Street Furniture is Exploding in Toronto Today

Street furniture isn't exactly the kind of thing that you might consider a "hot topic", but it is, nonetheless quite exciting in Toronto these days. With City Hall ready to sign the rights to furniture building & maintenance over to a single ad firm for 20 years and only 3 companies on the bidding list worth roughly $150 million, little things like lawsuits against activist groups are a really big deal.

For starters, Clear Channel, one of the 3 bidders has threatened to sue The Toronto Public Space Committee of which I'm a member, for economic loss last month. The media has finally picked up on this and has gotten a number of high-ranking councillors to condemn the move, claiming that Clear Channel should be disqualified from receiving the street furniture contract.

Then there's the conflict of interest claim by illegalsigns.ca, alledging that the director of this coordinated street furniture program was also working for Astral Outdoor, another one of the bidders as a side contract. John Barber from the Globe also covered this today with his usual flair.

And now Astral is threatening to sue illegalsigns.ca for slander. Who said that street furniture was boring?