Change course or we’ll quit, female members of Rob Ford’s executive say

Both of the female councillors on Mayor Rob Ford’s cabinet-like executive committee say they will quit at the end of the year if Ford does not change his leadership style.

The departure of Michelle Berardinetti and Jaye Robinson from the powerful 13-member committee would create an optics problem for the mayor, whose inner circle is dominated by men.

Robinson criticized Ford at length on Monday. She said he lacks a “vision, strategy and plan,” has taken a “last-minute, knee-jerk” and overly ideological approach to issues, has been unwilling to seek consensus, and is prematurely focused on campaigning.

Berardinetti said Ford must demonstrate “improvements in terms of being strategic and being conciliatory,” both qualities she believes are “missing.” She said Ford’s refusal to budge on the budget and on transit, even though compromise would have averted defeats, caused “everything to crystallize” in her mind.

Robinson said she has seen no sign the proudly stubborn Ford is willing to change, though she remains “hopeful.” Berardinetti said “only time will tell,” though she added, with a hint of resignation, that “he has his way of thinking.”

Two more Ford allies reject his Port Lands vision

Mayor Rob Ford is facing revolt over his Port Lands plan, with two more prominent allies joining Councillor Jaye Robinson in saying they will not vote to grab control from Waterfront Toronto.

Michelle Berardinetti, like Robinson a member of Ford’s executive, and TTC Chair Karen Stintz both said Thursday they want the intergovernmental agency to hasten development, but reject Ford’s vision of denser development, attractions and a shopping centre on the eastern waterfront.

Berardinetti, who voted with Ford at executive last week to start negotiations with the province and Ottawa to regain control of the city land, said in an interview she would vote against the same motion at council next week.

The rookie councillor said, after talking to the city’s Toronto Port Lands Co., which recently surprised councillors by unveiling a glitzier rival “vision” to Waterfront’s neighbourhood-based mix of condos, shops and offices, she’d like to see co-operation between the agencies, with Waterfront in control.

Council rebellion could halt Ford revolution

His political honeymoon long over, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has lost the public’s confidence. And now, he’s about to lose council’s as well.

The Ford revolution may be aborted before it takes root.

Torontonians are not impressed with Ford’s confrontational style, his lone-wolf approach to leadership and his threats to gut city services after guaranteeing during the election that he’d cut the “gravy” and not cut a single service.

But what may have tipped the balance, fatally, is a waterfront plan he and his councillor brother, Doug, dreamed up in secret to deliver a mega-mall, giant Ferris wheel and monorail to private developers on Toronto’s most valuable real estate asset.

Rookie Councillor Jaye Robinson, a member of the mayor’s hand-picked executive committee, says she can’t in good conscience support the mayor’s plan to displace waterfront plans developed after years of public consultation.

Ford ally joins experts in rejecting his Port Lands plan

A member of Mayor Rob Ford’s executive says she will vote against his mall-and-monorail Port Lands vision that leading experts will blast Thursday as “ill-conceived, reckless,” and poised to do “irrevocable harm to the city.”

The increasing likelihood that council will reject Ford’s attempt to wrest control of the Port Lands from Waterfront Toronto had other allies scrambling Wednesday for a compromise to help him save face.

Councillor Jaye Robinson (Ward 25, Don Valley West) told the Star that, after much study and receiving more than 500 emails supporting the existing Port Lands plan, she can’t support the mayor’s glitzier rival vision.

“Voting on something where there’s no business plan and there’s been no extensive public consultation — I ran on civic engagement — I can’t do it,” Robinson said in an interview in her city hall office.

Rookie Toronto councillor pulls support for Ford’s waterfront plan

A week before council votes on the Ford brothers’ contentious vision for Toronto’s dormant Port Lands, one member of the mayor’s once-loyal executive committee is breaking ranks.

Jaye Robinson, rookie councillor for Don Valley West, said the Ford-endorsed plan to build a mega-mall and Ferris wheel on 180 hectares at the mouth of the Don River is “too light” for her to back.

“I can’t support this plan,” she told The Globe and Mail. “The lack of consultation, the lack of a business plan, it’s a concern.”

Her rejection of the Fords’ port plan came the same day a poll was released showing plummeting support for the mayor, and follows a string of Ford allies openly questioning the mayor’s policy direction on everything from possible library closings to potential layoffs of emergency workers. Left-leaning members on council are interpreting the grumbling as a sign of a slow-motion mutiny in the Ford camp.