let the games begin!!

it truly is a glorious day. it's damp, dark, and it's december.

december 1st. today torontonians woke up to their new reality: mayor rob ford.

we did this to ourselves, my friends, and now we have to pay the price. but who says it has to be all bad? if the price for voter apathy and bad organizing is that now we have to be hyper attentive to city politics, watch-dog style, then fair enough.

i couldn't wait to read the news this morning, warm up the twitter, and get going. i feel like this is probably how hunters feel when hunting season opens--finally, fair game!!

until now all we could do was speculate about what ford would do but now we get to see it in action. hopefully noone's expectations were disappointed by his first big move--the complete and total destruction of public transportation in our great city.

in his own words: "transit city's over."

transit city, the long term plan for the city's public transit, is already underway and the ontario government has already spent approximately $130 million dollars on the plan. the city has also signed contracts worth about $1.3 billion for things like new streetcars.

that's a lot of money and planning to just scrap.

councillor josh matlow was quoted in the toronto star as saying he believes that city council should "have an opportunity for discussion about public transit in this city" because "transit affects everyone in every corner of the city and there are millions of tax dollars at stake."

he says he respects that ford was elected on the mandate of public transit, but points out that councillors were elected with mandates supporting transit city and there needs to be "responsible, thoughtful discussion."

i've got news for you, matlow, thoughtful and responsible discussion is a thing of the past.

so rob ford was elected because he said he'd kill transit city. so how about we not let rob ford supporters be the loudest voices? CALL city hall. CALL mayor rob ford. CALL your city councillor. send them all emails. tell them that although rob ford was elected mayor, he wasn't elected into the position of emperor and city council still has the imperative to represent everyone in the city not just the people who voted for ford.

you can email the new mayor (mayor_ford@toronto.ca)
you can call him here: 416 397 2489. you can also find your city councillor here.

let's just be proactive and not crazy. clearly standing at city hall "protesting" a democratic election isn't going to do anything but make us look like sore fucking losers. also, if you didn't vote, you don't GET to protest.

so let's do our best to look on the bright side of things-- we have to wake up and get involved, we can't be pouty babies about this, and we have four years of great gravy themed jokes ahead of us.