Jan 31 - Martha's Birthday

Happy Birthday Martha! A shamelessly personal shout-out to my daughter who has a birthday today. I know it's 8:30 p.m. but Mom will be home as soon as she finishes this blog.

The North Community Council agenda is on the website with the item on the Parkway Forest Development application. The staff recommendations to refuse are included on the website at http://w3.toronto.ca/legdocs/2005/agendas/ny.htm but not the details. Call Jenny at 416-392-4038 to get the document forwarded. It's 24 pages long.

Re: Budget Today - Hope everyone remembers I said I'd stand up for frequent mowing of city lawns and ramping up tree service after council approved the pesticade bylaw and the tree bylaw. The Budget is still incredibly tight but I voted yes to increasing lawn cutting by $1 million and Tree Services by $1 million. The net effect is 70 more seasonal lawn cutters out there April thru September and reducing the tree service request backlog BIGTIME.

Talks on the TTC Budget continue. I keep getting Deja Vu. It's a lot like my old job.
TTC = Great big organization forced to function within flawed Funding Formula. They wait every year for the financial tool kit to arrive from other levels of government. With year over year funding uncertainty they run the best darn system there is because they have no choice. If they don't, riders vote with their car keys.