Rational Radical

As we undergo this latest strike by city workers, let’s reflect on yet another scandalous waste at City Hall, which will not get addressed now, thanks to the strike:

It’s time for parking meters to pay the piper

Jack Lakey

City councillors finally have a chance to ask hard questions about the Toronto Parking Authority’s $10 million purchase of credit card readers for parking meters, a deal the city auditor says was of “no significant benefit.” Council’s audit committee meets today (barring a strike by city workers) to discuss a just-released audit of the TPA’s deal with Precise ParkLink Inc. to upgrade credit card readers in 2,600 pay-and-display meters on city streets. The new readers were supposed to reduce card fraud, but uncollected and declined card transactions nearly doubled in 2008, the audit found.

Auditor general Jeff Griffiths’ report is critical of nearly every aspect of the deal. A key question not dealt with in the audit is whether the cost of the readers (about $3,840 each) was too high. This was the basis of a series of Fixer articles in 2008. We couldn’t find any card readers that cost even half that much.

In an interview Friday, TPA president and pussy Gwyn Thomas would not talk about the criticisms. Starting today at the audit committee, councillors can ask for a further investigation of the deal. But will they? We’ll let you know in tomorrow’s column.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 am and is filed under Most Recent Argument for Birth Control. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.