Miller as wimpy strongman

The Toronto Star recently contrasted David Miller with Chicago’s strongman Mayor Richard Daley and the Blond Bomb Fragment didn’t show up very well in contrast. After all, Daley made a quick end to his city’s pork-barrel airport by bringing bulldozers and tearing up the landing strip. People love him as a man of action. Miller languishes as Toronto’s air porkers diddle with a ferry that replaced the $22 million bridge the mayor successfully blocked, even though it cost taxpayers $35 million in a suspected gift by the feds to Island airport participants.

But there’s another side to Daley we don’t want. He tolerated torture performed on mainly African-American prisoners by the police force he controlled. Some were convicted based on those coerced confessions and some were sentenced death. A number of those convictions were reversed after men spent years wrongfully incarcerated and the State of Illinois’s taxpayers have already paid $90 million in civil rights claims, fees and costs as a result of Daley’s actions or inactions.

Thankfully Miller hasn’t taken his “strong mayor” role that much to heart, nor is he likely the sort of man who would under any circumstances. Chicagoans might approve of such cowboys, Torontonians definitely don’t.

But we could use a bit of common-sense aggressiveness from our mayor on behalf of the public. For instance, he knows there are strong allegations that none of the three bidders on an outrageously long 20-year contract to supply billboard-laden “street furniture” have come to the table with clean hands. All are accused by credible critics of flouting our bylaws and posting illegal billboards all over the city.

Miller remains mute. We only know he favours billboard-coated waste containers and the like almost everywhere in the city.

It should be a non starter. If anything, Miller should be jumping all over city staff for not enforcing our bylaws and collecting the bundle in fines that ought to be due if the illegal signs allegations have any merit. Rather than taint our city with corporate advertising, Miller should be trying to get a grip on city employees who’ve let the place run down while they build their empires.

We have seriously deteriorating infrastructure, yet silly things like unneeded and expensive push-button traffic lights are installed at great expense around the city. A timer would work as well and cost practically nothing. There are many examples of similar misspent city funds.