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No one enjoyed politics more than Frank Bean.
From his early days on the Applewood Heights Ratepayers' Association to his last days as the chair of the Region of Peel, Frank was the ultimate student of the game.
He lived it. He breathed it, and he thrived on it.
Bean died last Saturday at age 68 in Niagara Region where he'd lived since he got out of politics in 1991.
My first contact with Bean came when he launched his career in 1975 with a run in the bye-election for Ward 3 councillor. Mississauga council was a cauldron of intrigue at the time, since a judicial inquiry into the old council had been called by the new council and its fledgling mayor, Martin Dobkin.
Former Reeve Chic Murray, who felt his reputation had been sullied by the inquiry, was running to get back on council and clear his name. He had sued Dobkin and then-Ward 9 Councillor Hazel McCallion for damaging his character, a suit that was eventually dropped when the inquiry was quashed for legal reasons.
Bean came out of nowhere to nearly win that bye-election. He was ahead until the last polling station, in the ritzy Applewood Landmark building, came in.
The loss might have fazed others but it just seemed to fuel Bean's ambitions. He spent the next year sitting at the press table with another would-be councillor, Larry Taylor.
It was an unlikely alliance. Bean was a dyed-in-the-wool Tory and Taylor the token NDPer. They sat, they watched, they learned and in the 1976 election, they both won.
Taylor said this morning that he thought of Bean as, “someone who really cared about his constituents. He was really active in his ratepayer associations and he did his homework.”
The rookie politicians' friendship would be a key in Bean's eventual election as Peel's second chairman.
As usual, Bean was the dark horse in a race that featured senior Mississauga Councillors Fred Hooper and Frank McKechnie and Brampton Councillor Terry Miller.
The Bean team, quarterbacked by Taylor, pulled a classic coup.
Caledon and Brampton had met before the vote but couldn't agree on a candidate. As a result, Caledon Mayor John Clarkson withdrew even before balloting began.
Bean's forces figured out that if they could get him through to the last ballot against Miller, Caledon would choose the lesser of two evils.
The rules did not prevent councillors from voting for more than one candidate at the time, something only the Bean forces had figured out. So the Bean team gave Miller a majority on the second ballot, which meant his name was set aside.
In a memorable meeting in the men's washroom, Taylor convinced Mayor Clarkson that if Hooper were the Mississauga candidate left standing in the final round, then Miller would become chair. Caledon put Bean through to the final and he won easily, 16-6.
There were might cries of foul, of course, and the losers felt the process had been hijacked.
Bean smiled that Cheshire Cat smile of his and proceeded to calm the waters, as any good chair would. “I ran on the platform of a moderate and I was elected as a moderate,” he told reporters, slipping into his new role with nary a blip.
Once again Frank Bean had done his homework, had studied the players carefully, and, as a result, had exceeded expectations.