Or, City Council Legislative Documents
Toronto compared to many other cities in North America has a relatively open government. And it is likely a little more open today based on a case reported in the Toronto Star (Jan 14,09 _see below). While most of us don't need to work out how to use "freedom of information" access procedures, some (with a trait of "political junkie") can find out much from tracking agendas, minutes and decisions on line for city council, community councils and committees. There are 12 committees reporting to council plus 10 others.
These official documents are generally PDF files that you can read online or even download. You can find them for the current year or previous years (about 3). The city clerk's office administers them.
Included in them you will often find background material (also PDF's or DOC files) that can be useful to understanding and getting more info on a local or citywide issue.
Files can run to many pages and contain a lot of stuff you likely don't want to know about_ a variance request, a tree cutting decision, a new sign location, ...
However, if you are tracking a development project, new city endeavours, city problems and solutions, citizen requests , for example, you can glean much insight directly online.
Under Access Points on both the Forum and Admin blogs, you will find direct links to the city web pages with these and other legal documents.
The Star recently pursued an access to information suit against the TPS. They initially lost at Divisional Court but won an appeal at the Supreme Court. Here is what the Star editors wrote, http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/571187
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