There are no doubt dozens of mayors and other local officials in the US and Canada who are awash in wrong-doing and very bad habits.
Take the infamous black DC mayor Marion Barry who was elected to the city council in 1992 and ultimately returned to the mayoralty in 1994, serving from 1995 to 1999 after he was caught smoking crack.
In January 1990 Barry was videotaped smoking crack cocaine and arrested by FBI officials on drug charges. Barry made a comeback after he served six months in a federal prison.
But why no wall-to-wall coverage of other foibles? The revelations must be serving some purpose to rid the city of Ford.
Since the 1970s, Toronto has been home to the largest Jewish population in Canada and a centre of Jewish Canadian culture. Why do Toronto’s elites, and by extention the media, really hate Rob Ford so much? CNN gives a clue:
Part of that building has been a heavy emphasis on being accessible to constituents: Mayor Ford even gives out his cell phone number to voters, to call him any time about problems with city services or taxes.
He eschews a chauffeur and other city perks, all in the name of keeping spending down for the average taxpayer. He’s even been photographed reading work documents while driving on an expressway.
“I don’t believe in wasting taxpayer’s money,” he later said about the controversial photo.
…
Upon winning his first election, Rob Ford immediately garnered a reputation for keeping taxes and city expenses down. In 2001, he advocated cutting limousines as a city perk and slashing each councilor’s $200,000 budget, used for travel and club memberships. “If we wiped out the perks for council members, we’d save $100 million easy,” he said, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.
…
In 2006, then-Councilor Ford offended the gay community when he questioned $1.5 million for an anti-AIDS program: “It is very preventable,” Ford said about the disease, according to City News Toronto. “If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS probably, that’s bottom line.”
Toronto’s City Council voted overwhelmingly Friday to strip Mayor Rob Ford of some of his powers, trying to box in the brash leader who has rebuffed huge pressure to resign over his drinking and drug habits and erratic behavior. Ford vowed to challenge the measure in court.
The motion, approved in a 39-3 vote, suspends Ford’s authority to appoint and dismiss the deputy mayor and his executive committee, which runs the budget process. In a separate vote, the council voted to give the deputy mayor authority to handle any civic emergency. The effort will continue Monday when the council moves to strip the mayor of most of his remaining powers.
The votes capped another frenzied week of twists and turns in the scandal that has consumed Canada’s largest city and financial capital for months.
Newly released court documents showed that the mayor became the subject of a police investigation after news reports surfaced in May that he had been caught on video smoking crack. In interviews with police, former staffers accused the mayor of frequently drinking on the job, driving while intoxicated and making sexual advances toward a female staffer. Ford stirred up further controversy – even offending Canada’s oldest football team – when he used profanity Thursday while angrily addressing the latest allegations.
Most city councilors are frustrated by Ford’s refusal to step aside but they lack the authority to force him out of office unless he is convicted of a crime.
An unusually subdued Ford said he had no choice but to fight the motion in court while also saying he understood why the council was taking the measures – a typical display of defiance followed by a flash of remorse.
“If I would have had a mayor conducting themselves the way I have, I would have done exactly the same thing,” Ford said.
The mayor, a conservative who touts his efforts to curb public spending and keep taxes low, later made it clear he intends to seek re-election next year.
“Councilors spoke today. The taxpayers of this great city will have their say Oct. 27,” Ford told a crush of reporters, referring to the date of the municipal elections. City Hall. A few hecklers shouted “Resign! Resign!”
Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, called the council’s actions a “coup” and said they have hired a municipal law expert to challenge it.
The vote came a day after yet another series of antics from Ford that outraged city councilors, anti-drunk driving advocates and even Toronto’s football team, which protested when Ford wore a team jersey while making a profanity-laced statement.
“We need to take away his power for the good of the city,” said Councilor Denzil Minnan-Wong, a former ally. “The tide has turned and there are very few people that are prepared to defend him given his vulgar comments and his admission that not only does he takes drugs but that he seems to be comfortable drinking and getting behind the wheel.”
Morris, Ford’s lawyer, said he thought the council’s overwhelming support to strip the mayor’s power came about because of the public outcry over the obscenity that Ford spouted a day earlier while denying that he pressured a female employee for oral sex. The mayor said on live television that he was “happily married” and used crude language to say he enjoys enough oral sex at home.
“If it wasn’t for that stupid comment he made yesterday no one would have thought this (the council’s action) was appropriate,” Morris told The Associated Press. “It was a turning point for public sympathy. That type of remark is never every appropriate in public. There’s no doubt about it, he’s going to have to do a lot of leg work to gain back public confidence in him.”
Morris said the “media have been attacking him like jackals” and Ford “lost it.”
Ford announced Thursday that he was seeking help form a team of medical professionals, though he declined to provide details. Although the mayor has admitted to excessive drinking and using and buying illegal drugs, he and his family have insisted he is not an addict and does not need rehab.
But even Morris said the recently released court documents corroborate the fact that the mayor has a problem with alcohol. Morris said he doesn’t understand how police allowed him to drink and drive while the mayor was under surveillance the past six months.
“The problem drug Rob has is alcohol, that’s obvious,” Morris told The AP. “What I found very strange is that the police allowed a lot of this to go on under their supervision. If he was drinking and driving and he was impaired they should have stopped him.”
Ford’s troubles began escalating in May when news reports of the crack video surfaced. After months of evading the question, the mayor admitted to having smoked crack when Toronto police announced they had obtained the video. Police have said the video does not amount to enough evidence to charge the mayor and it has not been released because it is evidence before the court.
Revelations have rapidly surfaced of other startling behavior, including a video showing the mayor threatening to kill someone in an incoherent rant.
It has been a stunning decline for the 44-year-old mayor who was elected three years ago with fervent support from Toronto’s conservative-leaning outer suburbs, where many voters felt angry about they considered wasteful spending and elitist politics at City Hall.
John Filion, the councilor who introduced Friday’s motion, has said the goal is to prevent Ford from firing executive committee members who speak out against him. A motion to be considered Monday, already signed by 28 of the 44 council members, will take away his budget and appoint the deputy mayor as head of the executive committee.
Earlier this week, the council voted overwhelmingly to ask Ford to take a leave of absence, but the motion was non-binding. – AP
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted during a heated City Council debate Wednesday that he had bought illegal drugs in the past two years, but he firmly refused to step down even after nearly every councilor stood up to ask him to take a leave of absence.
The mayor made the confession under direct questioning by a former ally, Councilor Denzil Minnan-Wong. Ford publicly admitted last week that he smoked crack cocaine last year in a “drunken stupor,” but his comments Wednesday marked the first time he acknowledged having bought illegal drugs.
Ford paused for a long time after Minnan-Wong asked him if he had bought illicit narcotics in the past two years.
Then Ford replied, “Yes I have.”
“I understand the embarrassment that I have caused. I am humiliated by it,” Ford said.
But he then turned defiant, saying he was not an addict of any sort and rebuffing suggestions from council members that he should seek help. He insisted he is a “positive role model for kids who are down and out.”
“I’m most definitely keeping this job,” he said. “I am not leaving here. I’m going to sit here and going to attend every meeting.”
Moments earlier, all but two of the 43 councilors present for the debate voted to accept an open letter asking Ford to step aside.
Although it was a stark demonstration of his political isolation, the vote was symbolic because the City Council does not have the authority to force the mayor from office unless he is convicted of a crime.
“Together we stand to ask you to step aside and take a leave of absence,” Councilor Jaye Robinson said, reading the open letter.
The packed council chamber erupted with applause when Robinson ended her speech, saying “Let’s get on with city business.”
Outside City Hall, hundreds of protesters changed “resign!” And organizers of Toronto’s Santa Claus Parade asked that Ford not walk in the procession this year.
Ford’s refusal to resign has confounded the City Council, where many members agree that his erratic behavior – from public drunkenness to threatening to kill someone in a videotaped tirade – has consumed Toronto’s politics and undermined efforts to tackle other challenges.
But with no clear legal path to force him out, the Council is grasping for ways to shunt the larger-than-life leader aside and govern without him until next year’s municipal elections.
The open letter was separate from a non-binding motion, also being debated Wednesday, that would formally call on Ford to take a leave of absence, apologize to Toronto residents for misleading them and cooperate with police.
Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, a Ford ally, announced shortly before the debate that he would support the motion, introduced by Minnan-Wong.
“I’m publicly advising the mayor to take some time,” Kelly said.
Minnan-Wong said he would drop another proposal to ask the province of Ontario to pass legislation to remove the mayor from office if he refuses to take a leave. Other councilors had expressed concern that asking the provincial government to intervene would set a dangerous precedent.
Councilor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, heckled Minnan-Wong throughout the debate.
One Ford ally, Councilor Giorgio Mammoliti, called the motion a waste of time. “We can’t tell him what to do. Only the electorate can tell him what to do,” he said.
Toronto police said last month they had obtained a long-sought video of Ford apparently smoking from a crack pipe but that it does not constitute evidence to charge him. Toronto Police spokesman Mark Pugash said Ford’s acknowledgement Wednesday that he bought illegal drugs would be passed on to investigators.
News reports of the crack video’s existence first surfaced in May, but it has not been released publicly.
Another proposed motion would curtail Ford’s powers, suspending his authority to appoint and dismiss the deputy mayor and his executive committee, which runs the budget process. It likely won’t be debated until Friday.
Toronto’s mayor already has limited powers compared to the mayors of many large cities in the United States. He is just one voting member in the council and his power stems mostly from his ability, as the only councilor elected by citywide vote, to build consensus and set the agenda. That authority, many council members say, has evaporated in the crack scandal.
Ford, 44, was elected three years ago, riding a backlash from suburbanites who felt alienated by what they deemed Toronto’s downtown-centric, liberal-dominated politics.
Despite his eroding political leverage, Ford promises to seek re-election. He maintains a hardcore of supporters he refers to as “Ford Nation,” who applaud him for abolishing an annual $60 vehicle registration tax, squeezing valuable concessions out of the labor unions and other cost-saving measures.
Councilors have expressed concern that more revelations about the mayor’s will surface and plague city politics.
On Tuesday, a judge agreed to release more documents from a drug case against a friend and occasional driver of the mayor, Alexander Lisi. Previously released documents revealed the mayor’s ties and covert meetings with Lisi.
Police said they obtained the crack video in the course of the investigation against Lisi and a gang. They say they cannot release the video because it is evidence before the court.
Ford was grilled by councilors about his links to a Toronto home where he was photographed with three suspected gang members. A police informant has described the residence as a “crack house” and police have said it relates to the crack video.
“That is not a crack house,” Ford said. “Have you been in that house?”
Councilor Michael Thompson retorted: “I have no interest in being in that house. I am not a crack user.” – AP
The mayor of Canada’s largest city, facing allegations that he smoked crack cocaine, and made racial and homophobic slurs on video, must either refute the accusations or step down, fellow city politicians say.
“If the allegations are false, then the mayor is owed some apologies,” said Councillor Josh Matlow, who has clashed with Ford on transit issues, but who usually takes a centrist line in a polarized city council.
“If the allegations are proven true beyond a reasonable doubt, then the mayor should resign.”
An editor from U.S. media outlet Gawker and two reporters from the Toronto Star said separately they saw a cellphone video that appeared to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.
Ford, who is no stranger to controversy, was elected mayor of Toronto more than two years ago after serving as a councillor for 10 years. He called the allegations “ridiculous” on Friday and suggested they were part of a broader campaign against him by the left-leaning Toronto Star newspaper.
Dennis Morris, Ford’s lawyer, told Reuters on Monday that it was still too early to consider legal action over the allegations and that if there is a video, it needs to be made public so that Canadians can judge the content for themselves.
“We’re all waiting to see whether there’s anything within this video and whether or not it’s been doctored, edited, altered, that type of thing,” he said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the existence of the video or its contents.
Ford’s brother, Doug, his closest ally on City Council, broke a brief and uncharacteristic silence on Saturday, telling local radio station Newstalk 1010, “I have never seen my brother involved with anything like coke.”
The brothers canceled their regular Sunday appearance on a radio show at the same station.
The controversy made headlines across Canada and around the world, although some focused as much on Ford’s crude remarks as the allegations of crack use.
“The allegations that have been leveled at Mayor Ford are not just serious, but they are also criminal,” Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam told CBC News. “I would encourage the mayor to resign and to seek help as soon as possible should this be true.”
The Toronto Star reporters who watched the video said Ford calls Liberal leader Justin Trudeau a “fag” and derisively refers to players on the high school football team he coaches as “minorities”.
“If the mayor the of world’s most diverse city is proven to have uttered racial and homophobic slurs, then he’s not fit for the office,” Councillor Matlow told Reuters.
Toronto City Council contains both left-leaning councilors, mostly from the city’s core, and right-leaning candidates like Ford, who are mostly from suburban areas like Etobicoke.
The two groups tend to take different approaches on issues from transit to unionized labor, with often comical policy flip flops. In one example, City Council imposed a 5-cent fee on plastic grocery bags, then ignored Ford’s plea to remove the fee and voted to ban the bags completely.
They then reversed that decision, leaving the issue exactly where it was before the whole debate started.
Elected on a platform to stop the gravy train at City Hall, Ford has courted controversy on many occasions; the Toronto Star on Friday published a list of 42 “extraordinary moments” in his political career.
The list includes accusations that Ford skipped City Council meetings to coach high-school football and engaged in a confrontation outside his home with a reporter.
He was briefly ordered out of office in 2012 after he was found guilty of conflict of interest, but won an appeal and was allowed to finish his four-year term as mayor.
In 2008, assault charges brought against Ford by his wife Renata were withdrawn by the Crown because of inconsistencies in Renata’s story. The couple later reconciled.
The rumblings of scandal have eroded Ford’s popularity, although polls conducted before the reports of the video still enjoyed support from some 50 percent of the population, most of them from in Toronto’s suburbs.
Both Gawker and the Star say the video is being shopped around by people with connections to the drug trade.
In an effort buy the video and post it online, Gawker launched a “Crackstarter” campaign last week to raise $200,000. It has so far raised more than $76,000. – Reuters
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