Random Access

Well, the election gun has sounded and they’re off.
No, not in the federal election, in the municipal election.
Carolyn Parrish has all but announced her intentions to run for the empty Ward 6 council seat, but the retiring MP (it’s just a manner of speech) won't be cake-walking into City Hall.
Ron Starr, a stalwart of the local development and building industry, Enersource Mississauga board member, frequent campaign fundraiser, and former Ward 7 councillor has also (nearly) decided to run.
“I’m pretty well there,” Starr said this morning. “I don’t want to do anything before the federal election is over.”
He conceded that he could be described as leaning heavily towards it. Of course, the scads of e-mails and calls from Parrish’s non-fans are helping him make up his mind.
“I’m hoping it’s not just an anti-Parrish thing,” said the 60-year-old, who was on the first city council led by Hazel McCallion in 1978 before Dave Cook beat him in 1980.
A rumour that Starr would be joined in the fray by ex-MP Steve Mahoney who would take on Parrish campaign manager-advisor-friend and current Ward 6 Councillor George Carlson isn’t true, Mahoney said today.
“I’m not running for council but good old Ringo is and I’ll be working my ass off for him,” the former councillor, MPP and MP said.
He and Parrish staged a venomous nomination battle for the Mississauga-Erindale seat in 2004 that both said was the low point of their careers.
The Ward 6 race will, naturally, be a rematch by proxy of that donnybrook and/or a preview of a mayoralty campaign to come if Her Warship ever decides to weigh anchor from the port of Mississauga.
Nothing’s ever come easily to Parrish, whose pugnacious style and street-fighter attitude (and tongue) are often her downfall.
As she sat in her constituency office yesterday, she seemed resigned to yet another pitched battle and predicted that her long record of representing the ward as school trustee and MP would prevail.
“Mr. Starr is an upstanding citizen who has greatly contributed to out growth,” said the newer, kinder Carolyn, who’s trying to curb her tart tongue. “Good for him.”
When the doors of City Hall open Jan. 3, the first day you can register to be a candidate in the Nov. 13 election, at least one familiar candidate will be on the doorstep.
Long-time self-appointed City Hall watchdog Roy Willis is running for mayor.
“If my name’s not on the ballot in Mississauga, it’s not a real election,” said Willis, whose announcement will be greeted with wide yawns all around the council horseshoe.
Does losing seven council races in Ward 5 qualify you to run for mayor? Willis says he just wants to push McCallion into thinking about retirement.
Roy could be the hip-hop generation candidate, at 68 years of age, 16 years the junior of you-know-who. Of course, the hip in this case refers to certain replacement surgery that sometimes has to be done as we get older.
Willis knows he can’t win. If he keeps the usual gaggle of nuisance candidates from wasting our time, however, we shouldn’t complain.
Meanwhile, political everyman Brad Butt has announced he’s running for the Conservative nomination in Mississauga South in the Oct. 4, 2007 provincial election. See www.bradbutt.ca.
Wonder if anything’s happening in the federal campaign?