Will concentrate on running again for Ward 7 council seat

Six months to the day after Giorgio Mammoliti filed his nomination papers to run for mayor, he stood up in front of a restaurant full of supporters, news-media and politicians to say he was setting his sights on his old council seat.

“I will be dropping out of the mayoralty race effective this week, and signing up to be a local councillor in Ward 7 – and concentrating on the seat I’ve held for 20 years,” Mammoliti said in the crowded restaurant in the Islington Avenue/Steeeles Avenue area Monday, July 5, afternoon. Read More

Giorgio Mammoliti has withdrawn from the race to become Toronto’s next mayor.

The Ward 7 councillor told reporters at a press conference today that he will now focus his energies on retaining his seat in York West. Read More

Giorgio Mammoliti has called a press conference for noon today in North York where it’s expected he will announce he is withdrawing from the race to become Toronto’s next mayor.

According to a release from the Mammoliti team, he would “address his future as a mayoral candidate and politician.” Read More

Peter Athanasopoulos apologized to six mayoral candidates: the wheelchair-accessible cab he ordered had arrived 30 minutes late.

His difficulties reaching a debate on disability issues in Toronto, a city whose subway stations won’t be guaranteed accessible until 2024, underscored Athanasopoulos’s argument transportation is a “huge issue” for people like him. Read More

Toronto’s firefighters and paramedics should be operating under the same command to make for faster response to medical emergencies, says mayoralty candidate George Smitherman.

“The average EMS response time is 12 minutes. In most cases, fire trucks are on the scene of an emergency in six minutes. Those six minutes are enough to save lives,” said Smitherman, at a Tuesday, June 22, news conference outside a downtown ambulance station. Read More

George Smitherman said he’d cut the budgets of Toronto politicians by $2 million, hire a ‘science’ advisor to help find new ways to deal with Toronto’s garbage, hire more police and add more drinking fountains in parks and public spaces, among a grab-bag of promises he unveiled at an Empire Club of Canada luncheon Wednesday, June 23, afternoon.

Smitherman characterized the suite of policies as a quest for “quality, not quantity.” And he made a veiled reference to candidate Rob Ford, saying that if it was a little complex – well, Toronto is a complex city. Read More