FROM ST-LÉONARD TO THE UPPER ECHELONS OF MONTREAL CITY HALL

1986 Frank Zampino enters politics, and is elected to one of the 12 seats on what was then the city council of St-Léonard. 1988 He and seven fellow councillors resign from their mayor’s party to sit as independents to protest against what they describe as the party’s lack of democracy and their not being fully informed of city business. 1990 Zampino wins the mayoralty of Saint-Léonard, and is acclaimed to the post in 1994 and 1998.

1996 Zampino heads the finances committee of the Montreal Urban Community, the regional body that oversees island-wide services. 1998 Zampino is named chairman of the Montreal Urban Community Transport Corp. 1999 Zampino joins fellow suburban mayors in organizing opposition to the province’s plan to impose municipal mergers.

Feb. 2001 Mayoral candidate and former Liberal cabinet minister Gérald Tremblay names Zampino as his choice for head of the Montreal executive committee — eight months before election day.

Nov. 2001 Tremblay, now mayor, names Zampino, who is also borough mayor for Saint-Léonard, as chairman of the executive committee. Zampino, an accountant by training, faces the task of balancing his first megacity budget — a $3.6-billion financial exercise where only $50 million of the $115-million merger price tag is being covered by the province.

May 2002 Zampino is compelled to meet the media to express his “exasperation” after a local newspaper reported he had failed to declare the existence of an investment company in his list of financial holdings filed with city hall.

2003 Zampino’s home — as well as those of other committee members — is picketed by city blue-collar workers protesting against stalled contract talks.

2004 Zampino is appointed by Tremblay to preside over the Committee on Finance, Administrative and Corporate Services and Strategic Management.

April 2006 Zampino announces Montreal accumulated a budgetary surplus of $163 million the previous year. A month later, he announces it is expecting a $400-million shortfall in 2007.

Jan. 1, 2007 Against the recommendation of the city’s legal department, the city secretly privatizes its real-estate arm — the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal and the Société de développement de Montréal — into a non-profit company, which conducts some questionable transactions.

Nov. 2007 Montreal city council approves a $355.8-million contract, the largest amount for a single contract in the city’s history, unanimously and without debate, to a consortium of firms that includes Dessau and Tony Accurso

company Simard-Beaudry.

May 2008 Zampino announces he is resigning from public office for “personal reasons,” effective in July.

Jan. 2009 Zampino takes a job with engineering firm Dessau Inc., a firm that was part of the consortium awarded a $355-million contract to install water meters in the city’s industrial, commercial and institutional buildings. The contract was later cancelled.

April 2009 La Presse reporter André Noel, now an investigator with the Charbonneau Commission, reveals that Zampino had vacationed twice in 2007 and 2008 on the yacht belonging to Tony Accurso. Zampino vacationed on Accurso’s yacht before and after the water-meter contract, the most lucrative in the city’s history, was awarded.

Sept. 2009

A damning city auditor’s report finds the water-meter contract was far too expensive and that the field of potential bidders was unnecessarily restrictive. The city council votes in December to cancel the contract.

May 2012 Zampino is arrested, along with eight other suspects, in connection with the Faubourg Contrecoeur project in Montreal’s east end and charged with fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and breach of trust. He is alleged to have accepted unspecified “favours” in return for ensuring the $300-million contract was awarded to local construction firm Frank Catania & Associates.

Aug. 2012 Zampino files a motion to have the city cover his legal fees, citing a provincial law governing cities and towns, which states that if a city councillor executive committee member is accused of criminal offences while exercising his duties, the city or town must cover “reasonable” legal fees. In September, the city’s legal department refuses.