Random Access

Ron Starr calls it, “politics at its worst.”
After 25 years on the board of Enersource Corporation and its predecessor, Hydro Mississauga, he is no longer a citizen member of the body.
Why is he suddenly less qualified that he was for the past quarter century? “Because I didn’t win the election,” he says, referring to his defeat last November in the municipal election’s marquee race .
Starr says he’s known for months that he wouldn’t be reappointed because the victor in that campaign and the new heavyweight champion of Ward 6, Carolyn Parrish, wanted him off.
He believes his ouster was orchestrated by the former Liberal MP. “I guess they don’t want people to use the democratic process (by running for office),” Starr said this morning. “If you do, they’re going to use the democratic process to eliminate you. To some extent, I understand that. She won. But that’s not the way I would have done it.”
Starr thinks the Parrish-led revolt against the administrative structure of the Enersource board (the city manager removed, two councillors added), the review she initiated over board members’ pay and the subsequent search for fresh citizen blood on the board was “a charade” that was aimed specifically at making sure he wasn’t named to the board.
Since la Parrish sashayed into council chambers, there has been a distinct change in the tone of local politics, says Starr, a former ward 7 councillor. “There are more factions. Deals are being made. You vote for me on this and I’ll vote for you on that. That’s politics. But if they want to run it like a mini-Toronto — good luck.”
Part of Parrish’s modus operandi in adding two new councillors was that prospective candidates for the post, for which there is an additional salary of $15,000, would get the Ward 6 councillor’s support if they didn’t vote for his return as a citizen member, he suggested.
Parrish and Starr agreed on little during their campaign tussle and they continue to be kvetchin’ cousins.
The “rookie” Ward 6 councillor, who clearly knows the ropes already, says Mr. Starr gives her far too much credit for Machiavellian intent and “flatters himself.”
The way she tells it she and the other newbie on council, Sue McFadden, were hauled into the principal’s ... er .... city manager’s office after the election and told that they shouldn’t bother their pretty little heads with complicated things like wires and kilowatt hours. Things had all been taken care of, anyway, because the existing board members were all willing to return en masse without the necessity of advertising and interviews and all the other little niceties that are traditionally observed.
Was somebody trying to head off the involuntary retirement of Mr. Starr, as well-connected a figure as there could be in local politics? Probably.
The move fired up Parrish (as if she needed it) and led to a resolve among several councillors to shake up the status quo a little by a) getting some fresh blood on committees, b) better reflecting the diversity of the City.
In her defence Parrish says that: a rating system was used to rank the candidates based on qualifications and an interview by a council committee, and there was general consensus on the appointments to Enersource.
Starr was not the only long-time hydro commissioner who lost his job. Retired executive Alex Taylor, former chair and CEO of a multi-billion corporation also got his walking papers, she points out.
Gerald Beasley and Norm Loberg were returned to the board and the new members appointed are eminently qualified. Hasan Imam has extensive experience in the field, from handling mergers to managing electric systems in India, where an intricate system of rationing power was developed. Robert MacCallum is a retired Bruce Power employee who is a consultant to the MBA program at York.
Enersource was not the only place where there was a shakeup, argues the defence counsel from Ward 6. The committee of adjustment also has a number of new faces. The vice-chairman was not re-elected and long-time Chair John Keyser was appointed for only one more year, his 35th on the body.
“It was time for a change” on a lot of these committees where the same people get reappointed over and over, says the former Mississauga-Erindale MP and Peel Board chair. Her opponent last fall was not singled out for Starr treatment, she insists.
As for a new style of politics at City Hall, Parrish debunks the idea. “It’s not like I get on council and I run the show. There has been a slight shift, I’d say. We have some people of like-minds who vote together on some things. Sometimes people vote with the gang and sometimes they don’t, depending on the issue.”
With the possibility of Mayor Hazel McCallion leaving the scene after this term, (don’t hold your breath) some councillors are definitely feeling their oats more than they have for a long time.
There was a time when the mayor, who is a long-time friend of Starr’s, could have saved him with the slightest touch of her wand. No more.
There’s no doubt that McCallion is still the sheriff.
But it looks like one of the tenderfeet has appointed herself deputy sheriff and is busy rounding up a posse.