to reject most of Mayor Rob Ford’s proposed service cuts.

Council voted in January to spend $683,500 “to restore pool funding.” But $683,500 covers only the cost of restoring funding for the school pools that were threatened. Saving the two threatened outdoor pools would cost an extra $97,000, the five wading pools $60,000.

“There was some confusion about what the number needed to be,” said Councillor Josh Colle, who put forward the budget motion.

The Star reported after the budget vote that the outdoor and wading pools were being cut. But several left-leaning and centrist councillors have since argued that the Colle motion was intended to restore funding to those pools as well; Colle said he consciously referred to “pool funding,” rather than specifically school pool funding, to include the outdoor pools — though not the wading pools.

A senior official, deputy city manager Brenda Patterson, says the city can implement only explicit council directions. She will ask council’s budget committee to “clarify” the matter next month.

The committee is not certain to approve the extra funding: of its seven members, five are conservatives who voted against the Colle motion, which passed 23-21.

If the committee votes to bury the issue, councillors who want to save the pools may need the support of two-thirds of council to take up the debate again, though they may find a way to proceed directly to a simple majority vote.

The outdoor pools are at Stanley Park downtown and Fairhaven Park in the Etobicoke ward of Councillor Doug Ford, the committee’s vice-chair.

The wading pools are at MacGregor Playground,Fred Hamilton Playground, Alexandra Park, Wellesley Park and Kempton Howard Park.

“A majority of councillors have made it clear that the intention was to protect all the pools . . . I don’t suspect there will be a problem. But stranger things have happened,” said Councillor Mike Layton, whose Trinity-Spadina ward includes Stanley Park and Fred Hamilton.

The agreement announced this week between the city and the school board over school pools produced $285,000 in savings for this year. Layton and Councillor Paula Fletcher, whose Toronto-Danforth ward includes Kempton Howard, said some of the windfall should be used to save the outdoor and wading pools.

“This would be a dilemma if we had to say, ‘We think we did this at council, but there’s not enough money in the budget.’ We think we did this at council, and, guess what, now there is enough money in the budget,” Fletcher said.

Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Daniel Dale

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