Giorgio Mamolliti, one of Rob Ford’s criminally leaning supporters on City Council started a chain of events yesterday that underscored the achingly obvious, on many fronts.

After a heated exchange with Adam Vaughan, a disruptive Mammoliti refused to leave and was heard to say that he would “physically” resist any attempt to oust him from chambers. Citizens would likely be forcibly removed by security for this kind of thing, and police wouldn’t be far behind, but unapologetic Councillors are not held to a similar standard even when they physically assault others.

Council Speaker Frances Nunziata directed Mammoliti to apologize. He refused to say sorry, then refused to leave, and then made the statement that he’d physically resist anyone who tried to get him to budge.

In Mammoliti we have a two-faced, law-breaking, witless goof who has no problem reproaching those around him with blazing hypocrisy while supporting waste, lies, greed, and corruption; the perfect set of qualifications for a member of Ford’s inner circle, the kind of person that the Ford brothers would defend against all opposition.

And that’s exactly what Ford did in Council, claiming that “the most corrupt ones can stay” while Mammoliti was being asked to leave. Considering that neither he nor Mammoliti apologized or left, I’d say that the statement was partially accurate.

I’m sure that Ford Nation would claim that both Ford and Mammoliti apologized. But if that’s an apology…

Mr. Mammoliti had objected to city staff giving their advice between votes on the council floor.

After his apology, Mr. Mammoliti told reporters that procedural bylaws require council members to apologize when asked to, but do not require the members to “actually feel sorry for what they’ve done. In my particular case, I can’t feel sorry for saying that city staff seem to be running city hall,” he said.

For the benefit of Nunziata, a through-and-through Fordite who has given the Ford camp pretty much free reign in Council until now, Robbie’s apology for his accusation was:

“How about ‘I am so sorry? Super, super, super, super, super, super, super, sorry? So sorry?'”

To Ford Nation, everything I’ve claimed so far must seem like incredible hypocrisy. I accuse Mammoliti and Ford all sorts of things, then I fault them in the next paragraph for doing exactly the same thing. But as I keep saying, the difference between slander/libel and merely uncomfortable but completely legal statements are facts.

For example, a statement like Mammoliti being an aspiring criminal might seem like just plain name-calling except for the fact that the claim is linked to an earlier post in which Mammoliti announced (live in an on-camera interview), that he was willing to break the law to push through Ford’s subway agenda (which itself was based on an illegal cancellation of previous transit plans). It wasn’t an off-the-cuff statement and it wasn’t taken out of context, much like Mammoliti’s most recent statement that he’s once again ready to break the rules in order to get his way.

But in the Ford universe, a mountain of evidence backed by a public admission (a fact by most standards), is equal to completely baseless and slanderous comments. If the Toronto Star can accuse Rob Ford of smoking crack without (initially) providing evidence then Rob Ford is entitled to call Daniel Dale a pedophile without evidence too!

The only problem is, of course, that almost every accusation about Rob Ford thus far has been proven true, while almost every accusation made by Rob Ford has vaporized into thin air. And when Ford’s denial of the growing mountain of proof simply can’t be maintained any longer, he blurts out a bizarre admission and, in very rare times, a sort-of half apology.

Adding to this lengthy list of about-turns is Ford’s apology to Dale in Council today, peppered liberally with finger pointing (damn neighbour! damn Star editors!), contradictory statements, and qualifications ensuring that we all understand the limits of Ford’s apology. He sure as heck isn’t sorry for lying to us.

“My comments related to the fear I had for my family when my long time neighbour told me that someone was lurking at my fence, and appeared to be taking pictures of my family home over the fence. To be clear, I never personally saw Mister Dale peering over the fence or taking pictures. My neighbour told me, however, that he did see someone doing this. Mister Dale, apparently, denies that.

At that moment I honestly believed, I honestly believed, my neighbour’s account of the events. I had no idea, at the time, who the person was, my neighbour told me was leering over my fence. At that moment I had the same fears and concerns that I believe many people would have when such a report from a neighbour that they’ve known for over 15 years, and I ran to the area as quickly as I could to accost the person and attempt to protect my family. When I arrived at the corner of my home, very far from the land Mister Dale he implies was researching a story about, I indeed find an individual beside my fence in the general area my neighbour advised me. This confirmed my fears at the time. I accosted this person as I believed he was a threat to my family. This individual turned out to be Daniel Dale on assignment from the Toronto Star.

I have no issue with Mister Dale personally. I understand that he’s an employee in the very competitive news business and must do as do as his superiors instruct him. I do take issue with his bosses at the Toronto Star to put him and I into this situation. I do not mean to insinuate anything about Mister Dale personally in my interview with Mister Black. I certainly did not intend to suggest that he is a pedophile. I was merely commenting on the thoughts that went through my mind on the night of May 2012, before I had any idea that person — my neighbour told me he saw peering over the fence — was a reporter on assignment from the Toronto Star.

It is unfortunate that the word I did not say has been ascribed to me by the media, but I wish to sincerely apologize again to Mister Dale if my actual words have caused him any harm or personal offense. And if Mister Daniel Dale is here today, I want to personally apologize to him.”

Having just heard Doug Ford lashing out at the Chief of Police this morning (then discussing journalism law and ethics with a group of Ryerson students), demanding that the Chief be investigated for being in conflict of interest in making a statement about how he personally felt after seeing the crack video, I was about to let loose with a bunch of F-bombs and litany of lies-and-hypocrisy-exposing links. Seriously…conflict of interest?!

But then…

First came the news that a growing chorus on Council is finally getting in gear and making motions to effectively nullify the mayor’s and his deputy’s powers:

Second was the expected-but-still-shocking admission by Robbie: yes, he did smoke crack. Probably while heavily drunk, though surprisingly Robbie recalls both that it happened about a year ago and what the media were asking him in May of this year. The reason he didn’t answer media questions about his crack use honestly, says Ford, is not because he was lying but because they didn’t ask him the right questions. Apparently they just kept referring to alcohol.

Well, here we are. So should the cops now do as Robbie demanded a couple of days ago and arrest him? Will the Fords go down with some shred of decency, or will they go down as unabashed villains?

He did manage to kill the bike lockers, so that probably left old Robbie emboldened to try yet another City Hall renovation change. This time around he wanted to make the pool in front of City Hall a wading pool. But that didn’t entirely go over.

On the bright side, Rob called yesterday’s TTC transit debate defeat (or almost) “one of the greatest days in Toronto history”. A city stuck in gridlock, a fool for a mayor, and no way to fund transit — that’s a grand day indeed!

Just when you think you’ve seen every form of stupidity that Rob Ford can muster …

Yesterday, for example, Rob Ford voted against the new city budget. Well, technically, not the whole budget, just the part that he himself had put in there!

Yeah, that’s not a typo — Ford actually voted against a part of the city’s budget that he pushed to get have included. The specific part in question has to do with the 2% property tax increase that, if you recall, he vehemently “guaranteed” year after year would be completely eliminated (just one of the many of Rob’s boldfaced, ignorance-laced, and denigratory lies).

Of course, being Ford, he reneged on that little campaign promise almost as soon as he was done telling pinkos where they can stuff it, but he kept on maintaining that he was doing everything he could to keep it at reasonable levels. Those ended up being exactly what they were prior to when he took office, so in effect Rob Ford has managed to completely fail on this end.

Just like his much-vaunted lies about all of the gravy at City Hall that never materialized, Ford has once again flown his true colours as an unabashed liar, and a bumbling buffoon of an unabashed liar at that. I mean, if this last-minute vote against his own measure is some sort of half-assed attempt to control the “optics” of his awful mayoralty (unsurprisingly, despite what the Toronto Sun says, with the help of useful idiot monkeys like Giorgio Mammoliti), he must be depending on citizen’s abject ignorance of what he’s been up to as late as last week, or he’s depending on them being so thick as to believe the crap he’s pushing.

Then again, this is Ford Nation we’re talking about here, the same small group of knuckle-dragging troglodytes who claim that black is white, up is down, “gravy” is everywhere at City Hall, Ford saves the city money (instead of costing everyone money), Toronto taxpayers is a group that only includes them (hence they are the only ones with the right to an opinion), and so on and so on. No, I wasn’t joking when I called them severely mentally ill — how else could you keep swallowing Ford’s blatant and fetid shit all this time and continue to call it candy?

Ahh, Giorgio.

Remember him?

The Councillor who once said he was willing to break laws to get what he wanted? He had a few interesting ideas, to be sure, but I think this particular one ended up being the truly visionary one, and it didn’t end up being the kind in which he assaults someone on live TV (though there were chances).

For now, it seems, Giorgio’s broken election laws to the tune of $12,000. Toss into this unfortunate bit of news the fact that he’s Ford ally (or was until recently). Ford is still in power, hanging on by his nails, and I think this is where we’re going to start seeing some genuinely interesting developments.

Consider that Mammoliti was, for about a year, part of Ford’s inner circle. He might know stuff.

And Ford will now be asked to choose sides with someone who publicly claimed he was under a great deal of “undue pressure” while working with Ford’s team.

Ford might end up relying on the “we’re both victims of legal technicalities” line, and it’d be a good one except in this case the numbers are a little higher. Four times as much — enough, and for purposes (to win an election), that I think even the most bitter “but it was just a small amount” clingers would be satisfied that the amount is not so small.

So will Ford be expected to criticize his former (current?) ally? And is he willing to say what he thinks an acceptable limit on going over the line is? (Oh, and by the way, what’s the possibility of legally moving the line instead of just telling the current one where to go?)

I mean, what would Ford say about something that ran at about the $12,000 limit? How bad of an infraction is that? And if, in theory, such an infraction was legal but looked bad, what would he think of an infraction that both looked bad but was also illegal?

Perhaps Doug et al. would like to weigh in too?

Should be interesting, I think.

By the way, Happy New Year!

The elimination of the Land Transfer Tax is actually a Ford election promise, unlike his push for subways, so that part of his ongoing bluster on the subject is true. The rest, however, including his recent assurance to have it eliminated by the end of his term, has been just one long pile of growing bullkaka.

For starters, shortly before he was elected he made a speech to the Toronto Real Estate Board promising that the LTT would be completely gone by the end of 2012 … “guaranteed!”

Ford blamed the Ontario government’s impending election for delaying the changes beyond his first year.

A little over that first year later, speaking in front of the same group, he vowed to have the LTT reduced by up to 25% by the end of 2012.

“I can’t say we’re gonna wipe it out this year, but it might be a quarter this year, a half next year, or — you know, but we’re gonna do it piece by piece. You’re gonna see a portion of the land transfer tax, I don’t know how much right now, be gone by the end of next year,” Ford said.

Granted we’re not exactly at the end of 2012 yet but Ford is already backing down on even this revised plan (once again revealed in front of the same Toronto Real Estate Board meeting), saying that he’d like to have the process of repealing the tax started by the end of his term in 2014. And in typical Ford fashion, he wants people to “get in councillor’s faces” in order to get his way.

“Folks, you must get in the councillors’ faces,” Mr. Ford said. “As we succeed in reducing costs, we can begin to phase out that terrible land transfer tax, which I never supported and I am adamant to get rid of. I’d like to start doing that before this council term is up.”

To reiterate:

2010 – Rob Ford “guarantees” to have the LTT eliminated by 2012, maybe 2011. Blames MPs, elections for possible delays.
2011 –  Rob Ford cuts back on his “guarantee”, now claiming to have the LTT reduced by about 25% in 2012.
2012 – Rob Ford completely reneges on his “guarantee”, vowing to hopefully set something in motion on the LTT by the end of 2014 (much like many of his other plans). He invites constituents to get in councillors’ faces, presumably because he blames them for his inability to gain traction on the issue.

This, according to Ford-backing tabloid Toronto Sun, is considered “tackling” the LTT. Hmm…why is it still walking then?

Councillor Shelley  Carroll tweeted a bunch of quotes from her day today including presentations from MGM Grand casino reps trying to set up shop in Toronto (with much support from Fordo and his bunch), and witticisms from Giorgio Mammoliti’s. These would be hilarious if they didn’t represent the idiocy currently running, sorry, attempting to run Toronto.

MGMGrand representatives: “We function best in an adult oriented town.”

Still listening to deps about Casinos. In 8 yrs, I’ve never seen so many Public Affairs firms represented in this room @ 1 time. And by Public Affairs I mean Lobbyists! Generally when you create REAL JOBS & Community Benefits, you don’t need a Lobbyist.

So I’ve been presented with this glossy, done deal picture book from MGM Grand! http://pic.twitter.com/6qsAXpFH

Who could say no!?! Especially when it’s all up to the Province to wear the controversy! Sassy! http://pic.twitter.com/Gj35J4zf

So Vegas, So Glossy! http://pic.twitter.com/XY21xzFB

So would a casino in Toronto be such a bad idea? The mayor and his slimey buddies don’t seem to think so. Folks in the US would probably say otherwise. But is it really surprising considering who’s supporting this?

Jumpin Jack Mammoliti: We will transfer the funds over to TPS to break up illicit card games.

Jumpin Jack Mammoliti: “If it’s the right decision I’ll vote for it. If it’s the wrong decision I’ll vote for that as well.”

Jumpin Jack Mammoliti: This is not organized crime. This is legalized crime.

Sage words from a man who once said:

When you’re sleeping with a prostitute, you’re probably sleeping with 150 guys at the same time.

Judging by his attitude towards hookers, it only stands to reason that the arse is equally cognizant of how bad a casino would be. Makes one wonder, then, where he gets off pulling 10,000 jobs for single moms out of his ass.

So Sarah and I took a trip down to University Avenue to visit with Janet Leiper, the Integrity Commissioner for the City of Toronto. I’m pretty sure you can guess that the topic of discussion was our less than lustrous mayor and his continuing antics. Specifically, we were curious to know what steps could be taken to oust the man (and I use that word lightly), and what her office’s role could be in that.

Janet is a surprisingly youthful and slim woman (for someone who listens to the bitching and moaning of the city all day), and was very cordial in welcoming us to her office — something that rarely takes place (most people just call). It wasn’t a big space, shared only with her assistant Wendy, and was filled mostly with office supplies, bulky office equipment, books, desks, and one small round table around which we sat.

She began by opening a weighty volume, the City of Toronto Code of Conduct for Members of Council and explaining that this, for the most part, was the territory that she treads. Then she drew a three-slice pie diagram explaining that, out of the three slices of a Member’s responsibility, she was responsible for interpreting complaints related to their conduct (the other two being legal / criminal responsibilities, and political responsibilities). To put it another way, the Code of Conduct is what she’s responsible for admonishing. Should the matter be criminal or a failure of political responsibility, her role would be only to advise people to take it up with others under whom these jurisdictions fall.

The role of the Integrity Commissioner is, for the most part, to smooth over relations so that, for example, when some Council member is having a tiff with another member, she can recommend that the two apologize. Her recommendations are the definitive word on whether or not the Code of Conduct has been breached and, when it’s something big, her recommendation is brought to Council for a vote for action. Janet is also a lawyer (this gig is only a part-time role for her), so she is basically the professional vetting of whether or not the Code has been breached — if she says yes, there doesn’t need to be any question about it. However, if a member of Council breaks a rule beyond simply the Code, it’s taken one step higher to the courts, precisely why Rob Ford is being tackled by Clayton Ruby.

We were told, in no uncertain terms, that we were more than welcome to contact Janet’s office any time we felt that the Code of Conduct was being breached, and even if it wasn’t specifically spelled out “in the letter” of the code, we could go by “the spirit” of the document which is spelled out in the preamble. In other words, even if the thing doesn’t mention a specific infraction, there are certain overarching elements that cover what the Code is supposed to be about. These include:

• Members of Council shall serve and be seen to serve their constituents in a conscientious and diligent manner;
• Members of Council should be committed to performing their functions with integrity and to avoiding the improper use of the influence of their office, and conflicts of interest, both apparent and real;
• Members of Council are expected to perform their duties in office and arrange their private affairs in a manner that promotes public confidence and will bear close public scrutiny; and
• Members of Council shall seek to serve the public interest by upholding both the letter and the spirit of the laws of the Federal Parliament and Ontario Legislature, and the laws and policies adopted by City Council

So let’s say you believe that the Mayor had a conflict of interest in using public money to fund his high school football team — start by having a gander of the Code of Conduct. If you can find anything specific covering such an action (or you believe the spirit of the thing has been breached), you should go right ahead and file a complaint with the Integrity Commissioner. That complaint can be private, or it can be formal (which will require an affidavit and some other paperwork), the second accusation obviously being the more serious one (and one that the Commissioner is able to discuss publicly). The Commissioner’s office will then investigate the complaint and provide a recommendation. That recommendation can be brought before Council for a vote, or she can recommend that you get a lawyer and they can take it from there.

In any event, the Office of the Integrity Commissioner is a great place to start if you think that members of Council have broken the rules. Just be sure to point out which part of the Code you think they’ve breached (she can’t actually recommend things like that, it would make her seem biased). Even if you’re not 100% sure, you can ask — that’s exactly why she’s there!

And, if I can share the one major take-away that this visit left me with: getting involved with the machinations of City Hall (or any level of government), is not at all difficult! Even if you don’t know exactly how to proceed with something like a complaint, all you have to do is ask and you will be directed to the right place. You’ll learn more about how the city works in 30 minutes than you could by reading all the newspapers around town, and along the way you’ll discover that most of these mechanisms are actually in place primarily for citizens, not just Council members, reporters, and others who would end up interpreting things for you.

And it’s exceedingly easy in most cases. I started with an email which resulted in an appointment for a phone call. We misunderstood and actually went down to the Integrity Commissioner’s office, but that’s usually way more effort than you’d have to put in.

We said our goodbyes, took the elevator down to street level, out onto University, and made our way up to discuss what we’d just learned over bevvies. While we didn’t actually do anything, the meeting emboldened us to take further steps to get our buffoon of a mayor under control. The bravado came from knowing we’re both just regular Joes off the street; we have no legal training, no lawyers, no money to back us, and no connections to support us, yet we have as much power to file a formal complaint that could oust the mayor (or any member of Council) as anyone else!

If I can recommend just one thing, if you’re frustrated with Mayor Ford or his minions, if things seem to be spinning wildly out of control, if City Hall seems to be working against you, the citizen, and not with you, don’t be afraid to get in touch with someone like the Integrity Commissioner and find out what steps to take to fix things. It’s easy, friendly, and even if you don’t get the answer you need right away, you’ll be pointed in the right direction.

It’s been years since anything like this was attempted and, let’s be honest, this is a survey that all of Toronto has been waiting far too long for. I understand that you, dear reader, may not know the first thing about most, if not all, of these people and that’s perfectly okay. I might suggest that not knowing some of these folks’ backgrounds may make them sexier. The idea here is to be entirely superficial. :)

I think it’ll be fun to leave the poll open until the fall election when all of these faces may change. Perhaps we can correlate the sexiness factor with incumbency.

In the meantime, pick the three sexiest guys and gals (feel free to vote as much as the system will allow), and I’ll try my best to deliver the good news to the winning two offices — one lady, one gent — when the numbers are all in. “Hottest Toronto Councillor 2010” — that’d look nice on a plaque.

… Continue Reading

This week the pre-election ritual of reviewing councillors’ salaries began in earnest. Prior to this election the issue, like the trillium, blossomed every three years but now with a four- year term this ugly plant has morphed into a weed that always bears bitter fruit. Councillors will predictably fall all over themselves to prove to the electorate how frugal they are. They will disparage the expectations of their colleagues and publicly slash their wrists in an effort to out humble each other.

Oh my gosh. :D Then at the end of this Toronto City Council motion it ends by saying that the Toronto Star’s Editorial Board bears great wisdom when it comes to giving people raises and why not use them since they’re “are always eager to give advice about this weighty subject”? Yours truly, Councillor Howard Moscoe.

Gotta thank Newstalk 1010 for this one.