HiMY SYeD

Going for him: SYeD ran in 2010 and has remained a constant fixture at events and gatherings around the city.

Dear Mr. HiMY SYeD,
Mr. Todd Harrison mentioned that I should contact you directly.
For a book on Meaning in Architectural Design, which I presently finish, I would like to include your photograph of the Council Chamber, Toronto City Hall (shown attached).
I saw it some time ago in a Spacing publication, on a flickr website and just recently on your photopia website. From the latter I derived the attached copy.
I would very much appreciate your giving me permission to publish the photo in my book by returning this e-mail with a remark accordingly. The photo …

By Hilary Best, Spacing Toronto
This series features highlights from the ongoing exhibit The Fourth Wall: Transforming City Hall. The exhibit, on now at the Urbanspace Gallery, considers possible avenues to break down the barriers to participation in civic life that exist at Toronto’s City Hall.
The Fourth Wall identifies a number of areas for improvement to step up civic engagement at City Hall. Examining best practices in other cities and major gaps in this city, the exhibit yields 36 recommendations. While there is certainly much room for improvement, the …

Posted by John Michael McGrath | OpenFile Toronto
Late yesterday afternoon, City Hall reporters started pointing their Twitter followers to an interesting budget document, tipped off by councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park), which shows that Toronto’s Land Transfer Tax has raised much more money than previously projected—37 per cent more. That one boost alone could mean close to $100 million in unexpected revenue. Of course, Perks has been warning for weeks that the $774 million number that Mayor Rob Ford and his allies have …

5:51 AM: More hilarity, courtesy of defeated mayoral candidate HiMY SYeD. Begins: “We need to acknowledge the city staff and clerks, they are the unsung heroes of this.” (This is true.) Then continues: “I’m a member of Ford Nation. Nobody was gonna do it, so I stepped up.” …

City Hall  | By Matthew Kupfer | July 29, 2011
Daily Cable | The Toronto Standard
For almost 20 hours, from 11:30 am Thursday to about 6:40 Friday, Toronto city hall was a democratic hotbed. Almost 340 people registered to speak before the Executive Committee of city council, at the invitation of Mayor Rob Ford. They were there to talk about the KPMG Core Service Review.
“This is one of the proudest days I’ve ever had at city hall,” the mayor said, acknowledging that not everyone agrees, …

By Meg Campbell, Torontoist

Rob Ford’s CP24 interview with Stephen LeDrew last Friday raised many an eyebrow amongst City Hall watchers. Edward Keenan did some lightning-fast fact-checking for the Grid, and over the weekend Ford For Toronto writer (and Torontoist guest contributor) Matt Elliott put together his own debunking analysis of the interview. Elliott recommends people see the full interview before watching his edited version (above).
Margaret Atwood apparently has an Oprah-like influence over her legion of followers. When she tweeted about the petition to protect Toronto’s libraries, hosted on the …

Just this week the mayor stated that 70% of the phone calls he’s received have been in favour of removing the bike lanes. But as HiMY SYeD tweeted today, when he called to register his pro-bike lane view a staffer for the mayor informed him they weren’t keeping track of who called or their position on the matter. Where’s the mayor’s information coming from then?

By CitySlikr in All Fired Up In The Big Smoke
My Endorsement For Mayor: HiMY SYeD.
He calls himself The Peoples’ Mayor. It is not empty campaign rhetoric. As Mr. SYeD correctly points out, this race has been all about things. Tax cuts, subways and gravy trains. Where are the people?
Semantics, you say? A little, perhaps. But our front running candidates have all been talking about what they are going to do for people, to people. HiMY SYeD talks about what he’ll do with people. Civic engagement sits at …

From Dandyhorse Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 2 // Fall 2010
Rob Ford
“Working for the People”
Age 41, High school football coach, City Councillor for Ward 2 North Etobicoke, helps run the family business Deco Labels and Tags.
robfordformayor.ca
OLD QUOTE: “I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.” — 2007
NEW QUOTE: “I will guarantee to trim the fat…at City Hall.”
BIKE LANES: No
DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: A 2007 city council video (now a …

From All Fired Up In The Big Smoke
This one’s mine.
My colleagues here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke are too compromised. Too caught up in the race. Too waist deep into the mindset of strategic voting and settling for A.B.F.
I am an old hippie. It’s not a label I shun. In fact, I embrace it.
As an old hippie, I retain a mighty mistrust of institutions, especially those ones that influence us greatly but seem impervious to our presence. Those we can only ignore as …

By Kelly Grant, The Globe and Mail
Well, this is guaranteed to be a time-sucker inside at least five campaign offices in Toronto.
OneStop Media, the company behind the TV screens in TTC stations, has unveiled a new game called Mayoral Munch. It’s Pac-Man with a political twist.
Players select one major mayoral candidate to be Pac-Man, which automatically turns the other four into baddies.
The candidate picked most often sits atop a constantly updated poll that will be displayed on OneStop’s screens across Toronto.

HiMY SYeD – Fast forward to the 3:17 mark
As of …

By Mike Adler, InsideToronto
Avvy Go, a lawyer working with Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrants, follows Toronto’s race for mayor and for a month she’s felt depressed.
Ever since Rob Ford spoke of his desire to close the door on newcomers – saying the city can’t take care of the people it has – “it seems like everybody else is trying to race to the bottom along with him,” Go told a mayoral debate this week.
Members of her own community have echoed Ford’s comments, said Go, representing the Colour of Poverty campaign …

Yesterday was a decisive day in the 2010 campaign for mayor of Toronto because September 13th will be seen as the moment we finally achieved critical mass for crazy. In taking the battle for the Spadina Expressway underground, Rocco Rossi firmly confirmed his divisive status, going for broke with a full frontal assault on the downtown core in an effort to endear himself to those dwelling both physically and psychologically in Ford Country. We wish Mr. Rossi well in whatever future endeavours he pursues after …

By Mike Adler, InsideToronto
Underdogs and also-rans take heart: more change than usual is coming to city council, a gathering of non-incumbent candidates heard Monday, Sept. 13.
It’s normally “near impossible” to defeat a city councillor, and some can be with us for decades, but on Oct. 25 nine of 44 council seats have no incumbent running, said Himy Syed, a mayoral candidate who called council challengers to a Bloor Street church to help shorten their odds of winning.
In the front row was Daniel Murton, running to unseat Pam McConnell in Ward …

By Kelly Grant, The Globe and Mail
Update: A white knight has emerged! It’s Weizhen Tang, the alleged ponzi schemer who calls himself the “Chinese Warren Buffett.” He just registered for mayor.
It’s 2 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2010. If you’re one of those white knights Torontonians have been begging to jump into the mayor’s race, you have exactly 24 hours to make up your mind. Registrations close tomorrow at 2 p.m. David Miller? Adam Vaughan? Bueller? In the likely event that a hero doesn’t emerge, the field is set. Thirty-eight people …

From Toronto Star Photo Blog, July 2010
Some of the best of Toronto Star photo department’s best pictures of the Hot month of July!

Now, we don’t want anybody to finish this post and walk away thinking it’s an out-and-out endorsement of Mr. SYeD. It’s too early for that. Questions still remain that need to be answered. But we will confess to having somewhat of a crush on the candidate, politically speaking of course. So consider what follows to be an unapologetic endorsement of HiMY SYeD being taken very, very seriously as a candidate for mayor of Toronto in 2010.

By Natalie Alcoba, National Post
Mayoral candidates tusselled over whether or not to extend the vote to non-citizens during a debate under the vaulted ceilings of U of T’s Hart House last night, with Rocco Rossi and Rob Ford agreeing it’s not the way to go.
Mr. Rossi said it is an issue he has been “torn on for years,” but has concluded that Canada’s requisite three years of residency to achieve citizenship makes it “not a lot to ask, relative to every other country on …

By Jon Sufrin, Toronto Life

The Rebel Mayor situation, the municipal election’s only fun gossip story so far, may have ended before it was spoken of outside of city hall. For the uninitiated, an anonymous tweeter known as Rebel Mayor has been poking fun at just about every public figure in Toronto since November 2009, with a particular emphasis on mayoral candidates. The identity of the musket-wielding, Scotch-swilling, Prius-driving, old English–spouting reincarnation of William Lyon Mackenzie (who chronicles the travails of his “team” as he campaigns to reclaim his place as Toronto’s mayor) …

By Natalie Alcoba, National Post
UPDATE 9:48 p.m. ET: A cryptic email neither confirms nor denies the identity of Twitter’s “Rebel Mayor.”
An email sent by the National Post to Himy Syed, whose duplicate tweet earlier today led to speculation he was Rebel Mayor, received this response:

“‘Team’ has withdrawn Blackberry privileges until further notice. xo”

—
Has a mystery older than the municipal election — and generating practically as much interest among City Hall keeners — been solved?
Rebel Mayor (@rebelmayor), the reincarnation of William Lyon Mackenzie on Twitter, has been amusing followers since November with …

By Jackson Proskow, Global News  Toronto
He was Toronto’s first mayor, and leader of the Upper Canada rebellion. These days he’s best known for working with his “Team” to add a musket rack to his Prius.
Confused? So is most of City Hall.
For the last few months someone has been posing as William Lyon Mckenzie on Twitter – under the handle “rebelmayor.” (The rebel describes himself as “Toronto’s first mayor – 1837 rebellion starter – back & pissed & running for Toronto mayor in 2010”). The question of just who this person might …

Dave Meslin leading City Idol contestants on a tour of City Hall’s second floor in May 2006.  Photo by HiMY SYeD.
By Jonathan Goldsbie, Spacing
An A+ way to sheepishly admit something of which you’re not proud is to put out a release at 4:16 on a Friday afternoon.  Hence, we can infer that the City is not terribly keen on the press picking up on the draconian new measures taking effect in just over a week’s time that will fundamentally alter the way that the public — advocates, lobbyists, …

By JENNIFER LEWINGTON, The Globe and Mail
As soon as the bell rang yesterday to kick off the Toronto election race, a contingent of fresh and familiar faces quickly put their names on the ballot for Oct. 25.
First among the 40 who signed up on day one of the municipal campaign, up from 24 on the first day of the 2006 contest, was former Liberal Party national director Rocco Rossi, bidding to succeed Mayor David Miller.
“I will be able to put the team and the money in place to put a …

Photo: HiMY SYeD / photopia, on Flickr
By Corina, blogTO
If you were lucky enough to have missed the garbage strike in Toronto in 2002 (or any of the subsequent service disruptions since) don’t worry – in this city it’s becoming a regular tradition.
Only a few short years since the last strike, City workers have again walked off the job, shutting down services like summer camps and swimming pools, and suspending Toronto trash collection. Nothing says summer like a stinking city full of kids on summer vacation …

Photos 1, 4 and 5 by HiMY SYeD.
Desi Talk in Toronto, May 2 2008, Page 6.

By The Mississauga Muse
This week in the Blog entry, “Who Runs this Town?” Announcement –City Idol documentary World Premiere” I shared a press release from the good folks at Who Runs this Town?
It began:
“For anyone who is interested in city politics, civic engagement, social exclusion and creative activism, this film is for you!
“City Idol” will have its world premiere at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival…
and later stated:
“World Premiere: Thursday April 26th, 9:30pm. Royal Cinema”
Well, my husband and I decided to go see it. I went because some of the …

By Matthew Blackett, Spacing Votes

Himy Syed, a Spacing Photos contributor and a candidate in Ward 19, has posted a video of the press conference announcing the final number of candidates registered for the 2006 municipal election.
Greg Essensa, Director of Elections and Registry Services, fields questions from a small group of reporters.
Himy has also created a You Tube group for videos of the 2006 election.

By Jennifer Lewington, The Globe and Mail, page A13
Some fresh political faces with ambitions to pack off a few city hall lifers this Nov. 13 election day dropped by the clamshell this week.
With a Toronto protocol official as guide, candidates in the City Idol talent contest — the non-profit grassroots group formed to liven up local politics — got the cook’s tour.
On Thursday, about 15 of the 43 political wannabes dropped by the mayor’s office, checked in with election services and sat in briefly on a live session of council. …