Random Access

The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board still has a huge deficit, will not control its own finances for at least the next two years until it balances its budget and has five new faces on an 11-member board.
Hmmmmm. Do you think perhaps its selection of a chair next Tuesday night at its inaugural board meeting might be kind of important?
This will be a critical year for the elected officials of Dufferin-Peel, who already have a frayed relationship with new Education Minister Kathleen Wynne and must decide if they are going to wade into the tricky business of “co-management” with the provincial government. First, of course, they have to figure out what it is.
Rather than appoint a supervisor outright to sort out the board’s finances, Wynne made Norbert Hartmann the chair of a co-management team that is to include two other trustees.
It would seem to make sense that the two members of the co-management team would be the chair and vice-chair who are elected Tuesday, but nothing in this scenario seems to be logical.
In any event, there are three veteran candidates for chair.
Ward 9 Trustee Esther O’Toole, who was the only politician in Mississauga acclaimed in the Nov. 13 election, is once again making a bid to become the first-ever female chair of the board. She was bitterly disappointed last year when Peter Ferreira was elected, despite the fact he had been a trustee for only a few months, having been appointed to complete the term of the late trustee Art Steffler of Ward 6. Ferreira ran unsuccessfully for Ward 3 councillor this year.
Two other long-time Mississauga trustees, Mario Pascucci of Wards 1 and 3, a 23-year veteran and Bruno Iannicca, a 15-year trustee for Ward 7, are running as well.
The campaign for chair is always an odd one, since it takes place mostly around the water cooler and in private telephone conversations. There isn’t usually a lot of hard sell required since everybody knows each other.
Whoever wins will be in uncharted waters, said Iannicca.
“We’ll see what the new year brings. No matter who wins, there’s never any hard feelings,” said the 48-year-old Iannicca who’s making his first-ever run for chair. “Whoever wins will be a good person.”