A Prime Example Of How Dysfunctional Miller And His Puppets Are......

City's watchdogs escape Discouraged by their experience, lobbyist registrar, integrity Commissioner depart City Hall

Toronto's first lobbyist registrar, Marilyn Abraham, says she leaves the city at month's end "disappointed" and "frustrated" that she could not do more to get the fledgling registry up and running the way she'd hoped.

"We're months and months behind where we should have been," she said during a revealing interview earlier this week. "To be honest, I think it will be another term of office before the registry is well-accepted by council."

The delightful 65-year-old Abraham said she joined the city in April of 2007 with great vigour, unable to resist the appeal of starting up the city's new registry -- which keeps track of those paid to influence councillors on city business or policies.

Abraham had committed to two years. But after just 10 months on the job, she resigned this past February, discouraged with council's lack of commitment to the registry -- even for all Mayor David Miller's talk of cleaning up the backroom deals so rampant during his predecessor's era.

She said she first considered whether she should stay following the council meeting of last July when her proposed budget of $711,304 got cut to $366,949 per year on a 29-9 vote.

The recorded vote from that meeting shows that Miller and many of his minions -- including his deputy mayor Joe Pantalone and speaker Sandra Bussin -- voted for the cutback, even though this same cast of characters consider it nothing to approve tens of millions of dollars for green and arts grants.

Despite that "very hard start," Abraham said she decided to get the registry up and running, doing what she could with what she had. But when she couldn't even get a $150 fee approved for the labour-intensive paper applications her registry might have to process -- a request that came before council this past January -- Abraham decided it was time to call it a day.

"It was very discouraging," she said, noting the fee issue has been "in abeyance" to this day

The hurdles notwithstanding, nearly 600 lobbyists are listed on an online registry that just became operational in mid-February. She believes there are a lot more that should be registered, at least 1,000.

She identifies a number of outstanding matters in her report to yesterday's council meeting -- including the pressing need for enforcement and consideration of whether grant recipients who get "sizable amounts" from the city should be registered.

But Abraham says the bottom line was she could never really figure out who the registry's champions really were. Those councillors who were against the registry "made it very difficult," she adds.

"Different people (councillors) would be supportive at each (council) meeting ... I could not see a cohesive group that was committed," she said, adding nevertheless she's been "absolutely delighted" with the professional lobbyists she's met and her excellent staff.

Integrity Commissioner David Mullan, who presented two final reports to council yesterday before he leaves the city on Aug. 31, has as much reason as Abraham to feel frustrated. Yet he says he's found the four years he's spent as the city's first integrity commissioner to be "fascinating."

That's an interesting choice of words. For in one of his reports to council, he says he too "considered resigning" in April of 2007 when council voted to receive one of his rulings -- meaning they opted to do nothing -- that concluded Coun. Maria Augimeri was in "serious violation" of the Code of Conduct and that sanctions should be imposed against her.

The finding was related to a voice-mail message Augimeri admitted leaving on MP Judy Sgro's machine during the 2006 election advising her that then Coun. Peter Li Preti was "under active police investigation."

Mullan told me earlier this week he didn't resign at the time because he had the sense council did not want to use this case "as the first occasion" on which to impose sanctions authorized by the City of Toronto Act.

SOME SUPPORT

Asked whether there's a will on council to have an integrity commissioner, he says "yes" -- that councillors recognize it's "not a bad idea" to have someone around who can give advice and "free pass" on what can be done under council's Code of Conduct.

But he concedes the "jury is still out" on whether council would impose sanctions recommended by his office or always "protect their own.

"I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that," Mullan said. "But if council routinely ignores the integrity commissioner's finding of a serious violation of the code, there's something seriously amiss."