Wanted: Online Parking Payment System

My wife stopped by a garage sale on the weekend and purchased a $35 lamp. Actually, it was a $5 lamp but she got dinged with a $30 parking ticket by a hornet who clearly had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning. While I’m not happy about the ticket, it puzzles me why you can’t pay for them online. Instead, you have to show up in person or spend five minutes on the phone going through a slow-as-molasses automated system. This is the 21st century so you figure Toronto could wake up to doing things online.

More Police Is Not the Answer

There is so much talk these days that hiring more police and/or having more police on the ground will solve the string of gun-related murders happening places like Janes and Finch. While more police can’t hurt, it attacks the symptoms, not the problems. If you really want to deter gun violence make the jail terms for gun-related crimes a lot tougher. For example, there should be a minimum and automatic 10 or 15-year prison term if you use a gun in any kind of crime – no ifs ands or buts. You’ve also got to steer people in the right direction before they fall into the wrong crowds. This is where community centres and social services play an important role. Unfortunately, funding for these facilities have been scaled back over the past 10 years but it used to be one of the pillars of life in Ontario.

Money for a Soccer Stadium?!

I simply don’t get it. Toronto is apparently in desperate financial straits but it can chip in nearly $10-million to build a 25,000-person soccer stadium at Exhibition Place. City council gave it the rubber stamp earlier this week even though the process over who is going to build it, who is going to manage it and how much it could cost taxpayers if the finances don’t work was shrouded in secrecy. So much for David Miller’s pledge of transparency. How can the city justify this move when property taxes are jumping? Wouldn’t it be a much better investment to build some great community centres in places such as Jane & Keele? What do you think the impact in that community would be with a community centre featuring a library, gym, pool and rooms for community events? It is troubling that the province is going to hand more spending and taxation powers to Toronto when it is obvious the city has no financial responsibility.

 

Parking Permit Woes

You know Toronto is having a financial crisis when they hike parking permit fees by 30% 40%. I just got my renewal letter in the mail – a week after my property tax assessment. The problem is while my taxes go up, my salary is pretty much staying the same so something’s got to give. Guess I won’t be spending the same amount of money at local retailers, who are also watching their taxes go up. It’s a vicious circle.