{"id":17498,"date":"2010-10-21T19:27:37","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T00:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jackjia.com\/?p=17498"},"modified":"2010-10-21T19:27:37","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T00:27:37","slug":"20101021%e5%a4%9a%e4%bc%a6%e5%a4%9a%e6%98%9f%e6%8a%a5%ef%bc%9a%e8%bf%9e%e9%80%89%e7%ac%ac12%e4%bb%bb%e5%af%86%e8%a5%bf%e6%b2%99%e5%8a%a0%e5%b8%82%e9%95%bf%ef%bc%8c%e9%ba%a6%e8%80%83%e8%8e%b2%e9%9d%a2%","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jackjia.com\/?p=17498","title":{"rendered":"20101021\/\u591a\u4f26\u591a\u661f\u62a5\uff1a\u8fde\u9009\u7b2c12\u4efb\u5bc6\u897f\u6c99\u52a0\u5e02\u957f\uff0c\u9ea6\u8003\u83b2\u9762\u5bf9\u786c\u4ed7\u4e00\u573a"},"content":{"rendered":"

McCallion fights hard for 12th term as Mississauga mayor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Royson James: Mississauga needs watchdog \u2018group of seven\u2019<\/p>\n

By Royson James, City Columnist<\/p>\n

Hazel McCallion hasn\u2019t campaigned this hard in decades, if ever. But the matriarch of Mississauga isn\u2019t rustling up votes to deliver her 12th straight term as mayor; rather, she\u2019s working to defeat the only shadow of opposition she\u2019s had during a 32-year reign: a pesky group of seven led by Carolyn Parrish.<\/p>\n

If McCallion succeeds, it will be a huge blow to democracy and a boon to the self-importance, greed and entitlement that has now come to roost in the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Voters should reject this petulant, self-serving bid from their mayor. Residents don\u2019t \u201cput Mississauga first\u201d by populating city council with a company of compliant yes-men and -women.<\/p>\n

Just what are the sins of Nando Iaannica, George Carlson, Carmen Corbasson, Sue McFadden, Frank Dale, Eve Adams and Parrish? They dared to challenge McCallion\u2019s right to ignore all conventions of conflict of interest and promote a lucrative development project fronted by her son on lands near city hall.<\/p>\n

They dared to ask for an inquiry to probe how the pension fund giant OMERS managed to get a veto power over the city-owned hydro utility, even though OMERS was a minority shareholder; and how this veto clause was inserted without council approval; and how the mayor signed this clause, contrary to the document council approved.<\/p>\n

To spend one day at the Mississauga Inquiry, listening to McCallion and her real estate broker son, Peter, testify and obfuscate and skate around clear answers to clear questions is to know the \u201cgroup of seven\u201d should be applauded.<\/p>\n

It is they, not McCallion\u2019s cowardly backers such as Katie Mahoney, Pat Saito and Patricia Mullen, who should be re-elected and given the keys to preserving the city\u2019s good name.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a waste of paper and ink to advocate that voters turf McCallion for one of her 10 challengers \u2014 though there are capable replacements among them, such as Dave Cook. What bears saying, though, is that McCallion is totally misguided in her attempts to neuter the very little opposition she has on council.<\/p>\n

The last thing Mississauga needs is a compliant, boot-licking, submissive council of followers \u2014 not now, in the twilight of McCallion\u2019s career; not at a time when new ideas and visions should begin to surface and define the next 30 years; not when there is mounting evidence that Hazel\u2019s one-person regime had significant flaws.<\/p>\n

McCallion\u2019s rule has been good for Mississauga. But the judicial inquiry will probably conclude that it came at a price. Hazel refuses to see that public interest and private interest must be separate.<\/p>\n

She fails to separate friends and social buddies and dinner partners and developers. She mixes business with pleasure. She runs interference for and negotiates business extensions for her son\u2019s company \u2014 all in the name of what\u2019s good for Mississauga. And the said company just happens to be the only one that has never had to pay up-front development fees ($440,000) for the massive project it once planned as it began making its way through city hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started opening lids on little cans and the councillors started looking inside,\u201d is the way Parrish explains her leadership in search of transparency at city hall.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that the old guard wants to hold on to the ways of the past. They benefitted greatly by hanging on to Hazel\u2019s skirt. She\u2019s taken good care of her friends. An example:<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s utility, Enersource, had two city councillors and a number of citizens on the board. Unlike Toronto Hydro, where city councillors don\u2019t get extra pay to serve as board members, Mississauga\u2019s two politicians drew in an average $47,500 in compensation. That is above what was already among the highest compensation for city councillors in the country.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more. The city manager also pocketed $38,000 \u2014 on top of the six-figure city salary \u2014 to sit on Enersource one Tuesday afternoon a month.<\/p>\n

The problems started when Parrish tried to end this practice, only to have OMERS inform the elected officials that the company, not the elected officials, controlled the salaries.<\/p>\n

How OMERS got that power, via David O\u2019Brien, then city manager and friend and confidant of the mayor \u2014 who signed it but doesn\u2019t know what she signed and claims not to know the veto existed \u2014 is one subject of the inquiry. And rightly so.<\/p>\n

Embarrassed, McCallion tried to short-circuit plans to call the inquiry and failed. She has testified, but almost as a hostile witness, in her disarming and charming way of a powerful octogenarian. And now she wants to punish the councillors for seeking the truth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an odious initiative. Mississaugans would be better off to quietly hold their nose, vote Hazel in one last time, and overwhelmingly return a strong cadre of councillors who pledge to keep a careful watch on the mayor\u2019s sunset years.<\/p>\n

Parrish is indispensable in that task.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/article\/879183–royson-james-mississauga-needs-watchdog-group-of-seven?bn=1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McCallion fights hard for 12th term as Mississauga mayor Royson James: Mississauga needs watchdog \u2018group of seven\u2019 By Royson James, City Columnist Haz…
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