Holydat Won't Get The Support Of Miller's Politboro

Just look at the number of members showed up at Toronto Revenue Tools’ Public Consultation as an indication of the contempt they show for fair play.

Audit all councillors' expenses ... or none
By SUE-ANN LEVY, TORONTO SUN

Coun. Doug Holyday doesn't mind one bit if auditor-general Jeff Griffiths pores through the records of the $1,471 he used from his office budget last year.

But the frugal councillor -- who's been singled out by council's socialists as of late for spending too little of that $53,100 budget -- feels it's only "fair" Griffiths review the office expenses for every single member of council and Mayor David Miller.

So Holyday will be asking his colleagues to support a motion at council this week proposing just that -- and he is quite willing to be among the first audited. "They brought up all these claims about my expenses ... I'd like to deal with them," he said last week, proposing the audit cover the past two years.

His motion is actually an amendment to a proposal -- put forward April 30 by Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti and eagerly approved by Miller's trained seals on the executive committee -- calling for the A-G and the integrity commissioner to investigate both Holyday and Rob Ford for barely using their office budgets and for supposedly accepting "gifts" and paying for goods and services with their own dime.

Mammoliti's motion also proposed that an amount of $1,123 be withdrawn immediately from each of the two councillors' current office expense accounts to pay for their use of common "touchdown space" at the Etobicoke Civic Centre.

Ford (who didn't use a penny of his office budget last year) will most definitely vote for the motion. But he says he'll be surprised if his council mates support looking at their little "slush funds."

Holyday predicts he'll have a hard time raising the 30 votes he needs to get his mass audit proposal approved because a lot of councillors don't want their office budgets looked at under a microscope. "I think these people spending all that money ... it sure might draw the ire of the taxpayer," he said.

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