How Many Have An Amusing Anecdote About.....

.....Phillips, Gardner, Sewell, Crosbie, etc. But mention Lastman and they just pouring out of peoples mouths. I never was a big fan of Mel , basically I didn't believe in zero tax increases at a time when expenses exceeded revenue. It was just a disaster waiting to happen but that aside no one is going to ask "Mel Who!" It looks like things haven't changed......

Mel-mory lane leaves us trippin' TheStar.com - News - Mel-mory lane leaves us trippin'

August 16, 2007

Jim Coyle

Well, there must have been a run the length and breadth of Toronto the last couple of days on crosses and garlic cloves.

There he was on the front of this very newspaper, Mel Lastman, talking about the glory days of his time as mayor, rhapsodizing about the vast numbers of city residents who want him to run again.

"They're making the biggest hero in the world out of me," he told the Star's Kerry Gillespie at the opening of a Bad Boy store in Kitchener.

Ye gods, there can't have been so many hallucinogenic flashbacks messing with the heads of Torontonians since the '60s.

Don't get us wrong. Nobody but nobody has fonder memories of the Lastman era than folks in this line of work. In those happy days, we could sleep till noon and get to work at 1, take an hour to dash off some comment on the latest fresh hell the mayor had created, and then our day was done. Jolly good fun.

But for the rest of you out there, those with real jobs, take just a minute – while mulling over the former mayor's suggestions to the current mayor on how to get Toronto's fiscal house in order – to recall some highlights of the Reign of Mel.