Mayor Rob Ford must know something we don’t about what’s in those police wiretaps of telephone conversations he had with his alleged drug dealer, Alexander Lisi.
Absent that, the events of Tuesday, November 5, at City Hall – the mayor’s attempt to hang on for dear life – make no sense.
He’s not going anywhere. He has “nothing left to hide.”
It’s too late for that. We’ve reached critical mass. And I’m not just talking about American talk show hosts’ crack-related blow job jokes, though the business folks seem to be worried about that all of a sudden.
Ford had his chance, and he smoked it.
The backstory goes something like this: Bill Blair tried to be nice, to extend the mayor a professional courtesy, if you want to call it that maybe it was a warning. He let it be known through unofficial channels that his officers had caught wind of the mayor’s exploits.
It’s no secret Ford has had it in for Blair the moment he took office. When you’re the “fucking mayor of Toronto,” as Ford likes to tell dispatchers who don’t respond quickly enough to his 911 calls, who cares what the chief thinks?
You know the rest. It’s all there in 460 pages of court documents released last week and related to Lisi’s arrest last month on the drug trafficking charges.
The mayor’s defenders say nothing’s been proven in court, that the mayor deserves due process. Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack’s got his back, at least that’s what I gleaned from our coversation.
But it doesn’t look too good for Rob. Manila envelopes – the best stories always start with them. Mysterious Kleenex-box-sized items in plastic bags that are dropped off and picked up, never directly exchanged. Ford peeling out of parking lots to avoid detection by police. That half-hour in a garage on Thirty-Ninth Street – the one where cops think Lisi kept his stash.
It’s not hard to read between the lines. It seems clear now that Lisi was dispatched by the mayor to find the crack video that may be tied to a home invasion at the Windsor Drive address where the mayor’s high school bud Fabio Basso lives and where a home invasion took place in May.
The new threads in the narrative: Lisi had numerous cellphone conversations with the mayor’s head of logistics David Price the morning the crack video story broke (both men in fact showed up at the mayors house that morning) the mayor is reportedly paying utilities at the Windsor address.
Dig a little into the Lisi documents and it’s safe to say that there is more to those police leaks suggesting a protection racket around Ford within the force than most of us want to believe.
Some hint of that surfaces on page 351, paragraph 208 e) when drug squad officers are staking out Richview Cleaners, waiting for Lisi to walk into their trap. And out-of-the-blue there’s a “[police] radio call to the mayor’s house” that interrupts the sting operation. That’s followed by telephone chatter between Lisi, the mayor and Price.
It’s mid-August, after the Star runs its expose revealing the mayor’s link to Lisi. If indeed the mayor knew the cops were following him, he pretended not to care until he dispatched his chief of staff, Earl Provost, to find out why a “big guy with a shaved head” was following him.
What was it that made the mayor believe he had more friends in the police department than Bill Blair does?
On that front, there was all kinds of not-so-subliminal messaging to the rank and file before the shit fan went into overdrive Tuesday at City Hall.
The mayor promised a pay increase. Doug on another one of those Save Rob media tours, took to the airwaves to say the chief had to go for telling the whole world that he’s seen the crack video and is “disappointed” in the mayor.
Doug called those comments tantamount to “putting a political bullet between the eyes of the mayor.”
Doug was right. But apparently Rob can’t take a hint that it’s time to go.
Most saw something vaguely resembling contrition in Tuesday’s impromptu noontime admission by the mayor, half-hearted as it was. It came seemingly out of nowhere as he was entering his office. But I read audacity. What prompted him to answer the crack question he’s refused to answer for six months? Apparently, the fact a reporter posed it “properly.” The mayor might as well have waved two middle fingers.
He tried to make a more fullsome apology later. This time with a prepared statement in the protocol lounge with brother Doug, always Doug, standing by at stage right.
Call it damage control, plan B. The mayor said big bro, the guy he’s called his best friend in the world, knew nothing about it, if you can believe that?
Ford’s council colleagues don’t. They’ve already drafted motions calling on him to take a leave of absence. And if that doesn’t work, to strip him of his power to appoint committee chairs.
The business classes have taken notice, which is always a bad sign for a sitting mayor. The Toronto Board of Trade issued a statement last Friday, November 1 urging Ford to take a leave of absence “until the situation is resolved. The mayor of the city must put Toronto first.”
It’ll be up to those closest to him to show him the door. They’re already making noises that the mayor has failed to deliver on his fiscal agenda. He hasn’t been around City Hall enough to coordinate the votes.
And amidst the continuing chaos, can he be counted on to gather support for the conservative agenda?
Yes, that’s coming from some of the same folks who tried to tell us that all the mayor needed was a driver and everything would be okay. Contrary to popular belief, Ford hasn’t been winning votes at City Hall, save the odd subway madness. People have been getting along without him just fine.
It’s a tricky situation for progressives. Some are calling for a leave of absence in hopes that people will forget about Ford in three months’ time. More dirty details will come out in the meantime anyway.
Others want Ford in the 2014 race. He’s their foil, which would make the odds of Olivia Chow winning greater.
Toronto can breathe a little easier, maybe. But one thing we do know is that Ford has missed his shot at redemption.
enzom@nowtoronto.com | @enzodimatteo
