A strange year at city hall

Vaughan (Vaughan?!) is becoming known for its constructive political dialogue

What a difference a year makes in Vaughan politics. If an alien (by which we mean a Torontonian, of course) visited our city hall before the civic election of 2010 and again 12 months later, it might think it had landed on a different planet.

It’s a different city hall, for one thing.

More importantly, a different, less acrid atmosphere lingers inside the civic centre.

Before 2010, Vaughan city government had seemed to lurch from one crisis to another under Mayor Linda Jackson, who had narrowly defeated former mayor Michael Di Biase in 2006. Jackson never got along with council, largely made up of Di Biase loyalists. Every day the news was of continued legal fighting between Di Biase and Jackson, infighting on council, lawsuits, conflict of interest charges, and councillor spending audits, plus the general inability to agree on steps to move Vaughan forward.

At the term’s halfway point, council unsuccessfully attempted to force Jackson to resign.

The past year has been different. Just as the previous election had set council on a four-year course of acrimony, the 2010 election appears — at the one-year mark — to have started our representatives into a more constructive term of office.

Heralded by an accord presented with fanfare in January by new mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua, and signed by all new and returning councillors, the new council has proceeded to work together so far with only a few hiccups along the way.

They do not necessarily agree on everything. Far from it, according to first-term regional councillor Deb Schulte.

“I think that’s what the public was really looking for — not necessarily harmony in terms of thinking, because you want that diversity of thought to get the best,” Schulte says. “We’re very strong in our positions, but we’re willing to bend and be flexible to make a better solution for everybody.”

Her colleague and fellow freshman Marilyn Iafrate agrees.

“We can’t always agree on everything, but at least we respect each other’s comments,” she said, adding that unlike the previous council’s knack for letting bad feelings linger after each contentious issue, with this group “when it’s over, it’s over and you move on to the next project.”

She especially credits the political veterans who have had to make the biggest change.

The head veteran, Di Biase, a councillor from 1988 to 2002 and mayor for four years after that, says the new spirit of cooperation is a throwback to his administration.

“I had a great working relationship with members of council when I was mayor. They all endorsed me, except one, in 2006.”

He’s not sure the current council has any one great achievement but it’s been a busy, mostly successful year, he says.

“I think the only disappointment so far is we had (MPP) Greg Sorbara say the hospital’s been approved but we haven’t started construction yet, so we’re not there just yet,” the regional councillor says. “We don’t have a firm date.”

Di Biase’s former opponent Jackson says she wishes the new council luck but warns of tough issues to come, including the fight council will have over the next three to 10 years involves the sprawling municipality’s need to intensify its communities and buildings.

Intensification will take place in areas where residents are unfamiliar with major development, she says, and councillors’ hands are tied when it comes to stopping developers from building opposed developments.

“A lot of time you knew that if you said no, they’d get their approvals with the province,” Jackson says. “I don’t think the province has done a lot for Vaughan.”

That puts the pressure on Mayor Bevilacqua. Moving from high-level positions in federal politics, Bevilacqua has quickly become a municipal politician who doesn’t take sides in either provincial or federal politics “and that must have been hard for him,” political commentator Patrick Gossage says.

But Gossage predicts other levels of government will likely work more closely with him than with his predecessor.

“Nobody wanted to deal with her because Vaughan was considered unreliable,” he said. “I think he’s the right man at the right time.”

Speaking from Queen’s Park, MPP Sorbara puts it differently.

“It just wasn’t as close a working relationship (with Jackson),” he said, before explaining how things will be different with Bevilacqua. “When you’re dealing with someone who you know and with whom you’ve invested a lot of trust in the past, things just go more quickly — you can shorthand rather than stand on ceremony.”

In fact, Sorbara gives the entire new council very high marks for setting a good standard of cooperation at municipal council.

“That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be difficult issues, but acrimony has been replaced with cooperation and consensus building,” he added.

The accord that launched the new era was brilliant, says Gossage, and Bevilacqua has had some success. But he’s got some formidable challenges ahead — such as traffic congestion that may be almost impossible to deal with.

Already a few cracks have appeared. After an audit blamed the city hall cost overruns on poor planning, councillors variously blamed the current administration, the previous council, and the one before that.

More recently, Iafrate has reportedly warned Di Biase to step away from a charitable foundation to avoid potential conflict of interest although he defended his participation, reminiscent of exchanges on the previous council.

For this group of disparate councillors, finding out how to work together has required a “learning curve” through much of this year, Di Biase says.

In the meantime, Vaughan may be setting an example for other municipalities for a change.

“I’ve seen and heard from my colleagues in different cities around York Region, that they’re having the difficulties that we had before, where they have people who cannot find a way to compromise,” Schulte says.

Ah, yes, come to Vaughan for the political peace and quiet. You might learn something from us.

But hurry — we don’t know how long this will last.

— With files from Karolyn Coorsh and Omar Mosleh