Toronto council needs a makeover after Ford cuts. Here’s how city staff say it should happen

Thestar.com
Novemebr 29, 2018
Jennifer Pagliaro

The way the city does business needs a big makeover in the wake of provincial meddling, city staff say.

The damage control is spelled out in a new report to be debated by Toronto city council at its first meeting of the new term next week.

A slimmed-down city council means the way the city does business must change. A new report will help council decide how as a new term begins Dec. 1.

The logistical changes mean reducing the number of seats council members must hold on committees, boards and agencies now that there are just 25 councillors, down from a planned 47 wards, after Premier Doug Ford moved mid-election to change the structure, causing chaos ahead of voting on Oct. 22.

In the report, staff say the current structure with a 26-member council -- including the mayor -- would make it challenging to “remain effective and sustainable.” They note those members would be responsible for holding some 485 seats on committees and external boards and interviewing more than 900 citizens for public appointments to external boards like the Toronto Transit Commission.

Here’s what you need to know about the proposed changes and how they would affect you.

When will the changes take place?

Staff say a special committee of five council members, including the mayor or someone else he picks, should be formed to decided on what to do about governance in the long-term. That committee, which would meet for a limited time, would make final recommendations to council. The amount of time that would take is unclear.

In the meantime, staff have put forward interim measures.

What are standing committees and what is recommended for them?

What are called standing policy committees are bodies made up entirely of councillors that deal with the most important business. Most of those items then go to the whole of city council for final approval. Currently there are seven such committees: community development and recreation, economic development, government management, licensing and standards, public works and infrastructure, parks and environment, and planning and growth management.

Each has a specific mandate, dealing with issues like the number of shelter beds to be available each winter, the maintenance of the Gardiner Expressway and the way certain parts of the city, like the Port Lands, should be redeveloped. Right now all councillors are required to sit on one standing committee or the executive committee.

Staff now recommends those committees be collapsed into just four: community and economic development, general government and licensing, infrastructure and environment, and planning and housing.

The recommended plan would allow Mayor John Tory to make good on his campaign promise to create a standing committee on housing, although its mandate to deal with affordable housing is not yet spelled out.

The executive committee is chosen by the mayor and brings together his closest allies to consider major city business like a transit expansion plan or modernizing the Toronto police.

Staff recommend executive be shrunk to eight members from 13, which would tighten the mayor’s inner circle.

Tory, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said staff had done a “very good” and “thoughtful” job in making the recommendations given the number of responsibilities councillors have and the sheer volume of work

What are community councils and what’s happening with them?

Community councils, which are responsible for neighbourhood issues such as development, tree removals, speed bump approvals and other matters, also have to be reshaped because they were recently aligned with a 47-ward system.

The new boundaries recommended by staff largely follow the previous structure used last term, with a few exceptions. The residents who were formerly in Ward 13 (Parkdale-High Park) and Ward 17 (Davenport) will be represented by the Toronto and East York community council in their new Ward 4 (Parkdale-High Park) and Ward 9 (Davenport) rather than the Etobicoke York council they’re used to. And former Ward 8 (York West) residents now fall into the Etobicoke York community council in their new Ward 7 (Humber River-Black Creek).

Councillor Gord Perks, who represents the new Ward 4, said Parkdale-High residents told him they wanted to be included in the downtown community council.

“The street design, the feel of the neighbourhood it was former City of Toronto and it felt more like the downtown and members of that community were constantly frustrated that the Etobicoke York community council wasn’t letting them have the same kinds of controls on speed and other local issues that we get in the Toronto East York community council,” he said. “They spoke up and they got what they wanted.”

How does the recommended recalibrating affect councillors and their staff?

With larger geographic boundaries, and for most, twice the number of constituents, one of the biggest challenges for councillors will be finding time to handle residents’ concerns and attend meetings.

Although city staff do not provide a recommendation on how to create more capacity in their offices, they lay out several options for increasing councillors’ staff and budgets. One of those is to double the staffing budget for each councillor to $482,000, as was called for in an open letter from more than 50 neighbourhood associations, and to double their office budgets.

Right now, councillors’ staffing budgets are equivalent to the top salary for three separate positions. Several councillors who already represent nearly 100,000 constituents now split that budget among more than four staff. This means the busier offices have staff that receive lower pay for handling more work.

Doubling the staff and office budgets would mean an increase of $1.12 million overall for council, compared to 2018. That is a fraction of the city’s overall $13 billion operating budget.

In order to increase their budgets, a council member will have to move a motion to that effect at council next week. This then requires majority approval.

As for councillors’ salaries, staff said there is no comparable salary range, as there are no other councils in Canada with so few councillors for so many people.

Councillors now earn $114,306.

A review could be launched with an independent consultant or committee of citizens, the report says.

What about public appointments?

There are several external boards and agencies, like the Toronto Public Library Board or the board of directors for Toronto Community Housing, that include by council and citizen members. Right now, councillors are largely responsible for appointing citizen members. However, it takes a lot of time to interview for some 450 positions.

Staff recommend the most high profile board appointments follow the existing process, but that some citizen appointments be picked by an expert citizen panel that will be selected by the city clerk and approved by council. That includes appointments to committees of adjustment that deal with smaller development applications, like adding a second or third story to a home, as well as the Toronto Local Appeal Body, which hears appeals about those applications.

What else is changing?

There are also changes in the mayor’s office already underway. In a letter to councillors and city staff Tuesday, Tory announced his chief of staff Chris Eby and principal secretary Vic Gupta would be leaving at the end of the term, on Nov. 30.

Replacing Eby as the head of Tory’s office will be Luke Robertson, who moved up the ranks as a member of Tory’s staff last term after moving over from the city’s licensing division. Robertson was most recently Tory’s re-election campaign manager, earning a personal shout-out from the mayor at his victory party and the praise of his colleagues.

It’s not yet clear who will be taking Gupta’s place.

The staffing changes leave the mayor’s office currently with a more junior staff whose skills are more in council relations than public policy making. That could change as new staff are hired.