Isn't it sad that the media has only noticed what's happening in our ward 18 Davenport based on the singular, negative personality scandals of our present and soon to be former councillor *, Adam Giambrone and now is just getting attention because Adam's executive assistant and chosen successor to his crown, Kevin Beaulieu, has only announced an intention to run?
* http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/04/13/full-text-of-adam-giambrone-s-letter-announcing-he-will-not-seek-re-election.aspx
For far too many years, our ward has been something of an ignored backwater in city politics - NOT because of the excellent quality of residents and their strong desire to be involved in and consulted about local issues - but because there has existed a kind of arrogance of the typical politician who makes sweet sounding promises during an election campaign, wraps themselves in a party colour, gets elected and then proceeds to ignore constituents.
There has been a culture of entitlement about being elected to represent us simply because of political party ties. Strong party machines use the battleground of Davenport to gain political power to advance narrow ideologies, all the while ignoring local voters and their neighbourhood concerns once elected. Where is the democratic concept of representing constituents' concerns?
In an interview with the online news/blog, torontoist, we are introduced to Kevin Beaulieu *, Adam Giambrone's executive assistant, who has acknowledged that there is a history of assistants taking over the reins of power when their boss moves on. Kevin has been quoted as saying his running was "a logical sequence of events" - which to me smacks of "more of the same" entitlement.
*http://torontoist.com/2010/04/kevin_beaulieu_to_run_for_council_in_ward_18.php
There are still only 5 registered candidates running for the ward 18 council seat: Ana Baliao, Le Nha, Jack Triolo, Hema Vyas and Ken Wood - yet Kevin gets all the initial press attention because of his relationship to Adam.
Ana Baliao, for her part, was executive assistant to now Liberal MP Mario Silva and tried unsuccessfully to gain the crown in previous city elections.
In mainstream media we will once again see outsiders trying to decide for the voters of ward 18 who are the frontrunners. in this case LIBERAL Ana Baliao and NDP Kevin Beaulieu.
If the voters in our ward want to avoid 'more of the same', we will all need to learn from our past voting mistakes and make our choices based on the candidates' values, substance and behaviours and not on their spin-charm, name recognition or promises.
We need to make the right choice, because ...
DAVENPORT DESERVES BETTER
