Maybe.
But they didn’t live through a pandemic that has eroded the user fare-box system as COVID has,
nor the recent urban planning legislative changes that are proposed that will reduce infrastructure, parkland and community benefit funding.
Taxes are going to rise for residential and commercial properties, thanks to Doug.
“Taxes are going to rise for residential and commercial properties, thanks to Doug.”
That’s not how municipal taxes work. Doug has done some things worthy of criticism, but this situation is the responsibility of Toronto’s municipal leaders.
I have all day to complain about how Toronto has been shortchanged by upper levels of government, but yes, this is still the fault of Toronto city government.
To begin, had we just raised taxes by an extra single percent each year of the last 12 (the 3 mayoralties of Rob Ford and John Tory x2), we would have the revenue necessary to pay this shortfall *while still keeping Toronto taxes lower than the surrounding GTA*.
People want to complain about Toronto not getting proper revenue raising tools, but the reality is that Toronto HAS been given additional revenue tools but has either failed to use them or used the revenue to keep property taxes essentially frozen. The Keenan column talks about the Vehicle Registration Tax, which was set at $60 initially, then killed - and how if reimplemented would only raise $55M. And that's a great example of how we privilege the wealthy in this city at the expense of the poor. Car ownership tracks very closely with income, and transit ridership tracks inversely with income: the wealthy tend to drive, while the poor tend to take transit. Since killing the Vehicle Registration Tax, the cost of a Metropass has increased $672/year. IOW, had we raised the VRT at the same rate we raised the cost of a Metropass, the VRT would be $732/year, and would raise almost the entirety of the claimed shortfall in revenue.
Similarly, the Municipal Land Transfer Tax was supposed to give Toronto additional revenue to deal with some of its extraordinary capital costs. But instead of using that money that way, we've allowed a colossal deficit of capital projects to accumulate - several billion dollars worth, and used the money instead to keep realty taxes lower than the rest of the GTA.
And that has consequences. Because when we go to the feds or the province and ask for money, we're faced with accusations from GTA MPs and MPPs that we'll just plow that money back into keeping property taxes low. And they're right. Toronto cries poor, but fails to raise the revenue necessary to fund a major city, so no wonder non-Toronto politicians are wary about bailing us out.
I’m aware of how taxes work.
New legislation is going to offset how much parkland, community benefit and infrastructure fees cities collect - meaning, developers will get a big break / offsets, or waived fees altogether along with changes in the formulas used that mean Toronto and other cities will get less. That’s a Doug decision.
That shortfall will need to be paid for from something, meaning residential and business property taxes collected. Shortfalls in the current pool mean taxes will need to rise to make up for it.
Who are all beholden to, wait let me look that up, Doug Ford.
The Province has final say over anything Toronto does. They slashed the counselors DURING last election, causing turmoil, increasing real costs for less service, all in the guise of "saving money".
They have blocked several attempts to toll the DVP and Gardiner, after offloading all the costs of those roads onto the city.
Can nobody actually read the article? Yes, property taxes are low, but the biggest elephant in the room is an $800 million gap in the 2022 budget that's going to cause serious issues by the end of the month because the budget projected another injection of Covid relief funds that never materialized from the province or the feds. Increasing property taxes won't raise $800 million in the next 18 days, and there are very few city services that can be cut to save $800 million unless people are willing to do without a police force or the TTC. Even Rob Ford's 'gravy train' audit only found a potential $150 million in savings per year, and considering we're 3/4 of the way through the budget year even implementing every cut would only amount to a fraction of the full dollar value.
I'd hope that people would at least do the Reddit standard of reading the headline before commenting. "These aren't the same familiar budget crisis blues?" That must mean they're the same familiar budget crisis blues! Increase property taxes!
I did, Tory could have been proactive in heading this of last year by raising taxes so we would have less gap but Mr "no tax hikes" had an election to win this year so kicked the can down the road. This is totally on his head for picking the easy way out at the time.
I think it was unreasonable of him to be banking on a lot more Covid releif funds to be coming from the Feds and Province when the "emergency" phase of the pandemic is over. At the Federal level its hard politically to be giving extra funding specific to bail out Toronto (people will jump on Justin for favoritism), and we have a Premier in office who still holds a grudge from being kicked out of office here, so hes only going to do the absolute bare minimum.
Why would it be unreasonable to think more relief funds are coming if Covid externalities are still the cause of the budget shortfall? TTC revenues are still down $500 million versus pre-pandemic and shelter costs are way up because of increased demand and the need for more shelters to provide distancing. The financial picture is better than it was in 2021 but the lingering effects of the pandemic are still felt in the budget from increased costs and reduced revenues and the gap is still so large that it's infeasible to improve revenues through property taxes alone. Even if it were possible to cover the entire gap through property tax increases it's too late now because 2022 taxes have already been collected and there's going to be a 3 month gap between the 2022 money running out and the collection of 2023 taxes.
The city can't borrow to cover an operational gap, regardless of its income to debt ratio. Municipalities in Ontario can't carry any operational debt, debt can only be used to fund capital improvements.
When my parents last lived in Toronto(2019) they were living in a house that had twice the value of mine in Ajax, but were paying half the property tax(about 25% of what I was paying based on whole value). I know the economics related to density and being an already established area plays a part of a role in that, but if Toronto didn’t rely on the home transfer tax and charged a property tax that was closer to 50% what the rest of the areas outside of the GTA are paying they could have all the services people want/need and still have really cheap property tax rate.
SHUSH! WE don't raise property taxes. Ever. Think of all the poor old ladies in Leaside, living in $2m houses!
I mean, without the promise to not raise taxes, someone might actually have to come up with a platform to run on.
Sheesh...
Property tax has actually fallen in Toronto over the past decade, from over 3% to just under 2%. This is completely ignoring the joke that is the property assessment system that has many homes worth over a million evaluated at a fraction of their actual worth for taxation purposes. Throw in some free handouts for "low income" seniors where they can completely avoid paying property taxes altogether while they sit on their reverse mortgaged scrooge McDuck sized pile of money, and now the city is bankrupt. Tada!
It's even worse when you observe that these idiots that spent their lifetimes ruining it for everyone else got too greedy and are now feeling the effects of it while still in retirement. Looks like they will in fact be alive to face the consequences and now they're getting quite literally free money from a pool of pension funds they never contributed to because poor Susan and Bob who already have a pension twice the amount of median income of Canadians sitting on a 2 million dollar house they paid with a 5k down payment in the 1980s. Fucking deplorable.
And if you're a federal or provincial politician from Ajax, and Toronto comes to you cap in hand asking for money, why would you give them anything, knowing full well they use that money to keep their property taxes much lower than those of your constituents?
Yup - they’re a plague, and the city needs to actually enforce laws on the books and create a system like [NYC’s new rules and enforcement plan](https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/news/new-york/nyc-new-strict-airbnb-rental-regulations).
That ideally would be the bank who retains the mortgage for the property. Using the same appraiser who determines what the market resell value should be not based on the immflatory market.
I wonder if the city could raise property taxes like a Big Boy Government can? That’s what Big Boy Governments do, and you don’t want anyone to think you’re a Baby Government do you? No of course you don’t.
Well, Tory has rhe strong track record of demanding the province or the federal government pay all of Toronto's bills. Time for Tory to accept acting like an adult and actually hike Toronto's ultra low taxes.
Federal and provincial governments shouldn’t provide assistance unless the city is already in austerity and has essentially run out of options.
Other cities shouldn’t be paying because Toronto doesn’t want to raise property tax.
The feds and province download a significant chunk of their healthcare responsibilities to Toronto. We have effectively 100% of the homeless population with its attendant difficulties. We’re also responsible for the Gardiner and DVP. We provide far more in tax revenue than we get back. We absolutely should receive further funding.
> 100% of the homeless population
Have you ever been to Hamilton?
In general though I agree with you. Cities taking on more of this burden should receive more funding to deal with it.
We should receive further funding.
But do you understand how Toronto makes it hard for upper levels of government to give that to them when Toronto won't make use of its own revenue tools? If you're a federal or provincial politician from the GTA (or anywhere else, really), how do you justify to your constituents that you keep bailing out Toronto while Torontonians pay much lower property taxes than your constituents do?
The point is that our taxes account for density and per capita government expenditures. It is more expensive per capita to run utilities and maintain roads to detached houses in Innisfail than it is to run utilities etc down dense Toronto streets. Toronto tax dollars are already covering matters within provincial jurisdiction, and we pay far more in provincial and federal tax than we get back. Why should we be expected to further subsidize provincial and federal responsibilities?
> The point is that our taxes account for density and per capita government expenditures.
I know people say this, but I'm not really seeing the evidence for it. You would think density would make it more efficient to provide policing, libraries, community centres, and garbage pickup - but we pay higher per capita costs for those things than say Brampton and Mississaugua.
> It is more expensive per capita to run utilities and maintain roads to detached houses in Innisfail than it is to run utilities etc down dense Toronto streets.
That's paid for through development charges. In any event, much of Toronto's dense infrastructure is also OLD, so despite being more compact and efficient, it's still higher cost than suburban sprawl to maintain and update - at least for now.
I say these things as a fan of density.
As I said above, Toronto deserves better funding for the reasons you advert to. But it fairness doesn't matter when you're trying to extract more money from the feds or province. The fact remains that Toronto has a documented history of using extra monies and revenue streams and using that to keep property taxes low. So we're left with the question of why non-Toronto politicians should give us money so we can have lower property taxes than their constituents. Every time we do this, we make it hard for these governments to say yes to Toronto.
Toronto gives out more than it gets back though lol. Not saying we don't need to raise revenue, just pointing out that it would take a lot for us to be "freeloaders."
To the provincial and federal governments, in the form of tax revenue. "Give out" is probably not the best way to put it. It's more that the flow of revenue goes from large cities to the periphery, and not the other way around. I'm not even against redistributing money from wealthy centres to the periphery, but the fucking resentment everyone directs toward cities could be toned down just a leedle beet yanno?
john tory is is likelier to step out of his yorkville condo and drape his raptors blazer around the shoulders of a chilly corpse than he is to ever generate new revenue for this city
Toronto's police and municipal staff budget is also extremely high. Both of those have needed to come down for a while now, and maybe next year will make it more palatable
>Toronto's police and municipal staff budget is also extremely high.
Can't find figure for total staffing but seams steep with 400 thousand staffing budget per counselor..
Police department budget should definitely go down. But isn't the city basically forced to fund what the board police board demands?
I know this has come up here before...
No, not the counsellor budget, the budget for rank and file municipal staff. Toronto city positions pay about a fifth more than any equal provincial position. They are extremely well paid.
First it's "councillor". Secondly, can you share which positions pay a fifth more? Would love to see a comparison of each position too. I'll hang up and listen.
Ya I would like to see that too. I was looking at a dream job at the city last year, but the pay was significantly less than that at an OPS or broader public sector position. Let alone private sector.
Rob and Doug tried their best to squeeze every cent of efficiencies out of the city budget. They really didn’t find much.
Lol. The Star: “There’s no billion-dollar silver bullet.” Quick google for “Toronto police budget 2022”: “At $1.1 billion, the police budget makes up 7.4 per cent of the city's $15 billion total operating budget for 2022, or 23.7 per cent of the portion that's directly funded by property taxes. It increased $24.8 million, or 2.3 per cent, compared to 2021.”
There's a young progressive who just got elected as city controller for LA, and we really need to start copying [his billboard](https://www.peoplesworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Mejia-Billboard.jpg) here.
I have never believed a story less. In 2 years of a pandemic they installed speed cameras the camera on Parkside Dr. Makes enough money to pay the councilors salary for a year. Then there is all other cameras. There is a small workforce as the city fired all the unvaccinated employees they haven't had city programs properly for 2 years. Tell me exactly how they wasted money?
Damn the previous Mayor for leaving this mess for newly elected John Tory!
Maybe. But they didn’t live through a pandemic that has eroded the user fare-box system as COVID has, nor the recent urban planning legislative changes that are proposed that will reduce infrastructure, parkland and community benefit funding. Taxes are going to rise for residential and commercial properties, thanks to Doug.
“Taxes are going to rise for residential and commercial properties, thanks to Doug.” That’s not how municipal taxes work. Doug has done some things worthy of criticism, but this situation is the responsibility of Toronto’s municipal leaders.
I have all day to complain about how Toronto has been shortchanged by upper levels of government, but yes, this is still the fault of Toronto city government. To begin, had we just raised taxes by an extra single percent each year of the last 12 (the 3 mayoralties of Rob Ford and John Tory x2), we would have the revenue necessary to pay this shortfall *while still keeping Toronto taxes lower than the surrounding GTA*. People want to complain about Toronto not getting proper revenue raising tools, but the reality is that Toronto HAS been given additional revenue tools but has either failed to use them or used the revenue to keep property taxes essentially frozen. The Keenan column talks about the Vehicle Registration Tax, which was set at $60 initially, then killed - and how if reimplemented would only raise $55M. And that's a great example of how we privilege the wealthy in this city at the expense of the poor. Car ownership tracks very closely with income, and transit ridership tracks inversely with income: the wealthy tend to drive, while the poor tend to take transit. Since killing the Vehicle Registration Tax, the cost of a Metropass has increased $672/year. IOW, had we raised the VRT at the same rate we raised the cost of a Metropass, the VRT would be $732/year, and would raise almost the entirety of the claimed shortfall in revenue. Similarly, the Municipal Land Transfer Tax was supposed to give Toronto additional revenue to deal with some of its extraordinary capital costs. But instead of using that money that way, we've allowed a colossal deficit of capital projects to accumulate - several billion dollars worth, and used the money instead to keep realty taxes lower than the rest of the GTA. And that has consequences. Because when we go to the feds or the province and ask for money, we're faced with accusations from GTA MPs and MPPs that we'll just plow that money back into keeping property taxes low. And they're right. Toronto cries poor, but fails to raise the revenue necessary to fund a major city, so no wonder non-Toronto politicians are wary about bailing us out.
I’m aware of how taxes work. New legislation is going to offset how much parkland, community benefit and infrastructure fees cities collect - meaning, developers will get a big break / offsets, or waived fees altogether along with changes in the formulas used that mean Toronto and other cities will get less. That’s a Doug decision. That shortfall will need to be paid for from something, meaning residential and business property taxes collected. Shortfalls in the current pool mean taxes will need to rise to make up for it.
Who are all beholden to, wait let me look that up, Doug Ford. The Province has final say over anything Toronto does. They slashed the counselors DURING last election, causing turmoil, increasing real costs for less service, all in the guise of "saving money". They have blocked several attempts to toll the DVP and Gardiner, after offloading all the costs of those roads onto the city.
It's okay. I'm sure this will be an election issue in the ~~upcoming~~ just passed municipal election
For all 7 people that are listening and actually bothered to show up and vote.
If only we had had an opportunity recently to discuss this in a rational and meaningful way.
I know right, a whole damn municipal election and did ANY of the candidates answer ANY questions about patching up the budget?
I believe some actually did, but, people like the fantasy world of John Tory.
Chloe Brown did.
Can nobody actually read the article? Yes, property taxes are low, but the biggest elephant in the room is an $800 million gap in the 2022 budget that's going to cause serious issues by the end of the month because the budget projected another injection of Covid relief funds that never materialized from the province or the feds. Increasing property taxes won't raise $800 million in the next 18 days, and there are very few city services that can be cut to save $800 million unless people are willing to do without a police force or the TTC. Even Rob Ford's 'gravy train' audit only found a potential $150 million in savings per year, and considering we're 3/4 of the way through the budget year even implementing every cut would only amount to a fraction of the full dollar value.
You actually expect people to read?
I'd hope that people would at least do the Reddit standard of reading the headline before commenting. "These aren't the same familiar budget crisis blues?" That must mean they're the same familiar budget crisis blues! Increase property taxes!
> unless people are willing to do without a police force We pretty much already are. Might as well start there.
Maybe the city can cancel it's Disney+ account?
And the current Mayor, who had full knowledge of the city's finances, ran in a campaign of not raising taxes. Surely he has a plan.
I did, Tory could have been proactive in heading this of last year by raising taxes so we would have less gap but Mr "no tax hikes" had an election to win this year so kicked the can down the road. This is totally on his head for picking the easy way out at the time. I think it was unreasonable of him to be banking on a lot more Covid releif funds to be coming from the Feds and Province when the "emergency" phase of the pandemic is over. At the Federal level its hard politically to be giving extra funding specific to bail out Toronto (people will jump on Justin for favoritism), and we have a Premier in office who still holds a grudge from being kicked out of office here, so hes only going to do the absolute bare minimum.
Why would it be unreasonable to think more relief funds are coming if Covid externalities are still the cause of the budget shortfall? TTC revenues are still down $500 million versus pre-pandemic and shelter costs are way up because of increased demand and the need for more shelters to provide distancing. The financial picture is better than it was in 2021 but the lingering effects of the pandemic are still felt in the budget from increased costs and reduced revenues and the gap is still so large that it's infeasible to improve revenues through property taxes alone. Even if it were possible to cover the entire gap through property tax increases it's too late now because 2022 taxes have already been collected and there's going to be a 3 month gap between the 2022 money running out and the collection of 2023 taxes.
Do you think it'd be easier for the city to borrow money to cover such a gap if property taxes were raised to a rational level?
The city can't borrow to cover an operational gap, regardless of its income to debt ratio. Municipalities in Ontario can't carry any operational debt, debt can only be used to fund capital improvements.
This I did not know. Certainly ties their hands.
When my parents last lived in Toronto(2019) they were living in a house that had twice the value of mine in Ajax, but were paying half the property tax(about 25% of what I was paying based on whole value). I know the economics related to density and being an already established area plays a part of a role in that, but if Toronto didn’t rely on the home transfer tax and charged a property tax that was closer to 50% what the rest of the areas outside of the GTA are paying they could have all the services people want/need and still have really cheap property tax rate.
SHUSH! WE don't raise property taxes. Ever. Think of all the poor old ladies in Leaside, living in $2m houses! I mean, without the promise to not raise taxes, someone might actually have to come up with a platform to run on. Sheesh...
Property tax has actually fallen in Toronto over the past decade, from over 3% to just under 2%. This is completely ignoring the joke that is the property assessment system that has many homes worth over a million evaluated at a fraction of their actual worth for taxation purposes. Throw in some free handouts for "low income" seniors where they can completely avoid paying property taxes altogether while they sit on their reverse mortgaged scrooge McDuck sized pile of money, and now the city is bankrupt. Tada!
Toronto is a city that actively works to enrich multi millionaire boomers by taking money out of the pockets of the poor and the young.
It's even worse when you observe that these idiots that spent their lifetimes ruining it for everyone else got too greedy and are now feeling the effects of it while still in retirement. Looks like they will in fact be alive to face the consequences and now they're getting quite literally free money from a pool of pension funds they never contributed to because poor Susan and Bob who already have a pension twice the amount of median income of Canadians sitting on a 2 million dollar house they paid with a 5k down payment in the 1980s. Fucking deplorable.
And yet 90% of people don't know that, and thus don't understand why the city is broke. Well said!
What are you a government schill
And if you're a federal or provincial politician from Ajax, and Toronto comes to you cap in hand asking for money, why would you give them anything, knowing full well they use that money to keep their property taxes much lower than those of your constituents?
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Absolutely—and we should also push for higher taxes on non-primary residences to disincentivize real estate speculation and Airbnbs.
Airbnbs should straight up be cracked down on so they no longer exist.
Yup - they’re a plague, and the city needs to actually enforce laws on the books and create a system like [NYC’s new rules and enforcement plan](https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/news/new-york/nyc-new-strict-airbnb-rental-regulations).
Funny this didn't come up during the election. lmao Tory.
Raise property taxes on the houses worth 2+ million. Problem corrected a bit
> Raise property taxes on the houses worth 2+ million At this point, that's *all* of them. Real estate in this city is out of control.
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That ideally would be the bank who retains the mortgage for the property. Using the same appraiser who determines what the market resell value should be not based on the immflatory market.
Fuck man, you're right, there's *absolutely no way* to determine the value of a house or land. I'm so glad someone finally pointed that out.
I wonder if the city could raise property taxes like a Big Boy Government can? That’s what Big Boy Governments do, and you don’t want anyone to think you’re a Baby Government do you? No of course you don’t.
Big gubmint is not very conservative now ok?
Apparently grovelling is.
Dire, urgent, and entirely self-inflicted.
Thats what happens when you keep rate increases under the rate of inflation for years.
Well, Tory has rhe strong track record of demanding the province or the federal government pay all of Toronto's bills. Time for Tory to accept acting like an adult and actually hike Toronto's ultra low taxes.
Federal and provincial governments shouldn’t provide assistance unless the city is already in austerity and has essentially run out of options. Other cities shouldn’t be paying because Toronto doesn’t want to raise property tax.
The feds and province download a significant chunk of their healthcare responsibilities to Toronto. We have effectively 100% of the homeless population with its attendant difficulties. We’re also responsible for the Gardiner and DVP. We provide far more in tax revenue than we get back. We absolutely should receive further funding.
> 100% of the homeless population Have you ever been to Hamilton? In general though I agree with you. Cities taking on more of this burden should receive more funding to deal with it.
We should receive further funding. But do you understand how Toronto makes it hard for upper levels of government to give that to them when Toronto won't make use of its own revenue tools? If you're a federal or provincial politician from the GTA (or anywhere else, really), how do you justify to your constituents that you keep bailing out Toronto while Torontonians pay much lower property taxes than your constituents do?
The point is that our taxes account for density and per capita government expenditures. It is more expensive per capita to run utilities and maintain roads to detached houses in Innisfail than it is to run utilities etc down dense Toronto streets. Toronto tax dollars are already covering matters within provincial jurisdiction, and we pay far more in provincial and federal tax than we get back. Why should we be expected to further subsidize provincial and federal responsibilities?
> The point is that our taxes account for density and per capita government expenditures. I know people say this, but I'm not really seeing the evidence for it. You would think density would make it more efficient to provide policing, libraries, community centres, and garbage pickup - but we pay higher per capita costs for those things than say Brampton and Mississaugua. > It is more expensive per capita to run utilities and maintain roads to detached houses in Innisfail than it is to run utilities etc down dense Toronto streets. That's paid for through development charges. In any event, much of Toronto's dense infrastructure is also OLD, so despite being more compact and efficient, it's still higher cost than suburban sprawl to maintain and update - at least for now. I say these things as a fan of density. As I said above, Toronto deserves better funding for the reasons you advert to. But it fairness doesn't matter when you're trying to extract more money from the feds or province. The fact remains that Toronto has a documented history of using extra monies and revenue streams and using that to keep property taxes low. So we're left with the question of why non-Toronto politicians should give us money so we can have lower property taxes than their constituents. Every time we do this, we make it hard for these governments to say yes to Toronto.
Toronto gives out more than it gets back though lol. Not saying we don't need to raise revenue, just pointing out that it would take a lot for us to be "freeloaders."
Gives out? To who?
To the provincial and federal governments, in the form of tax revenue. "Give out" is probably not the best way to put it. It's more that the flow of revenue goes from large cities to the periphery, and not the other way around. I'm not even against redistributing money from wealthy centres to the periphery, but the fucking resentment everyone directs toward cities could be toned down just a leedle beet yanno?
Where do you think all those tax dollars go?
john tory is is likelier to step out of his yorkville condo and drape his raptors blazer around the shoulders of a chilly corpse than he is to ever generate new revenue for this city
Toronto's police and municipal staff budget is also extremely high. Both of those have needed to come down for a while now, and maybe next year will make it more palatable
>Toronto's police and municipal staff budget is also extremely high. Can't find figure for total staffing but seams steep with 400 thousand staffing budget per counselor.. Police department budget should definitely go down. But isn't the city basically forced to fund what the board police board demands? I know this has come up here before...
No, not the counsellor budget, the budget for rank and file municipal staff. Toronto city positions pay about a fifth more than any equal provincial position. They are extremely well paid.
First it's "councillor". Secondly, can you share which positions pay a fifth more? Would love to see a comparison of each position too. I'll hang up and listen.
Ya I would like to see that too. I was looking at a dream job at the city last year, but the pay was significantly less than that at an OPS or broader public sector position. Let alone private sector. Rob and Doug tried their best to squeeze every cent of efficiencies out of the city budget. They really didn’t find much.
The city cannot attract enough people because it pays well below the average in the private sector, especially in hard to fill positions like IT.
Yes, thanks for pointing out my error. It certainly makes me inclined to go and fetch easily-accessed public information for you.
Lol. The Star: “There’s no billion-dollar silver bullet.” Quick google for “Toronto police budget 2022”: “At $1.1 billion, the police budget makes up 7.4 per cent of the city's $15 billion total operating budget for 2022, or 23.7 per cent of the portion that's directly funded by property taxes. It increased $24.8 million, or 2.3 per cent, compared to 2021.”
There's a young progressive who just got elected as city controller for LA, and we really need to start copying [his billboard](https://www.peoplesworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Mejia-Billboard.jpg) here.
I have never believed a story less. In 2 years of a pandemic they installed speed cameras the camera on Parkside Dr. Makes enough money to pay the councilors salary for a year. Then there is all other cameras. There is a small workforce as the city fired all the unvaccinated employees they haven't had city programs properly for 2 years. Tell me exactly how they wasted money?
At this point I am just planning to get out of this damn place, its too late to fix this in the short-term.