Housing, in Tokyo

"From the perspective of the citizens in most Canadian municipalities, the structure of local government is basically unintelligible..."

T.J. Plunkett & W. Hoosen,
(Queen's University Institute of Local Government) 1975

So, is there some sort of record left behind in hard copy?

a man in a suit and tie is pointing ALT: a man in a suit and tie is pointing

Sometimes resolving a public policy problem from the perspective of local govt on a phone call may require the use of one or more illustrative profanities. I apologize to my son, my family and to the civility gods for my error, which might by necessity happen again in future. That is all.

Me, playing Beethoven's Ninth to my 6.75 yr old and explaining his life and career to him. After the first minute, I say: "It's called Ode to Joy. See? It's supposed to be happy."

Kid: "Well, he probably wasn't very happy about his hearing!"

Dolton, IL - in the Chicago / Cook County metro - and remote mayoring.

"Economic Fury"

the sun shines brightly through the clouds over a forest fire ALT: the sun shines brightly through the clouds over a forest fire

Honestly I've sworn to myself for weeks that I would spend hours working outside and play with my kid in the park and do everything, everthing I could to enjoy the fresh air and 🌞 before the wildfire smoke hits in mid-June.

Holy hell is it nice to be walking around in a light shirt and a loose spring jacket for a couple of days before Fourth Winter arrives on Friday.

Holy hell is it nice to be walking around in a light shirt and a loose spring jacket for a couple of days before Fourth Winter arrives on Friday.

In other words, this motion represents the maximum Council could do to respond to the situation at this point in time.

To be clear: from Council-appointed committees only, not from all 'duties.'

Under the Charter, Council has no authority to remove him from (a) his job as a councillor or (b) his regional community committee, to which he is automatically a member. Nor could it make him take a leave of absence.

This post could have been a Venn Diagram

1989

- and hundreds of new residents a little further north and southwest of there.

Yeah, I got some of the "whoa this needed a lot of work" history from a contractor on site who let me peek into the interior. Nice job so far.

That block of William is going to be an interesting stretch in a couple of years with new tenants, Market Lands restaurants and offices on the north side -

New York City

(As for the Exchange, thanks to a bit more City flexibility and more surface lot residential development in particular, it's filling out and filling in. Retail/restaurants are still facing stubborn challenges with disorder & security tho, hoping we'll see more progress on those this summer)

(Whenever I leave this place, I will miss how well the words "I work for the Mayor" work like magic to get people to share every possible nugget of information about whatever job they're doing on that particular day)

Was just passing by an empty storefront in the Exchange District on William and noticed some work underway on a heritage building that's been empty for at least 15+ yrs (mid-photo). Architects moving into the second floor, work to make the ground floor lease-ready.

New escalation ladder for levels of naval effectiveness

Sea denial
Command of the sea
Control of the sea
Social media control of the sea

Jurisdictions I want to go deeper on for the next few weeks:

Indian cities
Philadelphia, PA
Cairo
Catching up on Brazilian mayors

I propose that a neutral Hormuz Communications Commission be appointed and gifted a ship, with one judge selected by the United States, one by Iran, and one jointly chosen by each, to issue a daily press release on whether the Strait is open or closed. This release shall be definitive for each day.

(Costly pruning work is so critical here because it is the best defence against Dutch Elm Disease, which has been doing significant damage to the City's extensive stock of elm trees, as seen in my 'OMG it's still snowing' pic from a few weeks ago, below)

(And FTR, here in faraway Winnipeg, this is one area where I think the Gillingham admin has only gone 1/2way & wants more progress; conventional tree planting/pruning is far better, but there are still barriers to the kind of policy/process changes needed for mass-planting on a high 5 figure scale)

New York City.

Sacramento, CA. H/t @zmapper.bsky.social

Liverpool, UK

"Nooooooooo!"