The federal government has gone over the heads of the City of Toronto in placing the G20 economic summit in the heart of the downtown core.

Toronto has been urging Ottawa to locate the June summit at Exhibition Place, a few kilometres outside the downtown. That's because the city believes holding the meeting in the core could cause major disruptions for business and traffic, and numerous security challenges.

The federal government hasn't officially announced where events will be held, but sources said they are hoping to hold the summit at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, at the edge of the city’s financial district.

"We made no secret that we thought Exhibition Place would be a great venue," said Stuart Green, spokesman for Mayor David Miller. "Those decisions were made by the federal government."

The city hasn't given up hope that Ottawa will change its mind and take Toronto up on its advice to keep the downtown core summit-free, Green added.

But the city councillor whose ward contains the summit site is already upset.

The federal government selected the downtown location without public consultation, ignoring local concerns about cost and disruption, Coun. Adam Vaughan said in a letter he sent to local residents Thursday.

“We need them to start working with us, and that means listening to us, and quite clearly, the folks up in Ottawa are much better at talking than listening,” Vaughan said Friday afternoon.

Banks already making plans

The big banks have already started making plans for the event, with some taking steps to curtail their activity in the days leading up to the summit.

"Police suggest that businesses avoid scheduling large meetings between June 20-28, 2010, as travel in and around the city core is likely to be difficult," the property manager of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower said in a note to tenants this week.

Several big banks have their headquarters within blocks of the planned summit site. Last year at the G20 summit in London, about 5000 people protested, many of them targeting banks.

A few bank branches had their windows smashed, and one person died after being pushed to the ground.

The initial plan was to hold the Group of Eight summit in Huntsville, Ont., and the second, larger G20 meeting somewhere nearby, but the government announced in December that the major meeting would be held in Toronto after concerns surfaced that the smaller Ontario venue could not provide all the resources necessary to stage such a huge event.

The cottage country town will still host the smaller Group of Eight summit several days before the G20 meeting.

The government is expected to formally announce the location of the summit in the coming weeks.