Toronto Council meets today!
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Councillor Crisanti asks how CFO determined the timeframe for the temporary tax, noting the 14-month period is way longer than the length of the World Cup. CFO says they started with a revenue target, then determined how long the extra tax would need to be in effect to reach it.
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Councillor Paul Ainslie asks if it's generally accurate that tax revenue from having big events like T-Swift and FIFA goes 47% to the federal government, 44% to the province and 9% to Toronto.
"That is correct," says CFO.
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Budget Chief Councillor Shelley Carroll is calling the Municipal Accommodation Tax the "MAT tax" for short. Just want to make it clear she is not saying Matt Tax. It is not a tax on Matts. I'd probably be opposed to that.
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Council votes 21-4 to APPROVE a temporary hike to the tax on hotel rooms and short-term rentals (like Airbnb) to help fund the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
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Up now: the Auditor General's report on parks maintenance. The AG found parks maintenance crews were spending too much time parked — and not at parks. https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2024.AU6.1
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"Do you find that odd, that 20 years later after amalgamation, that we're still using paper and we still have no idea what's going on out there with the 311 system?" asks Councillor Paula Fletcher of parks maintenance.
"We agree that there is room for improvement," says staffer.
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Here's the old-school paper-based worklog system the parks division uses. AG found many were not properly filled out or signed-off on by a supervisor.
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Councillor Lily Cheng moves for a look at a system where parks workers would be required to take photos to document their work, with those photos made available to 311.
She compares it to Amazon, where workers are required to take photos confirming package delivery.
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Cheng is facing pushback from councillors McKelvie and Fletcher, who are pointing out not all park workers have city-issued smartphones and the cost of providing devices so they can take photos would be very high.
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Fletcher says the issue with the sheets and parks maintenance workers is a management issue, not a worker issue — if the daily activity sheets aren't being reviewed by supervisors, that's on the supervisor.
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"I don't shop at Amazon. I really don't care what Amazon does," says Nunziata.
"The system is not working," she adds, noting many parks in her ward that aren't maintained. "This should have been caught years ago."
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Mayor Olivia Chow says she has "heard it over and over again" from residents about issues with garbage in parks.
"And the washrooms — the washrooms are what I heard A LOT — to the extent that I went to some of the parks and started taking photos."
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Councillor Lily Cheng's motion to look at having parks workers take photos of their maintenance work to verify the work is getting done FAILS 10-14.
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The rest of the Audit item on park maintenance CARRIES via show of hands.
Council is now moving on to another Audit item. This one's about the controversial deal City Hall struck with PayIt for online payments. Things don't go great.
Fletcher wants to go into private session.
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And indeed, Council opts to go "in camera" — where there are no cameras allowed — to discuss the PayIt audit. No media allowed while they're in private session. I'll let you know when they're back in public.
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The supplementary report on Doug Ford's bike lane ban bill is now available. City staff say it could cost $48 million in provincial tax money to remove bike lanes. And city would lose out on $27 million invested to install the infrastructure. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2024/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-250545.pdf (PDF)
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The report also says travel times would get WORSE for drivers during the construction work necessary to remove the bike lanes. Long-term, staff project "likely minimal improvements in travel time" for drivers once lanes are removed.
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Report says removing bike lanes on Bloor would mean 4 months with only one open vehicle lane in each direction, 4 months with only one vehicle lane in one direction, and a month-long intersection closure at St. George.
Southbound University Ave would be one lane for 9 months.
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On the idea of putting bike lanes on "side streets", report found "no feasible parallel alternatives" and says alternatives would likely require new bridge structures or property acquisition. City would ask province to cover those costs.
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And here are new and updated ridership numbers for Bloor, University and Yonge bike lanes. Increases as high as 656%.
