By Derek Flack, blogTO
So yesterday’s vote to return to an LRT-based transit strategy for Toronto (one that looks a lot like the former phase one Transit City plans) was kind of a big deal — regardless of which of the competing plans you hoped would win the day. Ranging from elation to frustration, there’s been no shortage of reaction to the events at city hall. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s being said in the aftermath of one the most significant city council decisions in …

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 …

From Centre for City Ecology
Last night was Day 1 of Toronto Talks Mobility, the Transportation Month event hosted by the University of Toronto’s Cities Centre and the Canadian Urban Transit Association which continues today at Wynchwood Barns.
Students from the University of Toronto’s Workshop in Planning Practice will be writing summaries of this event and we will post them on our mobiliTO project page in the next couple of weeks. For now, here are some press articles and photos and comments from Twitter, like these:
nowtoronto The catchphrase of tonight is “value …

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 Edward Keenan

The GRID TO

Former mayoral candidate Himy Syed recently joked on Twitter that Doug Ford needs more security protection than Rob since, if anything were to happen to Doug, Rob would become mayor.

By Dave Meslin, Mez Dispenser
Here’s the May 30 election snapshot,  a monthly look at how municipal candidates are distributed across our grand city.
Fourteen new candidates registered this month, in twelve wards.  Three candidates dropped out.
There are still four acclaimed candidates, two of which are incumbents: Peter Milczyn & Chin Lee.
HiMY SYeD dropped out of the ward 19 race, to run for mayor.
The highest number of candidates is ward 27 (Kyle Rae’s ward) with 13 candidates.  Want to meet them all?  A group called #VoteTO is hosting an “All Candidate Gameshow” on Thursday …

By Joe T., BikingToronto
The first photos I’ve seen of the Toronto Bike Awards (that took place last night) are from HiMY Syed via twitter and twitpic:

Why Vote?
Video Produced by Who Runs This Town
Headshot photos by HiMY SYeD.

By Dale Duncan, Eye Weekly
The Music Hall is almost packed when the lights dim and David Meslin walks onto the stage to kick off City Idol, the first in a series of events during which audience members will choose four candidates to run in November’s municipal election. The show is starting a bit behind schedule, and the crowd of nearly 600 people is getting anxious; after all, they have decided to spend their Friday night listening to a marathon of 82 back-to-back speeches by wannabe politicians.
It’s pure coincidence auditions for …

By Mike Smith
The buzz in the Danforth Music Hall on April 28 rivals that before a concert. It doesn’t feel like I’m about to witness municipal politics. City staffers mingle with local hipsters and artistic agitators of all ages. Tracks by local-kids-made-good Metric play over the sound system, nuggets of cerebral alt-pop presaging candidates straining to cram inventiveness into 60-second speeches.
This is City Idol, brainchild of Dave Meslin and the Who Runs This Town? project, in which nigh on 100 hopefuls will compete for a modestly funded municipal election campaign.
Meslin …

By St Dan, BlogTO
We live in a city where 44% of the population is represented by 2.5% of the councilors; where 60% of the population don’t exercise their civic franchise; where a councilor is nearly as likely to be acclaimed as to lose their seat; and where most people don’t even know when the next election is. Dave Meslin wants to change all that. I sat down with him at Cafe Diplomatico to talk about City Idol, his new project to increase public …

By Dale Duncan
Eye Weekly, February 16, 2006
BUZZ
Political karaoke

With the federal election finally out of the way, political nerds are now free to focus on the municipal race. Unfortunately, Toronto city council elections don’t usually attract a throng of loyal followers. Those who get off on municipal elections are a dying breed, a trend that’s reflected in our low voter turnout.
In 2003, only 38 per cent of Torontonians bothered to vote. According to Dave Meslin, this lack of participation has a lot to do with the way our city elections …