Amongst the boredom
Throughout the hearing, I was surprised at the lengthy boring testimony, with day after day of “turn to binder 4, tab 77, typed page 23 but handwritten page number 26, point C, ii, point four, third line down, last phrase, after the comma…”
The only saving graces were the number of times the lawyers or witnesses dropped the binders, with pages spilling out across the floor, or the witness that called “bullet points” bulletin points.
Or maybe that is non-violent city-speak.
Actually, there were other humorous moments too.
We had those big snowfalls during the hearing, and snow continually slid down off the sloped roofs of the historic old teachers college building. Each slide startled and disconcerted the Toronto lawyer, who will probably spend the rest of her life telling people about the huge snow falls in Ottawa and avalanches from buildings and how far north (yuck!) it is.
A key city witness mistook a pee break for a go home break, and there was an awkward recess and frantic search to retrieve him, since none of the lawyers or other people in the courtroom were allowed to communicate with him as he was technically still on the witness stand.
The pipes down the hall by the mayor’s office broke and flooded the stairwell, setting off fire alarms, and the building had to be evacuated, but a number of the stuffed suits had left their winter duds in their cars in the garages or elsewhere in the building and it was snowing like mad. It made for some unhappy toffs.
I also learned where councillors forced out of the building go to for smoke breaks. See, there is merit in being at city hall.
When I was on the witness stand, the city lawyer made some comments about new mid or high rises being an improvement over garages and body shops. I replied if garages blighted the neighbourhood, it was because the city choose through zoning to encourage them amongst the little houses of little Italy.
I then added that many are being turned into architect offices, but residents weren’t sure if this wasn’t just changing one blight for another. It actually got a laugh.
We noticed the City and Taggart witnesses never used the term “tower” and if they did sorta corrected themselves to say ‘building’ or some other substitute.
So, of course, we took to larding every paragraph we uttered with the word “Tower” (with emphasis). At one point we got it about seven times into one slightly rambly statement.
The imported-from-Toronto lawyer was sometimes very funny. She wore high heels. Very high heels. With very long, very pointed toes. All in very high gloss black. Very power, very dom. Several times, she loudly told us all about how big her bed was at the Weston. She put on fancy winter boots eminently suited for the trip from city hall into taxi to the Weston.
She also buzzed around with the other city and developer witnesses trying to decide who had the better food, Beckta or Social.
I wondered if we could sell those shoes and sponsor a Syrian refugee family.
Warning: Plot spoiler
Mind, she got the last laugh.
So where do the councillors go for a smoke break? I thought smoking was prohibited on all of City Hall Grounds. On the lighter side, The biggest bed I’ve ever slept in was at the Weston.
I was going to ask the same thing.where do they go to smoke. Pls reply this is a good thing to know.
the clue is in the very sentence where I said some smoke … all you need to do is add a capital M to one of the words … one further clue, it is south of city hall property.