The Toronto Transit Commission board will be dissolved Monday and a new board will be set up in its place, according to current chair Karen Stintz.
Stintz said Friday that was seen as the best way to get a new board up and running quickly.
“We felt the cleanest thing to do was dissolve the entire commission,” she said. “My concern was new members wouldn’t get on until June and that wouldn’t give the TTC the stability it needs.”
Proposed changes to the makeup of the commission could alter the course of the city’s transit future and restore control of the hot potato file to Mayor Rob Ford.
Ford, meanwhile, went on AM 640 radio Friday night to say the nine councillors on the commission, including Stintz, should not put their names forward to serve on the new commission.
“If she’s going to change some of it, then I suggest we change everyone,” Ford said. “Everybody gets removed, including her as chair, the vice-chair and all the councillors, including the ones that support subways. If we’re going to start off with a new group, then let’s start from scratch.”
Stintz said she’s proposing a new board of seven councillors and four citizens, while the Ford administration had suggested six councillors and five citizens. The chair would be a councillor.
The current commission is made up of nine councillors, although the TTC has had citizen commissioners in the past.
Council would be asked to approve the new composition and pick the seven councillors on Monday, she said. The citizen members would be added in June.
Stintz’s plan came as news to Councillor Frank Di Giorgio, one of the five commissioners who voted to fire chief general manager Gary Webster for favouring LRTs while Ford backs subways.
Di Giorgio said it’s likely Stintz has the votes to replace the five Ford loyalists, who he said all want to continue serving on the commission.
The city could end up with an LRT-oriented commission that’s at odds with Ford’s ambition to build subways.
“I suspect she’s probably got her votes lined up,” Di Giorgio said. “It may turn out to be a coup.”
Stintz, however, said she wants a voting process whereby councillors can nominate themselves or others to go on the commission and council will vote on each candidate.
“There won’t be a slate,” she said. “Anybody can be nominated or put themselves forward.”
Stintz said long, drawn-out debate shouldn’t be necessary.
“It doesn’t need to be painful. And the outcome is that it will reflect the will of council.”
She also said she expects the politicians on the board — including five Ford loyalists who engineered the firing of TTC chief general manager Gary Webster last month — would remain until June, when the players could potentially change.
But if the mayor wins a key transit vote in the meantime, those same councillors would retain control of the transit agenda.
Council is expected to decide on March 21 whether to proceed with Ford’s subway dream for Sheppard Ave. E. or an above-ground LRT.
Whether it’s nine or 11 members, the commission should be dominated by councillors and it should have a politician as chair, agreed city councillor James Pasternak, who said he supports the subway.
“The chair should never be a civilian. You have to have electoral accountability if you’re charting the third-largest transit system in North America,” he said. “To have a civilian in that position, I think that’s a high-risk strategy.”
Pasternak is vice-chair of the civic appointments committee, which met Friday morning to begin strategizing on how to vet the dozens of applications it expects from private citizens who want a place on the commission.
Given the highly charged political atmosphere around the transit file, the appointment process is expected to come under severe scrutiny.
Pasternak said there is talk of using an outside recruiter and a longer interview process than the typical 15 minutes that most city committee and board appointments receive.
“Those are the people who are going to chart the course of the next few years,” said Pasternak. “We need transit visionaries.”
Although he hasn’t heard any city councillors disagree with the notion of private citizens on the TTC, support isn’t unanimous, said current TTC commissioner Maria Augimeri.
“For full accountability, you must have politicians,” she said.
Pasternak said he was skeptical that the new private board members could be selected by June.
Meanwhile, councillors being wooed by Ford to support the Sheppard subway extension are telling him to look beyond Scarborough, especially if new city-wide fees or taxes are on the table.
In a recent meeting with Ford, centrist councillors Mary-Margaret McMahon and Ana Bailão pushed construction of a “downtown relief line” connecting the Yonge and Bloor lines. McMahon also pitched rapid transit to serve communities springing up on the eastern downtown waterfront.
“If we can find the funding pot of gold, a combination of road tolls and parking levies or whatever to build transit in Toronto, let’s spread the love,” said McMahon (Ward 32, Beaches-East York).
Bailão (Ward 18, Davenport) wants to see a “realistic business plan” for a Sheppard subway at a March 21 special council meeting, and long-term solutions including the relief line to ease chronic overcrowding.
Ford showed no enthusiasm but “didn’t say no,” McMahon noted.
