Council approves $6M for arts & culture programs

Toronto city council has approved $6 million in funding for arts and culture programs.

The money is coming from the Third Party Sign Tax revenue generated from 2009-12, the city said.

This means that several programs will get funding this year, including $4 million for the Toronto Arts Council, $700,000 for the city’s cultural services unit and $600,000 for major cultural organizations.

Councillors voted 39 to zero in favour of the funding. Mayor Rob Ford, Giorgio Mammoliti, and Denzil Minnan-Wong were among six council members not present for the vote.

Earlier on Thursday, council voted in favour of increasing emergency services for Toronto’s homeless by temporarily activating so-called flex beds. The only dissenting vote came from the mayor.

The motion, from the community development and recreation committee (CDRC), calls on the city to temporarily activate all of the 172 flex beds — shelter spaces reserved to accommodate increased demand during extreme cold weather alerts.

The city’s current shelter occupancy rate is 96 per cent. Opening the flex beds would bring that figure down to 90 per cent.

“These are our most vulnerable. We need to ensure there’s a bed for every head,” community development and recreation committee chair Coun. Jaye Robinson said.

While some city staff, and particularly Ford, had insisted there were empty beds in shelters every night, anti-poverty activists, including members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), claim people are being turned away at shelters.

The city is also awaiting a third-party review of the city’s emergency shelter services. Robinson said the city is conducting client surveys on the service in an effort to shift from a reactive to proactive approach.

The CDRC motion also calls on council to push the province to help the city provide increased shelter for women who are victims of domestic violence.

Notably, council also unanimously voted in favour of Coun. Gary Crawford’s motion for a review from the solid waste management department to reduce pedestrian injuries and deaths.

Last month, Kayleigh Callaghan-Belanger, 5, was killed by a city garbage truck while walking home from her Scarborough school.

And councillors voted to have city staff report back on how best to access $47 billion in federal infrastructure funds for transit, work on the Gardiner Expressway and other projects.

Another ombudsman’s report

Council also heard from ombudsman Fiona Crean at Thursday’s meeting, when she delivered a damning report on the city’s Below Market Rent (BMR) program, which leases space to non-profit agencies at lower prices.

Crean’s report claims the BMR program gouged tenants, suffered from “chronic delays” and “broken promises,” and demonstrated deficient staff performance and poor communication.

Read the report here.

She investigated complaints the city had raised rents by 550 per cent and, despite repeated requests, it didn’t provide adequate explanation for the increases.

“There was virtually no paper trail,” Crean said.

“The estimates that were provided were almost exclusively oral,” she said.

Crean said the investigation wasn’t about the value of the program, but rather treatment of tenants by the BMR service.

Her investigation revealed staff gave the agencies four different rates starting at $9 per square foot and ending at almost $18.

She said one of the agencies was also mistakenly forced to pay property tax for four years adding up to more than $20,000.

The problems stemmed from several sources, Crean said, including a hiring freeze at the real estate and facilities division, which oversees the BMR program.  The real estate division was itself short-staffed, and there was a reorganization taking place.

“There is also a question of whether there were sufficient resources on the BMR portfolio. The COO is reviewing that,” Crean said at the meeting.

Crean said the city manager has agreed to implement all 22 of her recommendations, one of which is an apology to the BMR tenants for the way they were treated. Council voted in favour of adopting those recommendations.

Condo advertising and councillors’ records

Other items on the agenda for Thursday’s council meeting include stricter guidelines for condominium development advertising and making councillors’ records publicly available.

Council voted to adopt Josh Matlow’s motion to push the province to make it mandatory that all advertising for new condo developments state clearly whether the development has been approved by the city.

“While Toronto’s planning process provides forums for resident participation, many community members are under the impression that a development has already been approved due to misleading advertising,” Matlow’s motion stated.

“Misleading condominium advertising can also negatively affect purchasers. Individuals have purchased units that have later been removed from the project through the City’s planning process, leaving buyers scrambling to find alternative living arrangements.”

Coun. Paula Fletcher wanted the province to require that all councillors’ records, including work schedules and emails, be available to the public via Freedom of Information requests, but council voted against a debate on the issue.

On Wednesday, a good portion of the council meeting was eaten up by debate over whether to grant local restaurant chain Hero Burger the contract to operate the restaurant space near the city hall skating rink year round. After almost three hours of debate council voted 22-16 in favour of the Hero Burger.

Click here for the full agenda.

With files from Showwei Chu

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