Toronto library board member quits, calls TPL a "$165,000,000 annual burden"

Stephen Dulmage made a splash as a rookie member of Toronto's library board.

While other members focused on trying to minimize cuts in an austerity budget, Dulmage advocated "closing 38 branches, warehousing books, eliminating computers, and other budget measures that baffled board colleagues of all political stripes," the Star's Daniel Dale wrote last November.

Board members had been invited by the chief librarian to make money-saving suggestions as alternatives to Sunday closures and hours reductions. Dulmage is a chartered accountant and former chief financial officer of Dominion Securities who donated to mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi during the 2010 civic election campaign.

Dulmage has quit the library board with a flourish. In his May 2 resignation letter obtained by the Star, Dulmage wrote to library board chair Councillor Paul Ainslie:

Hi Paul

I resign as a Director.

After 6 months as a Director, I see that the Board has no will for needed change. TPL is a $165,000,000 annual burden for City Taxpayers which could easily be done for $100,000,000, stuck with a bricks and mortar model when people now go online to search for books. 2 consultant reports have told us we have too many branches and in fact there are 3 times as many branches south of St. Clair as compared to north of St. Clair!

The Branches have been turned into Community Centres offering programmes and services duplicating other Government Agencies ... Toronto already has 200 Community Centres !!

I could go on with a long list of other problems and misdirections ... but won't as you know of them.

steve

keep moving forward !!

During 2010 campaign, Rob Ford told voters he would keep 5-cent bag fee

The city-mandated 5-cent fee Toronto retailers charge customers for plastic shopping bags was not part of Mayor Rob Ford's 2010 election platform. Ford didn't like that the fee imposed under David Miller went straight into merchants' pockets, but was not thought to have taken a strong stand on the fee's future.

But a reader pointed us to this audio from an Oct. 20, 2010 debate with Joe Pantalone and George Smitherman, moderated by John Tory. Five days before the election, candidate Ford said: "The five-cent bag tax, I haven't said I'm going to eliminate it but I'm going to put it towards some sort of environmental program to educate people about the environment. Putting it in the pocket of the owner of a convenience store or something, that defeats the purpose. It's not helping. There's less plastic going to our landfills, which is good, but you know what, why is it going into their pocket? Lets put it into some sort of environmental program that will help educate people about the environment and take it from there."

Fordkeepsbagfee

Then, one month after taking office, Ford said he wanted to kill the fee.

Earlier this month, Ford said: "This bag tax has been around too long." Later, he led his executive committee in voting to do kill it.

What Ford was talking about on the eve of the 2010 election sounds a lot like what Councillor Michelle Berardinetti is saying now  -- keep the plastic-reducing fee but find a way to aim it at the environment. She wants to start an incentive program to get big retailers diverting some of their bag profits to green initiatives including the city's tree canopy.

Council is expected to decide the bag fee's future at its June 6-7 meeting.