ISSUE 19 - More fallout from Mississauga councillor car keying scandal
There was more from the Ron Starr affair in Mississauga, plus some minor details about elections in the US, and Saskatchewan?
Welcome to another issue of #munipoli Matters, where we discuss all about municipal elections and the often unreported area of local government across Canada.
The shocking revelations coming out of Mississauga City Hall from a few weeks ago concerning Ward 6 Councillor Ron Starr allegedly keying former councillor Karen Ras’ car several times from 2019 to 2021 continue to reverberate through the corridors of power and beyond.
According to Mayor Bonnie Crombie, Starr is denying the allegations even though it was reported that he paid for the damages. There have been several calls for him to resign publicly and on social media, as you can see from Starr’s last social media post on Twitter before the scandal broke.
Here are a few samples of the more creative replies:
Starr was first elected to council back in 1978 in Ward 7 and served until 1980, when municipal council terms were only two years. He returned some 30 years later in 2010 and defeated then Ward 6 incumbent Carolyn Parrish.
An engineer by training, Starr ran his own land use consulting firm when he left council and also served on the board of Enersource. When he ran for council again in 2010, the Mississauga News said Starr was 64, meaning he would 75 or 76 now.
The request for Starr to take a leave of absence is just that, a request. Legally Starr can’t be forced to do anything. In fact, he apparently showed up to Peel Regional Council and chaired one advisory committee while attending the planning and growth management committee…one day after being asked to take the leave.
At the February 9 special council meeting, Integrity Commissioner Robert Swayze said he reviewed the code of conduct and determined that he now had the power to launch an investigation, which he said he would do immediately. No member of council asked him why he didn’t launch an investigation earlier.
During questioning by local media, Crombie said there were legal matters that had to be dealt with in-camera related to the reasoning behind Swayze not doing an earlier investigation. She also repeated that because it was under police investigation at the time, the IC couldn’t do anything but now said that “loophole” has been closed.
Swayze himself faces criticism from his own integrity commissioner community. Guy Giorno, who performs the same role for Wellington County and North Bay, said he was ‘embarrassed’ during a February 16 council meeting about the response on the Ras-Starr affair.
“I know what happened was embarrassing to Mississauga but as a member of the integrity commissioner community I have to say what happened was embarrassing to me too,” Giorno said, adding that it was “absolutely clear” in the Municipal Act that integrity commissioners can look into potential code of conduct violations after police conclude their investigations and what happened in the Ras and Starr matter “should not have occurred.”
Starr later sent an email saying he is agreeing to step away from his duties at Mississauga and Peel Regional council “in the spirit of cooperation” during the investigation. Meanwhile, two local and eloquently written opinion columns surmised troubles ahead for Crombie and probably the most important question surrounding this affair.
One is from Kelly Roche, who used to operate a hyperlocal news site called QEW South Post who now teaches journalism in Toronto (DISCLAIMER: we used to work together at Insauga.com). Besides a repeated call for Starr’s resignation, Roche added how this could affect Crombie politically and that the Ontario Ombudsman should get involved.
Veteran Mississauga journalist John Stewart, in a piece titled “All keyed up for city hall collegiality in Mississauga”, had an even more creative bent to describing the events that took place, but ended his piece asking perhaps the most important question of all.
There really isn’t any method by which a sitting councillor can be removed from office, other than being convicted of a crime…or death. Looks like it will be up to Mississauga’s Ward 6 voters to be the ultimate judge of Starr’s alleged transgressions this October.
Previewing some American elections
In 2022, the bulk of the attention to American politics will be on the midterm elections for the control of the U.S. Congress, but there are also scores of mayoral, city council and other local elections across the United States.
The state of Oklahoma recently held municipal elections for mayors and council members in cities such as Oklahoma City (OKC), Norman and Muskogee on February 8. In OKC, Mayor David Holt was reelected with 59% of the vote, a drop from the 78% he obtained in his first bid for the mayor’s chair in 2018.
A former state senator, Holt attributed his reelection victory as a statement against “the partisan divisiveness” ripe across America. "Today was a statement by the people of Oklahoma City," Holt said. "A statement that we as a city reject lies, racism and bigotry." Two main issues that emerged during the OKC municipal election was Holt’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and police reform in the city.
Meanwhile in Muskogee, Mayor Marlon Coleman romped to reelection with 85% of the vote while the mayoral race in Norman heads to a runoff on April 5 as neither the incumbent mayor or her closest challenger secured a majority of the votes.
A special election in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on February 15 was held as former mayor Tom Barrett resigned to take an ambassadorial post in Luxembourg under the Biden Administration. Current acting mayor Cavalier Johnson and former councilman Bob Donovan were the top two vote getters and will also advance to a run-off election on April 5.
Other candidates included State Senator Lena Taylor and councilwoman Marina Dimitrijevic.
Other open mayoral contests are also slated this year as incumbents are limited from running for a third term, such as Austin, Texas, Long Beach, Oakland, Los Angeles and San Jose in California, as well as Providence, Rhode Island.
In Long Beach, the mayor is retiring to run for Congress, and the LA mayoral term was extended by one year due to a law moving the election date to align with the regular cycle of gubernatorial and legislative elections in the Golden State.
Saskatchewan Party pulls upset in historic NDP stronghold
Finally, there is a little known provincial by-election in the northern Saskatchewan constituency of Athabasca, also on February 15.
Longtime NDP MLA Buckley Belanger resigned to run for the Trudeau Liberals in last year’s federal election. The NDP has held this seat since 1999, when Belanger went from being a Liberal to a New Democrat.
The four candidates on the ballot were::
Clint Arnason of the Buffalo Party
Georgina Jolibois of the NDP
Jim Lemaigre of the Saskatchewan Party
Darwin Roy, an Independent candidate
Jolibois, the current mayor of La Loche, is a former federal NDP MP for the same area from 2015 to 2019. Lemaigre is a former RCMP officer. Roy lost the provincial NDP nomination to Jolibois and Arnason is an electrician representing the recently formed separatist Buffalo Party.
The results were shocking to say the least: Lemaigre won the riding with 51.4% of the vote, outpacing Jolibois’ 40.4%. Roy won 7% and the Buffalo Party’s Arnason took about 0.5% of the vote.
Mail-in ballots to be counted represented only 0.4% of the ballots cast, so it’s unlikely to affect that final outcome…an outcome that ultimately cost Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili his job; he announced his resignation in the same week.
Saskatchewan is rapidly becoming a quasi-one party state as the right leaning Sask Party has been in government since 2007 until two different leaders. while the main opposition NDP is stuck without much support outside of Regina and Saskatoon. It remains to be seen if the Buffalo Party can become a credible third alternative.
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Cover photo from Ron Starr’s Facebook page