Rossi promises to slay city debt

[attach]1467[/attach]Mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi wants city hall to start living within its means.

“I think that there have been great intentions,” he said. “But I think unfortunately, too often, we do things to try to make ourselves feel good as opposed to actually doing good.”

He is concerned about Toronto’s $3 billion debt, which he says costs the city $450 million a year in interest and other costs, and the impact it will have on the city’s future.

“We need, like any other household, to pay down on the mortgage because if we don’t … and we keep paying that $450 million, that’s money we can’t spend on the priorities that we all share,” said the former CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.

Rossi, 48, says part of the problem may be due in part to the mismanagement of finances in city hall.

“I think the city is an amazing city but city hall has been letting (Toronto) down, he said.

To raise that money Rossi said council needs to make hard choices and has proposed selling city assets including surplus city-owned land and Toronto Hydro.

“I’ve said Toronto Hydro because one, it’s an attractive asset, there’s a significant market for these type of entities and two, it’s a great company that generated a $25 million dividend for the city of Toronto.

“It’s worth something in the neighbourhood of $2.5 billion … that’s a one percent return.”

Rossi said that he would also look at contracting out some city services to bring down the cost of providing them.

He referred to the Toronto’s garbage strike last summer and said how it could have been prevented if the service was contracted outside of the city like it is in Etobicoke.

“It cost (Etobicoke) less and they’ve never had a strike. So we need to restore some competitive balance to the delivery of services at city hall. We need to outsource more; we need to put in managed competition.”

Rossi believes a plan is needed to improve TTC’s efficiency and admitted that compared to other major cities around the world, Toronto’s system is very far behind. However, Rossi said he’s not keen on the existing Transit City light rail plan.

He said the money spent on the city’s grand transit project could be used to provide residents with services he believes have higher priority.

“If we are wasting money on the wrong opportunities, we don’t have the money for what we need.”