I'm voting for Joe Pantalone

Now Magazine:

Why you should cast your ballot for Pantalone

I'm voting for Joe Pantalone for mayor, as are many of us at NOW Magazine, because he is the only candidate with rock-solid progressive credentials demonstrated in over 30 years of public service.

He has a proven track record and has been part of significant, proud advances in city-building, especially over the last seven years working as David Miller’s deputy mayor to repair a council once floating in gravy, grease and greed.

It was a municipal government filled with grimy and grim conservatives like Rob Ford, where lobbyists and backroom buddies ruled the roost and inquiries into scandal were routine as clouds of corruption engulfed City Hall’s iconic towers.

But even before Miller, Pantalone’s adept skills at city-building saw him working effectively and in the interests of a progressive agenda with mayors that included Art Eggleton, June Rowlands, Barbara Hall and even Mel Lastman.

It was during Lastman’s ridiculous regime that the focused Pantalone managed to wring a tree-planting initiative that has seen the development of a real urban canopy expanding from 9,500 new trees in the ground a year to 109,000. And Pantalone’s green-roofs bylaw is pioneering in North America; we have one at NOW.

Pantalone’s a champion of Transit City, a realistic plan to repair the decades of neglect that have defiled mass transit in this city and cut off our less prosperous suburbs. The other two candidates, Rob Ford and Compact Ford George Smitherman, scream for destructive tax cuts, privatization and reductions in staffing, yet also claim they can build subways and not slash valued services.

The two tear-down contenders are pushing impossible dreams and invoking imagined nightmares to cynically sell themselves.

Pantalone has helped turn Exhibition Place from a money pit into a money-maker, and his skill at private/public initiatives has led to the construction of the thriving BMO Stadium. We have so much to be proud of in Toronto, where only seven years ago we were ashamed of the civic cesspool that was devoid of transparency. Back then, connections trumped communities and buddies could bake budgets. And I’m voting for Pantalone because I insist on casting my vote for a candidate I truly believe in. Expedient strategic voting epitomizes a wasted vote. Imagine the inevitable electoral hangover when a hold-your-nose candidate, if elected, inevitably begins to show his true colours and when the reality of impossible “cut revenues but don’t cut services” promises start to manifest.

Smitherman is not quite as crude and rude as Ford, but like the loony loudmouth, Smitherman has happily climbed into the gravy boat, trying to match the ignorant councillor in his claims of out-of-control spending and expense-account bloat.

When Smitherman failed to ignite this election, despite his huge early lead in the polls, and Ford seized the agenda, the opportunist ex-deputy premier attempted to slug it out with the slug, debasing the civic debate with irrational, immature claims of civic excess. When Smitherman faced off with the NOW editorial board last week, we called him out on joining Ford in trying to make excessive photocopying and the renting of bunny suits on councillors’ office budgets a make-or-break issue.

When NOW news editor Ellie Kirzner pointed out how infinitesimal councillors’ budgets are compared to overall city spending, he squirmed and admitted such expenses were a drop in the bucket. He spoke of attending Kyle Rae’s ill-advised goodbye party – money stupidly spent but, c’mon, it was $12,000 bucks – and claimed to take the high road by ordering his staff to “keep your hands in your pockets. No canapés or drinks.”

Laughable stuff if it wasn’t helping support Ford’s efforts to convince this impressive city that we are somehow in a death spiral despite a string of economic and quality-of-life reports to the contrary. And, by the way, Toronto has the lowest property taxes in the GTA, though you wouldn’t know it listening to the two Rusty Fords.

The mayor is only one vote on council and has to be able to commune with the 44 other members; Ford is unlikely to be able to do that. Almost all the hare-brained schemes he floated as councillor have failed, and the incumbent-heavy, progressive council-to-be is unlikely to be any readier to embrace his vision.

But the connected and ambitious Smitherman, with his shiny promises of provincial and federal payoffs for compliant councillors, might be able to sell his contemptuous policies, trading tax cuts and slashing of city services for an inside track with his Liberal Party buddies.

Smitherman is just as guilty as Ford in cheapening the debate. But Ford was bred this way. He grew up sharing a dinner table with his cruelly Conservative dad, a Mike Harris disciple, where he learned how to wage war on the public realm.

Smitherman knows better, but his lust for power has him embracing what he thinks he can sell, so he panders and parries. He is diminishing the very meaning of our vote and encouraging the electorate to be derisive of their electoral rights and vote for him by default, not desire. And like some ego-driven boss, say Mr. Smithers Mr. Burns on The Simpsons, he wants all the runners to drop out of the race so he can win. Hardly inspiring.

Let’s look to Calgary for inspiration, where they just elected a progressive new mayor in an upset win. Naheed Nenshi was polling around 20 per cent October 12 with the other two candidates close to 35. But in Monday’s election, he won.

So can Joe Pantalone. Don’t let polling pre-empt the actual act of voting. Go out and choose a mayor you can believe in and a city you can be proud of.