posted on March 14, 2009

Money buys city advice - and time to cover its mess

By: JOHN BARBER
Published: MARCH 12, 2009
Source: The Globe and Mail

Attention focused on a $50,000 grant to unnamed consultants yesterday as city hall's notorious coffee cup tempest continued to consume it, raising questions about the future of Mayor David Miller.

Officials scrambled in the wake of revelations that the Miller regime had hired consultants to help develop an alternative to the heavy-handed coffee-cup lid ban it attempted - without success - to implement last year.

Embattled city waste czar Geoff Rathbone went so far as to suggest that Waste Diversion Ontario, a privately funded "non-Crown corporation" that handles hot-potato waste issues on behalf of the Ontario government, could ultimately contribute half of the $50,000 cost.

But that remains to be seen. "I can't comment until I see an application," WDO executive director Glenda Gies said yesterday, adding that such consultations are normally "not our scope." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/