Friday, February 04, 2005

Miller, Moscoe play hookie

In case you missed it, Mayor David Miller and TTC Chairman Howard Moscoe skipped out on a critical TTC budget meeting.

TheStar.com - TTC fare hike `likely,' Miller says

Apparenty, this dynamic duo were at another begging meeting - i.e. where they beg for more money from the upper levels of government. Commissioners David Shiner and Bas Balkissoon then bolted from the meeting - thus denying quorum. This means that the TTC budget will be set by council, by default.

In the larger scheme, although this type of behaviour is unprofessional at best, and childish at worst, it is actuallty a traffic-ticket misdemeanour compared with the other budgeting and control faux-pas committed by the TTC and Council over the years. These include:

- failing to contribute to reserves as the asset-base (subway cars etc) depreciated.
- continuing to operate streetcars - thus draining the financial capacity to fund expansion of frequent service bus routes to the more suburban areas of the city
- allowing operating expenses to grow more rapidly that inflation
- ramming through the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way without assessing the full life cycle costs


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