The clock has almost struck midnight on David Miller’s tenure as our city’s evil overlord, and the news this past Saturday that he would not seek re-election in 2010 came with rave reviews!

Let’s count down Miller’s top five faux-passssss….

Here is something I bet you didn’t know: David Miller is actually American, as he was born in San Francisco in 1958… 

I never really believed much in God before, but clearly somebody is looking down on us Torontonians with extreme pity and empathy.  David Miller’s approval rating has to be hovering somewhere between 0% – 2% after the last six years of destruction of our city and yet it came as a surprise to many to hear that he won’t seek re-election in 2010.

This means that he has barely a year left to implement ridiculous new laws, tax schemes, and plans to destroy the city’s infrastructure.

It’s been a long haul, but the finish line is in sight.

Here are the top FOUR memorable moments from David Miller’s tenure.  Why four?  Well, I need some room at the bottom to detail how I already don’t like his two potential replacements…

#4: Demolition of the Gardiner Expressway

Read my previous blog post here.

I’m not sure who Miller was trying to win over with this bonehead idea, but despite the traffic analysts predictions that the lack of a Gardiner Expressway will only add a couple of minutes to our commutes through the city, I don’t think you need to be a mathematician to know that this prediction is DEAD WRONG!

Imagine driving east on the Queen Elizabeth Way into the city and all of a sudden you fall off a cliff…..metaphorically speaking.  The Gardiner disappears and you are thrust into the Lake Shore with all the other traffic.

I’m no mathematician, but the Lake Shore is four lanes, and the Gardiner is three.

That makes SEVEN lanes to accommodate the traffic, which we know is already immense.

If you demolish the Gardiner Expressway, you take all those cars from seven lanes and force them to use four on the Lake Shore.

How is this not going to create a problem?

And what is the point of this anyways?

I already wrote about how awful and ugly our Toronto waterfront is, so it’s not like removing a kilometre of freeway is going to pretty it up.

Is this about money?  Is this about saving a few bucks to fill pot-holes?  Here’s an idea: why not construct a toll-booth on the outside of the city limits to collect a dollar from every car that comes in from Hamilton, St. Catherines, and the like?  Why don’t they pay to use our city roads, since they’re already driving in to take jobs away from Torontonians?  They pay property taxes in their cities, buy groceries and pay for daycare in their cities, yet they use our roads for free!  More on this later…

#3: Jarvis Bike Lanes

Read my previous blog post here.

On Saturday afternoon, I sat in my car on Jarvis Street between Dundas & Shuter for about five full minutes without moving.  Every single lane (all five) was jammed with cars and the whole street was panic and gridlock.  People frantically changed lanes in hopes of finding some move to maneuver and honked their horns to no avail.

It took me about ten minutes to get from Richmond to Charles, and I smiled as I thought about just how much worse it would be if the five lanes were reduced to four.

Thanks to David Miller, we’ll soon get to find out!

David Miller rides his bike to work, and thus he had no qualms about bringing dedicated bike lanes to Jarvis Street and reducing the number of lanes for cars.  The result, of course, will be more traffic in a city that is already famous (can anybody say Los Angeles?) for it’s ridiculous traffic.

Jarvis Street is the main artery that connects downtown to uptown, via Mount Pleasant Avenue.

And you don’t have to watch C.S.I. to know what happens when you sever or clog an artery!

Once again, I am baffled by why David Miller put this action plan into place, and who he is trying to placate.  The number of drivers in our city outnumbers the bikers by tens of thousands, and it’s not like the traffic is getting any better.  So why make it worse just to appease the few that do bike?

And consider that with winter 4-5 months per year in our city – those bike lanes won’t even be used!

This is Miller’s greatest example of his bleeding-heart mentality, but I think it also demonstrates his lack of foresight as well.

#2: Toronto’s Garbage Strike

Read my previous blog post here.

I remember showing a unit to a client on Portland Street in Toronto’s thriving King West area, and everything was going swimmingly until we opened the sliding door to the patio.

In this gorgeous, model-suite-like unit, we stepped outside and were hit with the stench of rotting garbage like a Muhammad Ali punch to the gut.

The unit backs on to King Street and overlooks the alleyway behind a restaurant on King itself.  Since the gabage workers were on strike, this restaurant decided to pile up a mountain of garbage that was about ten feet high and twenty feet deep!  The 33-degree heat on this particular day, and during this particular time of July, did not help matters at all!

I don’t think there was a single person in Toronto who wasn’t affected by the garbage strike, and everybody has their own tales to tell.

But public opinion showed that almost 3/4 of Torontonians didn’t support the garbage workers, but David Miller threw a cold shoulder to his constituents and refused to play hard ball with the workers.  He eventually gave them what they wanted, and the public endured five weeks of our city looking and smelling like a third-world country.

Now we read in the papers that Miller has laughed off the notion of a rebate to Torontonians for all the money the city “saved” by not paying the workers for five weeks.

What a moron.

A real hard-ass politician would have made that union crumble in about five minutes, or even better – would have worked around them!

But Miller handled this like a total wimp, and we all know the rest of the story…

#1: Toronto’s New Land Transfer Tax

Read my previous blog posts here, here, and here. 

You awake one morning.

You find a goose in your kitchen.

The goose lays a golden egg.

Do you keep the goose and collect its daily bounty of golden eggs?  Or do you kill the goose and eat it?

The real estate industry was the engine that fueled the economy for 5-6 years, and rather than looking at this in a positive light and trying to use the industry to keep that engine running, David Miller decided to use this industry as an added source of tax for the city.

He effectively doubled the existing Land Transfer Tax by adding his own version to the existing Ontario tax, and in the process made it much more unaffordable for property buyers.

Sales decreased as affordability dipped, and the effects of the new tax were felt.

Our short-lived “recession” took place around the same time as the new taxes were brought in, but that’s a coincidence….right?

It’s not so much the actual money we have to pay for the tax itself that bothers me; it’s David Miller’s thought process.  He’s willing to implement a new tax for a short-term gain, but in the process, he could have killed the goose that lays the golden egg! 

A study conducted by Altus Clayton for the Canadian Real Estate Association determined that every resale housing transaction in Ontario generates approximately $33,425 in economic spin-off for things like renovations, furniture, appliances, etc.  David Miller was going to chase an additional tax base with the new Land Transfer Tax, but in the process he would severely decrease the number of resale transactions that fuel the economy to the tune of $33,425!

Again, lack of foresight.

Here’s an idea on how to collect new taxes!  As I alluded to above, I would be in favor of erecting a toll booth on the west city limits of the Gardiner Expressway and charging a single dollar to each car that drove into our city each day.  How many residents of Oakville, Burlington, and St. Catherines commute to Toronto to work here and earn a living, but return home to spend money in their own cities?  Their economic spin-off takes place in their home towns (save for their $5 subs at Quizno’s for lunch), yet they use our roads for free.

The Province stopped paying for roads over a decade ago; leaving the municipalities to fend for themselves.  Maintaining the roads in Toronto is probably one of the largest expenditures our city has, yet they don’t collect a dime from anyone or anything outside of Toronto.

Bring in toll roads, charge the out-of-towners, and stop increasing our taxes!

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So who is going to replace David Miller?

Among others, two key names have surfaced: Giorgio Mammoliti and George Smitherman.

Giorgio Mammoliti, you say?

Giorgio of “I want to bring affordable housing to Rosedale” fame?

Since the dawn of man, there have been “rich and poor,” or perhaps “well-off and not-so-well-off.”

There is a reason that Rosedale attracts the demographic that it attracts, and I believe that it should remain as such.

I’m not saying that all poor people are criminals, but I am saying that there is a reason that Regent Park, St. Jamestown and “The Oaks” have higher crime rates than Rosedale and Forest Hill.

If people work hard to make money because they want to live in a more “exclusive” area like Rosedale, how and why can you come in and put affordable housing right next door and bring “The Oaks” into Rosedale?

George Smitherman, you say?

George of “Bill 150: Green Energy Audit” fame?

I applaud George Smitherman’s committment to the green-movement, but his idea to include MANDATORY green-energy-audits in all real estate transactions is counter-productive.

Since there are no measures in place to enforce the findings and reccomendations of the audit itself, there is no purpose in holding up all real estate transactions for the audit.

But George still thinks that ALL real estate transactions, big or small, should be conditional on the performance of a green energy audit.

That means if you want to buy a $300,000 condo, you may have to wait four weeks to firm up your deal so a green-auditor can come in, look around, and place a few checks in a few boxes.

Oh – and if you’re an 80-year-old grandma who wants to rent her basement out for $450 per month, you also have to complete this audit….by law.

David Miller, you were absolutely awful as our city’s mayor.

But we thought the same thing about Mel Lastman during his tenure, and now he doesn’t seem so bad by comparison!

In three years, is it at all possible that we’ll long for days when Davey-Boy was in office?

I shudder to think…