Mon., March 5, 5:30 p.m. Council Chambers, City Hall. Mayor Rob Ford Returns to the floor of Council looking “very unhappy,” after stepping out to take a brief phone call. He appeared confused about the nature of the call when the phone had been handed to him, says man-about-town and former mayoral candidate Himy Syed, but Ford answered it in an upbeat manner. Syed says that he heard the mayor and his staff repeatedly refer to the call as coming from the Premier’s Office, but a spokesperson for Premier McGuinty denies that he contacted Mayor Ford that afternoon.

By Caitlin Orr — Rye Here, Rye Now
Normally, someone walking through St. James Town encounters a bouquet of scents from diverse residents’ cooking. Two months ago, the acrid smell of smoke overwhelmed all else within blocks of the neighbourhood, in every direction. A six-alarm blaze spread to at least two apartments in 200 Wellesley on September 24, a high-rise managed by Toronto Community Housing.
Authorities have still not determined the cause of the fire, but it was very difficult to put out because of a lot of “combustible debris” in the …

Joe Pantalone 51.6%  | George Smitherman 22.6%  | Himy Syed 12.9%
Toronto Mayor Round 6

By John Ford, Vote By Choice
OTTAWA – People participating in a Ranked Choice Voting experiment have cast ballots parallel to the 2010 Ontario municipal elections.
While in the experiment the Ottawa Mayoral contest was won on the first ballot, the Toronto Mayor was elected after six ballots needed to break the fifty percent plus one threshold.
Joe Pantalone was able to achieve 51.6% with distributed votes from dropped candidates Rob Ford, Sarah Thomson, and Abdullah-Baquie Ghazi.
George Smitherman reached 22.6% …

By Hollie Pollard, CommonCentsMom
Dear Mr Syed,
First and foremost I wanted thank you for the race you have run as candidate for this great city of Toronto.
Himy, months ago when I came back I was part of the masses who thought politicians could not be trusted. I had been involved in politics when I was younger and had come to hate the backrooms of politics. I had come to hate the process. I felt that we the average citizen really did not make a difference. I had …

From Take The Tooker
50 politically motivated cyclists took to Bloor today (Oct. 23) to say “We Bike We Vote”.
En route they were greeted by Mayoral hopeful Himy Syed who redirected cyclists to the car drop-off loop across from Trinity Bellwoods Park, jumped on a table, and passionately articulated his desire for a bicycle-friendly city.
The mass then took their message for bike lanes on Bloor to the offices of Councillor Vaughan, and Mayoral hopefuls Joe Pantalone and George Slitherman.

Vote on Monday, Oct. 25th for bike friendly Council candidates! …

By John Michael McGrath, Toronto Life
One of the much talked-about aspects of Calgary’s recent election has been how Naheed Nenshi successfully transformed social media, Twitter especially, into a campaign tool. Compare that innovation with how Toronto’s candidates have been using social media, and our mayoral hopefuls do not come out looking great. Yes, all of the major candidates—and most of the minor ones—have been using Twitter and Facebook. But no, it hasn’t mattered a lot. If Web smarts had been a major force in this campaign, we’d all be asking ourselves if prolific …

CP24′s “Your Vote – Toronto’s Race for Mayor”
Final Televised CP24 Mayoral Debate
Aired Tuesday October 19, 2010, 8 p.m.

Your Vote – Part 3
4 minute 10 second mark:
GEORGE SMITHERMAN: My first question is to Councillor Pantalone. Three weeks ago you said you would vote for me if you were not on the ballot. Since that time, a report card from ArtsVote gave me an A+, a higher mark than you receive. The Toronto Environmental Alliance gave us both A+. So I was a bit surprised to hear you encourage people …

Report by Michael Pihach, InTorontoMagTv
Mayoral debate at The 519
Two of Toronto’s top three mayoral candidates took questions from the public at the 519 Church St. Community Centre on October 18.
Issues discussed included funding for HIV/AIDS prevention, support for local business, safe injection sites and bed bugs.
IN Toronto was there.
Candidate Rob Ford was not.

From CommonCentsMom
When I was not happy with the top five candidates that the Media was putting out front and central I went looking for a candidate I could support. I was looking for a candidate with a workable plan. I was looking for a candidate who cared. I was looking for for a candidate who understood the backbone of the city of my birth, the city that I love.
I found Mr Syed in my Twitter stream. He had followed me because well most of the …

YIMBY 2010
Himy Syed – Peoples’ Mayor
4th Annual YIMBY (Yes, In My Backyard)
Saturday, Oct 16, 2010 11am-4 pm
Gladstone Gallery
This October, the Gladstone Hotel with the help of Ryerson University is presented the 4th Annual YIMBY Festival. The YIMBY (Yes, In My Backyard) Festival provides a social space for your community groups and citizen’s organizations to gather and exchange ideas and strategies. YIMBY provides an opportunity for neighbours to meet neighbours, citizens to meet politicians and politicians to meet community groups, in the spirit of people coming together to say YES to …

Interview in Dandyhorse Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 2 // Fall 2010

SWEET (BIKE) DREAMS
Himy Syed, mayoral candidate

What role does the bicycle play in your life?
Bike, foot, transit, taxi. In that order, is how I prioritize how I choose to move about this city. The bicycle for me is what shoes are to most people. It’s my feet. When duties demand I be in and around the downtown core, being on a bike is much faster and more convenient than depending on the ever-increasing iffyness of our subway or streetcars. A quick …

By Mike Adler, InsideToronto
There was one question everyone came to ask – the one about money.
And yes, the leading candidates to be Toronto’s mayor – save one – seemed to promise the arts community will get a lot more.
That one candidate, for those familiar with the city’s mayoral race, was no surprise.
“I would love to be able to promise it, but we’re $3 billion in debt,” Rob Ford told 400 artists, art patrons and arts workers at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Etobicoke councillor voted this year to support a …

Cycling advocates aim to grow awareness amongst candidates of cyclists’ concerns with current conditions.
By Yvonne Bambrick, Toronto Cyclists Union
Toronto, September 27, 2010 – In an effort to share the daily experience of thousands of cycle commuters, the Toronto Cyclists Union led 8 of the Mayoral Candidates on a 30 minute rush-hour commute by bicycle this morning. Candidates were invited to share their experience & plans with the media at a 9:15am press conference following the ride.
Yvonne Bambrick, the Toronto Cyclists Union’s Director of Communications led today’s 20 person ride …

From rtlechow’s posterous

By Steve Kupferman, Torontoist
Today was Toronto’s tenth annual iteration of World Car Free Day. This year, for the first time, the event was held in Queen’s Park North, where roads were blockaded to car traffic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Few people turned out for the event, making it less a celebration of pedestrians and cyclists than a massive, desolate mid-day auto traffic obstruction.

Dan McDermott, director of Sierra Club Canada’s Ontario chapter, which orchestrated the event in partnership with the City, told …

Produced by calixtube
Do you vote for millionaires?
Give your head a shake!

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 …

In a bid to get a full list of the debates, his volunteer e-mailed 3-1-1. The city’s advice? Contact Rob Ford. Mr. Syed is livid that, in his view, 3-1-1 is stumping for a mayoral contender.

By Josh Hume, NOW Magazine

An incumbent councillor is harder to get rid of than a pool shark hogging a pub’s lone billiard table, dispatching all comers before they have a chance to sink a single shot.
To …

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 Matthew Woolley, blogTO
A gathering for “unincumbent” council candidates organized by mayoral candidate HiMY SYeD was held at Dovercourt Baptist Church yesterday.
About a dozen participated in the underdog’s pep rally – with nine city councillors retiring or running for mayor, it is an unusually open year for council candidates from any background or experience level.
But unlike their more visible, mayoral counterparts, these DIYers came out to encourage each other and swap stories.
“We’re all coming at you like vultures,” one candidate said.
When they’re off …

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 …

CBC Toronto interviewed me and aired a montage of community reaction to the arrests in Ottawa on Friday August 27, including my position as a Toronto Mayoral Candidate.
My clip begins at 6:45 minutes into the broadcast:
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Local_News/Toronto/ID=1576406259

HiMY SYeD
One of our city’s mayoral candidates for 2010
twitter.com/himysyed
Flickr Photo by Allan Chow.
Captured at Queen Street and University Avenue intersection during August 2010 Critical Mass group bike ride.

By Matthew Kupfer, Eye Weekly
HiMY SYeD wants a complete reboot of the city with citizens’ rights at the centre. No wonder he’s been accused on Twitter of impersonating Toronto’s original rebel mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie.

Video Produced by Kyle Perry.

Editorial in Share, Canada’s Largest Ethnic Newspaper
Former Ontario Conservative Party leader, John Tory, has put an end to speculation over his plans for October’s mayoralty race. He is not running.
Tory, who is already very active in civic life as Co-chair of the Toronto City Summit Alliance and has his own radio talk show, has made it clear that he will not run for mayor of Toronto a second time. This should end the public’s (and mainstream media’s) infatuation with the idea.
In response, a Toronto Star editorial stated, apparently without any intention …

By Darcy Higgins, Push Food Forward
Food Forward’s first event Eat In at City Hall’s new green roof was a great success, with about 50 people coming together to talk about food as a priority in the 2010 municipal election.
Special thanks to mayoral candidates, Keith Cole, Joe Pantalone, Himy Syed, Sarah Thomson, as well as several council and trustee candidates for joining us. View Joe preparing his lunch for the event, on his blog.
Policy ideas that were outlined as priorities for Toronto’s next Council can be found here.
Photo by Lip Liew

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!