As progressives go, Maria Augimeri, the councillor for life (just about) for York Centre, isn’t exactly what you’d call a stalwart. Augimeri’s lefty sensibilities blow hot and cold.
“Enigmatic” may be too strong a word let’s just say Augimeri can be unpredictable. So she’d seem an unlikely person around whom to rally leftist political opposition to an increasingly belligerent mayor. But as fate would have it, Augimeri has found herself in Rob Ford’s crosshairs.
Fordo has sent word through Big Bro Doug Ford, aka the councillor from Ward 2, that Ford Nation is coming to get Augimeri – that is, coming to snatch her council seat.
On April 21, a court ruled that there were enough what it called voting “irregularities” in the Ward 9 council race against Ford sycophant Gus Cusimano back in October to warrant a by-election. Augimeri won the race by a scant 89 votes.
The city’s legal department has indicated that it plans to appeal the decision. In court, city lawyers argued that the “irregularities” were just clerical oversights – election officials failing to sign changes to voter information forms in the hurly-burly of election night. Look hard enough and you’d probably find the same “irregularities” in other municipal election races. Let’s call them glitches in the electoral process.
The mayor has made clear through the press, however, that he thinks the city shouldn’t appeal the decision. The fix looks to be in on that count.
With that public pronouncement, Ford unwittingly prejudiced the city’s legal position. If the mayor doesn’t think an appeal is necessary, why should a judge in any future deliberation disagree?
Word is, Ford has already read the riot act on this one to the bureaucrats contemplating an appeal. Cusimano, for one, is acting as if no appeal is pending. He was reportedly out on Mother’s Day weekend campaigning in the ward.
Ford and Co., of course, would be quite happy to let the court’s decision stand, even if a by-election will cost the taxpayers he’s sworn to protect $175,000. Taxpayers’ money is no object where Ford’s own cold political calculus is concerned, it seems.
The mayor is still smarting personally from Cusimano’s loss. He lent considerable support to the campaign, placing a few of those patented robo-calls to voters on election day. The race should have been in the bag. Even the local parish priest was bucking for Ford’s candidate. Augimeri’s personal popularity in the ward she’s represented since 85, however, proved resilient enough to withstand the assault.
But Ford needs Cusimano’s vote on council now that his grip on the mushy middle is slipping.
The mayor’s not facing a full-fledged revolt just yet, but his staffers have been dispatched to stand over the shoulders of certain rookie councillors during important votes just in case they get any ideas.
That cleaver he’s got poised over the heads of Josh Colle and Michelle Berardinetti should they step out of line will presumably be gone after the fall provincial election. Both councillors have been minding their Ps and Qs because they have family ties to Libs who’ll be running against provincial PCs in key battlegrounds.
The margins are narrowing for the Fordists, which is partly why they would like nothing better than to turn a rematch in York Centre between Cusimano and Augimeri into a plebiscite on the mayor’s performance to date.
Should Cusimano win, the Ford camp will use the victory to corroborate their big lie that this administration has yet another mandate from the people. That’s a large part of their justification for running roughshod over objections to the Ford agenda.
But that logic doesn’t work in this case. Augimeri’s a soft target, a convenient straw woman, if you will, for the Ford forces to set up and knock down. All they have to do is turn a few dozen votes.
In fact, a win for Cusimano would be more rebuke for Augimeri than affirmation of the mayor. The councillor’s political rep has taken a bit of a beating over the years. It happens to pols who’ve been in the game for a long time. They say things. They make enemies.
But to say the voters in York Centre have tired of Augimeri may be overstating matters. And for the opposition, a by-election may be an opportunity to put a dent in the Ford brand.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
