National Post from Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 11

TORONTO NATIONAL POST, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 nationalpost.com P0STEDT0R0NT0.COM TTC union reps charged with breaching public trust After allegedly helping a ticket-taker steal token revenue, a pair of TTC union reps have been charged with breaching the public trust. Late Thursday, Toronto Police announced that Clarke Smith and John Wales, both of whom are with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, were facing six charges for allegedly destroying evidence to protect a co-work $3,800. After trying to cover up the theft by tampering with token rolls, according to police, the ticket-taker sought the help of union reps. The union representatives then assisted in the destruction of evidence in the investigation," police said. TTC spokesman Brad Ross refused to say whether the three accused were still working or collecting pay, but said er accused of stealing.

According to police, the case began when the TTC performed a routine audit of a they would be dealt with harshly. Deodato Sousa, 54, is charged with theft under $5,000. Tristin Hopper, ticket collector and found his float was short National Post mm BY THE NUMBERS fTVJt In Ruby's eyes, Ford does no good Mayor Ford challenges Vaughan on council 'YOU'RE A LIAR' 'i -ron II i amount of taxes an average house, I with an assessed value of $474,366, i would pay with 1.95 hike IIIIIIIIIIIIMIIMIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMHIII dims in billions. Proposed 2013 operating proposed residential property tax increase, which equals $48 iiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiimiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiniiiiiHiiiii budget iiiiiHiHiiimiiiiimmiiiiimiiiiiimmiiiiiimimiii generally keeps a low profile. At what was essentially a victory press conference at City Hall just hours after the decision came down Monday morning, both he and Mr.

Ruby adopted a sober mien. Mr. Ruby pronounced the result "tragic," tragic that the Mayor of such a great city could "bring himself to this." Standing beside him, the bespectacled Mr. Magder, wearing a sweater vest, called it a "sad day for Ibrontonians, sad because we've spent so much time and money on this matter instead of nurturing our city and growing it into a wonderful place to live." He pleaded for leaders who would "work together to build a nurturing city' (Since Mr. Ruby is working for free, and Mr.

Ford is paying his own legal costs, it's unclear to what money Mr. Magder was referring. In fact, non-downtowners could be forgiven for not having a clue what Mr. Magder meant, period, but as one who lives in the core, I can assure you this is how such folks proposed non-residential tax increase MiiMiHiiiimiimiiiiiMiiiuiiiiiiimiiiiiimiiiHmiii I I sfr jf 1 1 i tip lOt I i in millions. Amount of 'efficiencies' in millions.

and 'other cost reductions' contained must cut in in the proposed budget budget Amount Toronto police order to flatline its iiiiinuiiiiiMmimiHiiiiiMiiiiiiiiimmmiiimiiiiii in millions. Amount of 'one time rev- enues' (prior year surplus and reserve draws) that city council used to balance its books in 2011 iimiimiiHimmiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii in millions. Amount of one-time revenues contained in proposed 2013 budget iiiiiiimiiimiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiimiiiiiiMiiiiiiiHiiiiiiii As' it tT, 71 .1 Amount city is expected in millions. By Natalie Alcoba Defeated in court, Rob Ford took on his political foe on city council Thursday, calling Councillor Adam Vaughan a liar and accusing him of trying to "shake down" a developer. The battle began with a Queen Street condo development in Mr.

Vaughan's down town ward that staff had reject ed. Mr. Vaughan asked council to approve the project and endorse a settlement he helped negotiate with changes to the building and $l-million in fees from the developer to improve the area's sidewalks. Mr. Ford didn't like the plan and accused the councillor of having acted improperly.

"All I'm saying is that looks like a shakedown," said Mr. Ford. "Call it what you want. You cannot go up to develop ers and say I want a million when staff say they don't want it. That is problematic It's absolutely wrong." The mayor later retracted his "shakedown" comment but maintained his objection to the settlement.

Mr. Vaughan said the fees were negotiated with the blessing of the city's lawyers and in the "full light of day." "When you go up to 13 metres, to a height of about 20 storeys, the 13,000 square metres in additional density does not come free for a developer," he said, denouncing the shakedown comment as offensive. A second flare-up occurred when the mayor held up another development in Mr. Vaughan's ward, on Mercer Street When Mr. Vaughan protested that he had not been able to speak to the mayor about it, Mr.

Ford countered "you're a liar, Adam Vaughan" and dared him to complain to the integrity commissioner. "By the time you get a report back you won't even be on council," retorted Mr. Vaughan, a reference to a court decision removing the mayor from office over a conflict of interest. Council endorsed the Queen Street project, with just Mayor Ford, Doug Ford, Frances Nunziata and Doug Holyday dissenting. It unanimously decided to send the Mercer Street development back to staff.

National Post unleashed a "war on community safety." "To lay down the gauntlet and to say this budget is not balanced today and it's one division's fault is really quite frankly a bit of a cop-out," she said. Mark Pugash, spokesman for the Toronto police, said Chief Blair will present another budget to the board. "But ultimately, he has told them what is required to get to zero, and they are the ones who decide. It's not his decision." National Post nalcobanationalpost.com twitter.comnphallmonitor in millions. Amount the land transfer tax is expected to bring in in 2012.

The same amount is projected for 2013 IIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllllllllllllllllltllllllllll to spend to service its debt in 2013 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiMMiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiniiiiiiiii Christie Blatchford Comment Though the notion of a 'left-wing conspiracy" has a certain appeal, the truth about the people who brought down Toronto Mayor Rob Ford at least temporarily is that they are, rather, cut from the earnest, activist, gentle cloth of the committed urban dweller and correct Canadian thinker. In short, they are the very antithesis of the combative, football-loving, Don Cherry-embracing, plain-spoken mayor from the wilds of Etobicoke. And the public record shows they share such an affinity for the same sort of causes that they don't need to conspire. Clay Ruby, of course, was the lawyer who, working pro bono, brought the case to court and got the decision which saw Mr. Ford ordered from office.

Mr. Ruby is a famous Canadian defence lawyer and a bencher with the Law Society of Upper Canada with a long history of taking on activist causes, particularly those with environmental bent (he's a former honourary director of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and Greenpeace Canada) and free expression (PEN Canada). His client was Paul Mag-der, not the furrier of the same name who once fought against Sunday shopping laws, but Paul Magder the certified electronics technologist who works for Iris Power LP in Mississauga. Mr. Magder, in turn, was drawn into being the face of the case by Adam Chaleff-Freud-enthaler, a 28-year-old activist virtually since birth who now works in labour relations for He felt bullied the Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees Ontario.

Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler went to school with the children of Mr. Magder and his wife Fern Mosoff Nat and Robin and according to a recent Toronto Star story, it was Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler who contacted Mr. Ruby about taking on the case.

Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler had already filed his own successful challenge (with a friend named Max Reed) to Mayor Ford's campaign practices in the 2010 election, persuading the city's compliance audit committee in May of last year to order an audit. The results are pending. In the May, 2011, edition of Spacing magazine, Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler acknowledged his animus for Mayor Ford and his policies, but mounted an articulate defence of his motives the defence of rules, which he and Mr.

Reed allege the Mayor broke, that keep the financial playing field relatively level for candidates. Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler also took the Mayor's brother, Doug Ford, to task after the councillor spotted him at a council meeting and accosted him with a "Hey, you're the guy with the audits" greeting. At some point, Councillor Ford said "What goes around, comes around," at which point Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler asked if Mr.

Ford was threatening him. Mr. Chaleff-Freudenthaler said later he felt bullied. He then brought a complaint to the city's Integrity Commissioner, Janet Leiper, who in the result had Councillor Ford apologize. His apology was deemed unacceptable.

Mr. Magder, meantime, SO in billions. Proposed spending on capital projects over next decade in millions. Amount earmarked for transportation, including $505-mil-lion to fix crumbling Gardiner speak and they know what they mean.) Aside from working on a couple of school board campaigns, including Mr. Chaleff- Freudenthaler's in the 2010 election, Mr.

Magder has been uninvolved in city politics. But though he has mostly flown below the radar, he and his wife Ms. Mosoff, who is a federal civil servant with Hu man Resources Development Canada, are hardly unengaged with civic life. Through her job, she was a member of ICE, the Intergovernmental Committee for Economic and Labour Force Development in Tbronto, a tripartite group funded jointly by the three levels of government whose members meet frequently, sometimes at Metro Hall, to brainstorm. As a couple, they have signed their fair share of petitions, among them, the Put Food in The Budget petition (which asked Queen's Park to implement a $100 Health Food Supplement for adults on social assistance) and a petition to Support the Campaign for a Responsible Energy Plan (an initiative of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, it was against nuclear generating stations).

In 2001, they wrote the Canadian government to express their "grave concern" about the "extreme intellectual property provisions" of a consultation paper on digital copyright issues. They have sent joint emails to city committees. Ms. Mosoff, who was award ed a Queen's Jubilee medal as a "Caring Canadian," also appears to have signed online petitions on her own, perhaps most controversially, a petition of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, which sought to stop Canadian Pension Plan investments "in Israeli Apartheid." In April of 2010, Toronto Star food writer Corey Mintz wrote a piece headlined "My dinner with Clayton Ruby? At it were some of Mr. Mintz's friends, Mr.

Ruby and his wife, Ontario Superior Court Judge Harriet Sachs. Mr. Mintz was doing the cooking. As his friends discussed the "polarizing allegiance to the left or right," Mr. Ruby cut through the verbal red tape, Mr.

Mintz wrote. "I think it's all abstractly meaningless," Mr. Ruby said. "There are people who do good in the world. And there are people who do not And we make judgments." And that, I suspect, has much more to do with the efforts to fell Rob Ford than anything else: They do good; Mr.

Ford, in their eyes, does not Postmedia News Higher taxes or deeper cuts, budget chief says taxes to go up by 0.65. It includes $169-million worth of "efficiency and other cost reductions," including $60-million saved from new labour contracts, and about $6-million by deleting 104 vacant Toronto Fire positions. Mr. Pennachetti said he will be pushing councillors to remain "disciplined" and not tap into reserves to offset some or all of the police cuts. By squirreling away surpluses the city can ramp up repairs on the Gardiner Expressway without assuming debt.

The proposed 10-year capital budget would spend $505-million on the crumbling roadway, about $325-million more than intended. But opponents of the administration already have their eye on surplus dollars to tweak the budget. Councillor Shelley Carroll voiced concerns about police and fire cuts, suggesting the administration had 1 said Mr. Pennachetti. But, that success depends on Toronto police freezing its spending something Chief Bill Blair has warned would result in layoffs.

The police board rejected the police chief's initial request of $949-million which is $21-million over the city's target and asked him to return with a revised proposal next month. The balanced budget presented by the city manager Thursday assumes the police target is met. Even if it meets that goal, council still needs to drain $47-million from its reserves in 2013. "We presented a reasonable budget and we have made great strides from where we were," said Mr. Del Grande.

The mayor didn't get his wish on property taxes, which he had said should rise by no more than 1.75 next year. The proposed 2013 budget also calls for non-residential Police expected to find $21-million in savings By Natalie Alcoba Toronto's top bureaucrat and the budget chief are putting pressure on the police services board to deliver a flatlined budget, saying the alternative is either higher property taxes or deeper service cuts next year. "The message is very clear, that we expect the $21-million savings coming from the police services," Budget Chief Mike Del Grande told reporters after city manager Joe Pennachetti unveiled the proposed operating budget With a recommended 1.95 residential property tax increase, the 2013 budget moves the city "significantly closer to fiscal sustainability," 3.