The Race For Toronto’s Next Mayor

Quick hit for your Thursday – not sure how many of you live in Ward 16, but this evening I am hosting an informal event for current city counselor, Karen Stintz who is running for re-election.

This is an incredibly important election to those of us who live in Toronto and with no clear good choice for mayor, the local campaign for counselors is as important as ever.

So if you live in our ward please drop by tonight at 7pm to meet Karen.

Jonah

Toronto Mayoral Election

Hey all. One of the purposes of this blog was for all of us to share with each other things we are “working on” or interested in outside of the program that others may also be interested in. So with that in mind allow me to get on my soapbox for 10 seconds.

This coming fall, those of us in Toronto will be FINALLY having a mayoral election. While I am happy to discuss the candidates with anyone and why I think people should vote for specific candidates, this isn’t the form for this – yet 🙂 I will say and beg that at the very least you vote.

With that in mind, I wanted to let you know about an event I am going to be attending and my local city counselor whom I shall be supporting:

As many of you know, we are getting into the main campaign period for the municipal elections taking place in Ontario this fall.  While I have found it mildly interesting watching the beginnings of our mayoral race in Toronto, with the candidates jockeying for media attention and important positioning on the policy landscape, many would agree that the debate has not really hit its stride yet.

Toronto is in need of great ideas to develop a new vision for the future, and City of Toronto Councillor Karen Stintz made the decision months ago to not enter the mayoral race so she could work with all people to help surface the great ideas needed to return Toronto to greatness. 

Apart from being a great local councillor to her Ward 16 constituents, Karen has been one of the few to stand up to Mayor Miller and question many of the policy decisions being made behind closed doors, on behalf of all Torontonians.  Karen has worked hard to try to distance herself from the political issues that stand in the way of councillors working together to create a better Toronto, and she is running this fall not only for her own Ward 16 position, but as a champion of ideas from all parts of Toronto, to help build consensus of what citizens want the Toronto of tomorrow to look like, and to stay committed to this process instead of being distracted looking for votes.

There is an event to help raise some campaign funds for Karen on June 16, 2010 at Archeo, located in the Distillery District (55 Mill Street), from 6pm-8pm (drinks and snacks).  Please join me in showing our support of Karen at this event.  If you cannot attend, I would still appreciate a $150-$200 cheque that we can arrange to get from you.

To register, please either email Rhiannon Trial at traill@economicclub.ca or send cheque to The Economic Club at 80 Richmond Street West, Suite 501. M5H 2A4.  The event is $150 per person, with all proceeds going to the Karen Stintz Campaign.

As you likely know, personal donations of up to $750 can be contributed, and a City of Toronto rebate applies to all donations.  Your $150 results in a rebate of $112.50, so your actual cash cost to attend is $37.50 (my preferred payment of $200 has a rebate of $150, or a cash payment of $50).  Payment should be received in the form of cheque made payable to the “Karen Stintz Campaign”.

Thanks again everyone.  I really appreciate your help on this, and Karen would really appreciate the support to help enable her to keep surfacing new ideas and helping build the vision needed to return Toronto to greatness.

Jonah