It's already a bit stale news that former Winnipeg mayor and gay man Glen Murray has officially dropped out of the race for Toronto mayor so he can run to replace the other gay mayoral candidate, George Smitherman, in the provincial parliament. Smitherman officially resigns his Toronto Centre—Rosedale seat in December, and the premier has up to six months after that to call a by-election.

Murray will first be running to grab the Liberal nomination for the riding, and rumour has it that there’s already a couple of out gays in the running. Among them are: Sachin Aggarwal, who is a board member of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation, a member of the 519 Community Centre and former deputy chief of staff to federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff; and former Smitherman staffer Todd Ross, who is currently the Director of Community Development and Partnerships at Casey House (Facebook campaign page here).

[UPDATE: Ross has announced that he is dropping out of the race and will be supporting Murray's bid.]

Well, it'll certainly be an interesting nomination battle! And Xtra’s own Kaj Hasselris has the real scoop on Mr. Murray from a Winnipeger’s perspective.

Longtime Murray watchers may remember that he was courted to run for the provincial Liberals in the 2007 provincial election, but had to bow out of the race when the Toronto Star – for whom he was a regular columnist at the time – broke the story. One wonders if he’s again being offered a cushion to get him out of Smitherman's hair (so to speak) for the mayoral race, or if he's just done the simple arithmetic and realized that a carpetbagger would have a better shot winning a safe seat under a party banner than as a fly-in mayoral candidate.

City Council finally wrapped up debate on the sign bylaw and tax yesterday, putting the new law on the books. Unfortunately, one of the contentious parts of the tax -- that revenues would be directed to city beautification/arts projects -- was left out of the law. Instead, the tax will go to general revenues and be divied up during the regular budgeting process. Some councillors and activists are stating that the money will most likely end up in the arts anyway, but given council's looming $500-million shortfall, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

Meanwhile, my colleague Scott Dagostino has already reported that next year's founding G20 summit will take place in Toronto, and not in Huntsville, June 26-27, 2010. Just to clarify, while the Pride festival will be ongoing, Pride already moved the major events like the Parade and Dyke March to the following weekend specifically to avoid G20 conflicts. Quite a prescient move on their part, actually. Still up in the air is whether or not Toronto will get the millions in bribery infrastructure money that was poured into Huntsville and surrounding municipalities as part of efforts to shore up industry minister Tony Clement's vote haul prepare the region the host the most powerful leaders in the world. Still, this is the perfect opportunity to make Pride political again by using the first weekend of the festival to lobby the governments of some less-than-queer-friendly G20 members who'll be in town at the time. I'm looking at you, Saudi Arabia. Mexico. India. Indonesia. Turkey. USA... 

In December, most theatres are starting to wrap up their shows for the Christmas holidays, so there aren't many openings to talk about this week. Instead, I'm going to use today's space to talk a bit more about the proposed billboad tax, which the city will continue to debate about tomorrow. As I mentioned before, part of the money raised from the tax would go toward city beautification and arts and cultural festivals and programs. This, no doubt, includes the performing arts. Revenue from the tax could support free public concerts, dance and circus acts, and yes, even public theatre. Many of these events could be right in our community, and could include things like the Writing Outside the Margins queer literary festival, which was cancelled this year due to lack of funding.

It comes at no cost to the taxpayer and is shouldered by an industry that has routinely flouted our by-laws and defaced our neighbourhoods. It's an overall big win.

A good run-down on the history of the debate, and the billboard industry's shady tactics, can be found over at spacing.ca's Toronto blog.

Friends over at Beautifulcity.ca, which has been spearheading the billboard tax proposal have informed me that our own local councillor, Kyle Rae, opposes the tax. If you think the fee for the support of beautifying the city and promoting the arts is a good idea, let him know that we need him to vote in favour of it. Please send him an e-mail or call his office (416-392-7903) to speak your mind.

Meanwhile in theatre, Buddies in Bad Times opened Salon Automaton this week. I have no idea what it's about other than that it involves actual robots on stage. That's enough to get me excited. Planning to catch it this weekend. It's another short-run show, so if the idea of robots thrills you -- and it should -- make plans to see it soon.

Debate on the proposed billboard tax spilled over from yesterday's city council session into today's meeting, and the city is warning that it may continue into tomorrow as well.

The sign by-law proposes to harmonize the rules for billboards across the city (something that was never accomplished post-amalgamation), banning rooftop billboards and the largest billboards, and imposes a fee on all billboards in the city (fee ranges depending on the size and technology of the sign), which would be used in part to enforce the law. Because at present, it doesn't appear that anyone does.

The remainder of the fee would be used to beautify the city and support arts and culture events. Seems like a fair trade-off to me. After all, everywhere else in life, advertisements are meant to sponsor entertainment. They don't and shouldn't just appear out of nowhere as an expected part of the landscape. Much of the art/beautification money is to be targetted to the city's 13 priority (poor) neighbourhoods, which is good, but money will also be set aside for each ward. Perhaps with the additional money, the Church Street BIA could get on with plans to improve the Village streetscape and build proper gateways to the hood? Particularly with Maple Leaf Gardens reopening at Carlton St, the time seems ripe for a grand southern entrance welcoming visitors to the gaybourhood.

Maple Leaf Gardens is finally going to reopen after it was mothballed in 1999 and sold to Loblaws in 2004. The new plan calls for a Loblaws grocery store on the ground floor, a two-level sports centre for Ryerson University above it (complete with 5,000-seat ice hockey arena), and underground parking. The renovation is expected to cost $60 million for the sports centre and a further $25 million for the grocery store. The sports centre is being funded with a $20 million gift from the federal government's bribery piggy bank stimulus fund and $20 million from Ryerson student fees, with the balance to be covered by a fundraising campaign kicked off by a $5 million donation from Loblaws. See, Loblaws is "donating" to a building it already owns. Just like when my dad "donated" $5,000 to build a deck in his backyard.

Actually, coverage so far has been really vague on the terms of the agreement -- like, who owns the building at the end of the day? Is Ryerson going to be paying rent on the building? If so, why are the government and students being dinged to the tune of $40 million to renovate a building that Loblaws paid only $13 million for? Ryerson has also made a vague promise of public access to the sports complex and ice time, which seems a little optimistic given that almost no university keeps those sorts of promises once made (I'm leering at UofT Scarborough's upcoming aquatic centre when I type this). 

The reno is also meant to be complete for 2011 -- as per the federal stimulus requirements -- which also poses another uncomfortable question: was this venue considered as a venue for the Pan-Am Games? Certainly it would be a much shorter commute than sending Taekwando, Wrestling, Judo, and Roller Sports to Mississauga. Or did UofT just do better lobbying for the glittering new venues it's getting?

Meanwhile, city council is debating a new tax on billboards in the city, with revenues earmarked to enforce the city existing but laxly enforced sign by-laws and to support city beautification, arts, and cultural initiatives. Seems fair to me, but obviously the billboard industry is up in arms. Hopefully by the time you read this, the new tax will be passed.

Also today, it looks like Circa nightclub is bankrupt after a year of financial and legal troubles. The Star's own article says that the club is not closing soon, contrary to what the headline implies, but I'll keep an eye on this.