Morning Briefing: Memes, Licensing and Standards Meeting, Headlines

So I think I'm going to start providing summaries for the committee meetings each day, both to help in understanding and to better track the decision making process. Although I don't think I'll do headlines and stuff as often, because John McGrath at OpenFile, Stephen Spencer Davis at Toronto Life and Laura McConnell at Spacing do that well already. 
   
Today's meeting is pretty uneventful, it's the Licensing and Standards Committee. There's really only one item that should garner any debate, and that's Paul Ainslie's motion to limit how close ice cream trucks can be to one another. Truck drivers have intense battles over territory and it leads to price wars and vindictiveness. It's a pretty interesting little aspect of the city, as described in this great National Post article by Jane Switzer and on Torontoist by Steve Kupferman and Kelli Korducki.  


My question for Councillor Ainslie is what does he have against the free market for beautiful soft-served swirly goodness? And won't this just mean intense competitions to get there first?


Headlines
Sue-Ann Levy goes for the 'oh, the city shouldn't be investing in silly art when it has a deficit' angle, taking on Noel Harding and his $400,000 project in a priority neighbourhood at Dawes and Victoria. It's an oak bridge structure that contains a stream, native foliage, and solar panels and a wind turbine to provide AC and wifi. It also has a plaza and market square for community events.  


It sounds kind of nice and non-Ferris wheely, and exactly the thing that @HULKMAYOR would want to smash. 

The Toronto Star's top-read story is Mayor Ford standing up to Anonymous, which is exactly what he should say in this spot. A word of warning though, because I doubt Ford lurks 4Chan: they're not Marg Delahunty. 

Liam Lahey's Spacing piece went up Friday and has received less attention than it deserves. It talks about how the development of urban planning as a political force and how visions of Toronto's future have been stunted. 


Generation Meme
Of course, what would a #topoli weekend be without a meme. And this weekend we got two. 


Sunday's was when everyone's favourite smouldering hunk, Ryan Gosling, became a Toronto policy wonk on Tumblr. 


And Saturday's was another hashtag extravaganza- #councilbands- this time started by Youth Cabinet co-chair Claire McWatt, who was featured in this Clamshell article on Thursday. 


Here are some of the best names, in my humble opinion. And yes, I included one of my own.