You might be tempted to think that Ford is all about the populism (and being re-elected), what with his sticking fridge magnets on cars outside of an Etobicoke meeting and all. Or maybe he’s about SUBWAYS SUBWAYS SUBWAYS! Maybe it’s still about cutting the gravy at city hall?

Well, you’d be right to think that, but what our illustrious mayor is gunning for now is conservation of the beloved strip malls of his beloved Etobicoke; maybe even elsewhere.

To quote:

You can’t be tearing down this stuff, this is not downtown. This is Etobicoke … Personally speaking, I don’t support changing anything.

Ah yes, only Toronto is for tearing down. It’s not for such vast, beautiful, sweeping vistas as the Humbertown Shopping Centre.

No wonder Robbie doesn’t want such a marvel to be tossed aside like so much outsourced garbage:

But obviously, nothing is going to fly. So, if they want to propose something, an alternative, I’ll support the community. I support the taxpayers. What the taxpayers want, I’ll support.

Interestingly, the same meeting that Rob ran out of in order to put magnets on cars was the same one at which he made these statements.

David Price, Ford’s former high school football coach and his recently named director of operations and logistics, stood between Rob and reporters after the mayor said he would take no more questions, chuckling at the thought of Ford attending the taxpayers’ meeting:

It’s been about 6 months now and Rob Ford has not yet responded to allegations that he’s taken control of City of Toronto correspondence by updating the wording at the bottom of City Hall press releases to make Toronto seem like a vigorous young suburb rather than the place you’d want to come to.

Under Miller

• Toronto is Canada’s largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. It is the economic engine of Canada and one of the greenest and most creative cities in North America. Toronto has won numerous awards for quality, innovation and efficiency in delivering public services. Toronto’s government is dedicated to prosperity, opportunity and liveability for all its residents. For information about non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

He did manage to kill the bike lockers, so that probably left old Robbie emboldened to try yet another City Hall renovation change. This time around he wanted to make the pool in front of City Hall a wading pool. But that didn’t entirely go over.

On the bright side, Rob called yesterday’s TTC transit debate defeat (or almost) “one of the greatest days in Toronto history”. A city stuck in gridlock, a fool for a mayor, and no way to fund transit — that’s a grand day indeed!

In response to Karen Stintz’ accusation that Rob Ford ain’t doing his job, his office sent back a tersely worded response:

“There is no lack of leadership from the Mayor.”

Not what Stintz said, but given the collective capacity for comprehension behind Ford Nation, let’s just say close enough.

Except that Ford did’t write or send the response, he got one of his lackeys (George Christopoulos), to do it. In fact, there’s no indication that Rob Ford was involved in anything to do with the situation.

To be fair, he was probably busy clearing his schedule in order to personally respond to each constituent’s phone call (as every mayor of every large metropolitan area should) — a conservative estimate of 300,000 calls a year, or 820 calls per day — and delegated this lowly task to Christopoulos. Or maybe he was coaching football. Whatever. Clearly Ford showed leadership and world-class initiative, and got right out in front of the issue.

On Newstalk 1010’s RoDoFo (Rob/Doug/Ford), radio show on Sunday afternoon, Rob said he’d like to see more women in politics, and if any of yous dames out there are interested, to call him at home or meet him over coffee and he’ll tell you all about how City Hall works.

Yes, the man who repeatedly admitted he doesn’t know how to do his job is going to tell you all about how to do his job.

Don’t worry, those allegations of him beating his wife a few years back were never proven, I’m pretty sure he’s over grabbing women’s asses by now, and the fact that women are leaving his own hand-picked executive committee left right and centre shouldn’t be read into too deeply.

Just imagine the kind of intellectual treasure trove you’ll be able to tap into!

In a muted, almost non-existent news item in the Star yesterday, it was revealed that Rob Ford, in similar fashion, handed over a cheque for $400 to compensate the city for his use of city property. In other words, Ford tacitly admitted to improperly using city resources for his football foundation.

When it was first suggested to Ford that this is exactly what he was doing, he replied with, “The car that I paid for, right? Do your homework. I paid for it last year.”

Sure you did, Robbie — that’s why you paid for it again this year, right? Does your idiot Ford Nation also willingly pay twice for stuff that they claimed they didn’t have to pay for at all? Any more intelligence or “honesty” you want to share with us?

A couple of months ago I did an exposé on the history of getting around in Toronto during the winter. Powerful stuff.

In that piece, I outlined the various forms of transit used during the icy, wintry months in the city, many of which are still in use today. Nota bene: bicycles were not included.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? Of all the types of conveyances that one could conjure up that are also well-suited to winter, bicycles wouldn’t really be high on that list. And once you’ve experienced a Toronto winter, it’s blindingly obvious.

That’s not to detract from those hardcode cyclists who put spikes on their wheels, layers on their bodies, and bike around the city all winter long. Good for them for being totally extreme, I guess.

Not me though, I think that’s nuts.

And I’d like to suggest that most people would agree with me; biking in the nice weather, great! Winter, fuck it!

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So based on this assumption, I think it’s safe to say that any business based on cycling has to be prepared to weather the winter weather, so to speak.

Therefore, the fact that rent-a-bike outfit BIXI is currently experiencing financial troubles should be making us as nervous as the inevitable first lawsuit against the company for not providing helmets. (The law currently makes them optional for adults, but BIXI might have additional obligations on account of them being a business.)

It’s not the first time they’ve been in this situation with their hometown of Montreal having to bail them out not too long ago. Now they’re crying poor on the doorsteps of Toronto with whom they have a 10-year loan.

The loan is to the tune of $4.8 million, better than Montreal’s $108 million, but still.

BIXI says that they don’t have the number of bikes on the road that they need to turn a profit. Not sure if that’s a dollars issue or a City Hall one,  but that still seems like something that could’ve been predicted. This ain’t BIXI’s first time at the dance, ya know.

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Despite the fact that camera-wielding media now have to stand against the walls of City Hall to make way for His Rotundness to get around, Rob Ford managed to smack himself in the face with a TV camera as he was leaving some meeting or other yesterday while staring intently at the ground.

Ford immediately went into finger-pointing mode, exclaiming:

Ah fuck man. Holy Christ! Holy. Guys have some respect, you just hit me in the face with a camera.

By this we can only extrapolate that “respect”, to Ford, would mean no media at any time. No surprise there. Except, of course, that little thing called reality would respectfully disagree with what actually happened:

I mean, come on — you weren’t expecting Rob Ford to support something to do with biking, did you?

Okay, so now that we got that clarified, I hope it doesn’t come as a shock that Fordo vowed to kill a motion before City Hall to remove some (unused) parking spaces below City Hall and replace them with a locker to hold around 300-ish bikes.

To Rob, this just doesn’t make sense — spend $1.2 million to make an estimated $70,000 in locker fees? In a classic Fordian non sequitur, Ford blurted out, “I’m going to try to kill it at council, but that’s a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Sure there’s waste at City Hall — there are two seats reserved with the name “Ford” that are complete wastes of space, for example — but the bike locker isn’t one of them.

For starters, the current parking spots to be occupied are mostly sitting idle. Of course, that doesn’t mean an additional cost, but it also doesn’t mean additional revenue. For the 12 phantom cars that are to be displaced, that would be about $3,600 per year (assuming $300 per vehicle). Even if those spots were paved over with gold and diamonds and rented out at $1,000 a pop, and the number of cars were doubled, that would still only amount to $24,000 a year.

But for the city to get that money, those spots would actually have to be reserved, so to call it lost revenue is just not correct.

To be sure, $1.2 million is an up-front cost that can’t just be ignored. If the $70K revenue stream is accurate, it’ll take just over 17 years to pay off. So in the short term, it definitely would not make economic sense.

However, this re-fit is part of the plan to re-do Nathan Phillips Square and has been for many years, so Fordo kinda missed the boat on that one (he’s been on City Council for a decade, conservatively*).

But, okay, that’s Ford right? He did, after all, come out and declare that he’s not exactly skilled at doing the whole “mayor” thing, so this shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone.

But Ford’s numbers (still trusting him on that dubious $70K), do make sense if you require immediate payback on projects. Municipal government doesn’t always have to require that, and especially not on a relatively small $1.2 million. Even at two and a half times, as one must expect from government projects, that’s still a less-than-astronomical $3 million.

I’m willing to bet that that new stage being put up top side at the Square, not to mention all the extra stuff behind it, is worth at least a cool three mill, and what purpose do they serve?

Presumably to attract tourists and locals who might spend money. Those same tourists and locals that may arrive on bicycles (I’ve seen ’em, even on those rented numbers!)

Seems like it’s not an economic issue that Rob Ford has, nor is it a political problem; for him, it’s ideological. He doesn’t like bikes, thinks cyclists are a pain in the ass, and still thinks that it’s possible to cram more cars onto the streets of Toronto as a solution to congestion.

I can see why he’d think that; he has the right of way on all streets (presumably because he’s mayor), and doesn’t really have to obey all of those lesser-known (and unenforceable!) laws — that’s for everyone else to do.

* I feel it’s fair to chip off a couple of years for vacancies, mental and otherwise.

It’s been almost a year since I reached out to the Star to see what was happening with their complaint against the mayor. You may not remember it — it had to do with how Ford was excluding media from City Hall (and especially the Star).

Well, the much-maligned Integrity Commissioner recently released her report on the incident and decided that there was nothing to follow up on. In other words, case closed.

Unsurprisingly, no one from the Ford camp is so much as mentioning the decision. I suppose it must be a foregone conclusion now that Rob Ford gets away with breaking every rule and law out there, why should this be any different? And, of course, further discussions about the balance in the office of the Integrity Commissioner are completely absent. In other words, if she’s questioning the mayor and doing her job, then of course she’s irrelevant, biased, and just the scum of the earth. If she’s siding with him, it can be ignored so that she can continue to be demonized.

But let’s put this to the side for moment and see what the report actually said. First, some history.

In February 2011, members of the City Hall press gallery put together a brief note stating what they expected of the mayor as a public servant:

The Gallery expects that all of its members will be treated equally and fairly. As such, all media releases, circulars, agendas, notice of scrums and other events, and other official communications from the City of Toronto, including the mayor’s office, must be communicated equally to all members of the Gallery, without favour or prejudice.

Ford ignored this and didn’t respond (surprise!)

In December of that year, a formal complaint was filed and, indeed, Rob Ford was once again found to have been doing exactly what he’d been accused of doing:

The complainant provided examples of bulk distribution of news releases and statements made by the Mayor to the media that were not given to journalists writing for the Toronto Star. The Mayor acknowledges that these were not delivered to writers for the Toronto Star. A search conducted of press releases from the Office of the Mayor during the relevant time period identified the recipients.

Additionally:

The former Press Secretary for the Mayor confirmed that after taking office the Mayor’s flatly stated position was, “I do not talk to the Star.”

Furthermore:

One journalist for the Toronto Star described the situation as an “underground economy” in information. Material was often provided on an “off the record” basis. Another journalist from the Toronto Star described the relationship-building with the Mayor’s Press Secretary as a “long hard slog” which improved over time.

And just to clarify:

The subject of the Mayor’s relationship to the media was discussed with many of those interviewed in this investigation. Staff members from the Toronto Star spoke about the difficulty of doing their work without up to date information about the Mayor and his activities. This complaint was not limited to the Toronto Star. Other journalists described the flow of information out of the Mayor’s office in these terms:

• “few and far between”
• “we aren’t kept up to date regarding what he is doing”
• “occasional” statements
• “less than once per week and sometimes once per month”
• “It is not as if we have a direct line to the Mayor”
• The Press Secretary is “inconsistent” in responding to journalists

…

On the continuum of “sparse or sparser” access, members of the Press Gallery said that the Toronto Star has less access than others. The media members interviewed, and those who commented publicly on the issue have said a number of times that a Mayor should be even-handed with the press and treat all outlets “fairly.” Others felt strongly that there is a democratic obligation on the part of elected officials to be open with the press and to be fair in access to information about their activities.

In the end and despite this overwhelming evidence, the Integrity Commissioner ruled in favour of Ford:

I conclude that on the particular facts in this case, there was no breach of the Code of Conduct by Mayor Ford. The reasons for this finding can be summarized as follows:

• There is an accepted practice of elected officials, including the Mayor, determining how and when they will grant access to the media, by way of interviews, answering questions during scrums or providing information about their views, outside of the formal and publicly accessible mechanisms that exist for ensuring transparent municipal democracy;
• The Mayor did not interfere with the access of Toronto Star reporters to significant avenues of information about the workings and agendas of City Council, the public service, or other councillors;
• The City of Toronto has an open access policy for disseminating information to the media and to the public;
• The Mayor’s personal policy of “not talking to the Star” was incomplete, with his knowledge and approval, as shown by the following:
  • distribution of some bulk e mails to thestar.ca;
  • distribution of most bulk e mails to other members of the Star Media Group, all falling under the direct supervision of the Publisher of the Toronto Star;
  • distribution of all bulk e mails to the affiliated sister company of Metroland;
  • the unofficial and multiple “work arounds” by staff and Toronto Star journalists, known, tolerated and cited by the Mayor in his defence.
  • The originating story which led to the Mayor’s reason for not speaking to the Toronto Star was written during a political campaign and was newsworthy because of his status as a public and political figure;
  • The ability of the press to publish, comment and otherwise hold politicians to account for their media communications practices.

So once again, Rob Ford smugly walks away from the fray because there’s really nothing in place to hold him to account.