Joe Pantalone: 10% wants to remain Deputy, 90% sure wants to be Mayor
Submitted by HiMY SYeD on Saturday November 28, 2009 – 3:59 pm | 3 Comments
2010 Election, Christie Pits, Deputy Mayor, Exhibition Place, Front Street Extension, Joe Pantalone, Little Italy, Ossington, TOStrike, Trinity-Spadina, VoteTO, Ward 19, Zoning
2010 Election, Christie Pits, Deputy Mayor, Exhibition Place, Front Street Extension, Joe Pantalone, Little Italy, Ossington, TOStrike, Trinity-Spadina, VoteTO, Ward 19, Zoning
By HiMY SYeD
Toronto’s Deputy Mayor and City Councillor for Ward 19 Trinity-Spadina, Joe Pantalone announced today in an exclusive interview to The Globe and Mail‘s City Hall monitor, Jennifer Lewington, that “He is ’90 per cent-plus’ sure he will join the 2010 race in January.”
Mr. Pantalone has been at City Hall for 29 years.
2009 has been especially challenging for him:
- His championing of the Front Street Extension bore no fruit as it was finally euthanised
- Constituents in the Christie Pits Neighbourhood became disappointed in his flip-flopping followed by silence on the park being used as a temporary dump site during the Summer’s Toronto Civic Workers’ Strike
- He was not invited by Little Italy‘s business community when they unveiled the International Italian Walk of Fame on College Street. Mr. Pantalone’s neighbourhood office is inside the CHIN Building, in front of which the Italian Walk of Fame is located.
- The approval process in how an architect was chosen for a hotel development at Exhibition Place and related travel expense explanations were poorly communicated, causing grief to all concerned.
- His surprise moratorium on new business activity along Ossington Avenue has confused both those in favour of and against more commercial expansion in the area.
The Ossington moratorium passed by City Council on Joe Pantalone’s insistence was a sledgehammer rather than the delicate surgery in zoning that Ward 19 Torontonians were waiting for.
We’ll have to wait until early January 2010 when Mr. Pantalone will make his “100-per-cent declaration”.
Himy Syed, community activist and businessman should be our next City Councillor for Ward 19!
Where do I send my campaign contribution?
I really hope Joey runs. Then we finally get to ask him some questions about the items you listed above. And, best if all, he will no longer be my councillor. Win-win!
@Me – Campaign contributions prior to one’s official declaration is illegal and will disqualify anyone who pre-maturely announces their candidacy. Pre-Amalgamation Mayor of Toronto, Barbara Hall ran into this trouble when she was “reserving” campaign contributions ahead of her seeking the Big Chair in Amalgamated Toronto. Hence, there is no such place to send campaign contributions prior to January 4, 2010.
@Brian L. – Don’t count on it, in the 2006 municipal election, Mr. Pantalone kept avoiding any invitation to debate his fellow council candidates until the one and only 40 minute debate a few days before the actual election, where he only chose to answer three questions.
Yes he may no longer be your councillor, though he may yet become your/our mayor.
In other words: Win/Not-Exactly-Win.
There will likely be upwards of a dozen people who will step forward and run for City Council to represent Ward 19 Trinity-Spadina whether Mr. Pantalone antes up and runs for Mayor or not.