Law & Order Mayor Adds Another Puppet To His Team

Mayor Miller, by pulling McConnell's strings, screwed Fantino and it appears that he has added Kyle Rae to the team.......

Hypocrisy's top councillors
By JOE WARMINGTON

Perhaps Hypocrisy 101 should be the first course offered at Toronto's new police college!

And maybe the first students to enrol should be Councillors Kyle Rae and Pam McConnell -- not that either need any more study in that area.

In fact, they could probably teach that course.

In what pro-police advocates are calling a low blow, the two members of Mayor David Miller's left-wing bloc at City Hall dumped all over the final recommendation to approve capital funding for a $75-million Toronto Police college in Etobicoke at Islington Ave. and Lake Shore Blvd.

What this really is, is a deflection shot, something to get the heat off of the real story of stupid spending at City Hall -- the real elephants eating up valuable taxpayers' cash for things like paint for Mayor David Miller's proposed expanded office, which has now been lowered to $2.9 million from $6.2 million.

Anybody wonder how many helicopters the cops could have with that cash?

Neither Rae nor McConnell called me back yesterday, but Wednesday were quoted on CTV News ripping what they called a project gone grossly over budget.

"I and my colleagues were aghast," Rae told top-notch CTV reporter Desmond Brown. "We could not believe this proposal we heard about three or four years ago had turned into a huge elephant in the room."

It's called police training. Kind of important to the safety of the citizenry.

"Since when did that guy ever worry about spending taxpayers' money?" Councillor Rob Ford said about Rae, who is worried "there is another angle here."

Meanwhile McConnell, vice-chairman of the Police Services Board, told Brown she would have "smart-spent the money on local divisions and not fancy training facilities."

Wicked comments from people who have no problem with fancy funding for fancy parades and fancy methadone clinics -- never mind a new fancy-looking mayor's office.

None of it went past pro-policing advocates, who saw this as more cop bashing from a city council who has not exactly been as friendly to the cops as it has been to other unionized civic workers.

Even though some are worried a backroom movement is under way to undermine the project, Deputy Chief Kim Derry told me last night: "As far as we are concerned, we are moving forward with the project."

The 34-year cop said the "state-of-the-art facility" will be vital in future police training and will be a great addition to the city. The department of national defence is also a partner and has put $10 million toward the new building, which will have 28 classrooms, a gym and a much-needed top-notch firearms training centre.

In offering support for the funding, former Toronto chief Julian Fantino, now OPP commissioner, said it should also not be forgotten that the current location of the Charles O. Bick College on Finch Ave. E. is worth millions and will be turned back over to the city to be sold or converted to other uses.

Some sources tell me you can't disregard the fact the project started as an $8-million firing range, ended up being a $40-million college and now is coming in at about $25 million more than that. But Fantino said there have been "add-ons" since the original decision was made to make sure it's up to standards and a terrific investment in the facility "for a world-class police service."

The new college, double the size of the old one, will accommodate up to 8,000 people a year and will modernize the Toronto Police Service. It's a no-brainer and Rae and McConnell's comments were out of line and smacked of sore loser syndrome.

"They are such hypocrites," said Craig Bromell, former cop union boss and a popular AM 640 talk-show host.

"Here they are talking about having the best trained police in the world, trained in sensitivity and diversity and all of that, and then this. You can't have it both ways."

But thing is council actually does get it both ways. What would you rather invest your tax money in -- an up-to-date college for our cops or a renovation for the mayor's office?

Or how about a luxury box for councillors to attend Blue Jays games and concerts at the Rogers Centre? No fresh quotes from McConnell and Rae speaking out on that.

But frugal Ford had plenty to say. "I am going to try to get the box taken out of the budget once again," he said. "I usually only get a couple of votes. It costs the taxpayer $98,000 a year and that doesn't include the cost of the tickets and food."

But it doesn't stop there. "It's endless," he said. "How about free wine for the homeless and free cigarettes? The taxpayer pays $100,000 for those two things and don't forget the $80,000 the city spends each year on watering plants. It's ridiculous."

Wonder if Rae and McConnell would be "aghast" at those "fancy" elephants?

Perhaps they better make that hypocrisy course at the new college a graduate level program!