THE STAR’S VIEW: Ford’s meddling foolish,

It’s another week and yet another example of why Rob Ford is unfit to serve as Toronto’s mayor. No, it’s not because he can’t tell the difference between Winnipeg and Windsor (although that’s bad enough). It’s because he hasn’t a clue what the job entails — especially the part about separating personal interests from public duties.

The latest example involves the mayor summoning senior city bureaucrats in July to ask that road work be done outside the Ford family business in time for a 50th anniversary celebration.

Kudos to Deco Labels and Tags for a half-century of growth. It’s no mean feat. Thanks to city-funded work, approved on short notice and costing up to $10,000, guests attending August festivities at the firm’s Etobicoke headquarters enjoyed a smoother ride to the party. Sweet. The mayor’s defenders (yes, he still has some) say such requests are fairly common and insist the city would have treated any other business the same way. Perhaps. But we’ll never know because no other business is a Ford family concern granted service on the direct intervention of the mayor.

The city’s bureaucrats, of course, say they didn’t give their boss any special help. But as the Star’s Daniel Dale reports, Peter Noehammer, director of transportation services, did concede that wondering about preferential treatment “may be a question that some people would ask.”

Some people? Memo to Mr. Noehammer: It isn’t just some people who have a problem with this — it’s everyone who understands that politicians mustn’t use their public office for personal gain. Merely the perception of receiving an unfair benefit is toxic because it undermines public faith in the system’s fairness.

But that’s never stopped Ford. Just last week he was lambasted — even by otherwise sympathetic voices — for using his office staff and taxpayer-funded equipment, such as cellphones, to help a high school football team he coaches. The week before that Ford was hauled into court to answer allegations that he had breached municipal conflictof-interest law. His testimony was a litany of self-professed ignorance about what the rules actually are. And that’s after serving 12 years on city council, including two as mayor.

Like Ford’s other transgressions, his ill-advised meddling in roadwork seems all the more foolish because it was so unnecessary. Few at city hall would fail to recognize Deco Labels and Tags as the Ford family business. Bureaucrats would have likely hastened to respond had some other Deco executive, unconnected to the city, asked for road repairs.

Ford could have easily avoided this new round of embarrassment by leaving matters with the company. But doing that required knowing the rules — at least grasping the simple guideline that a mayor mustn’t use his office to benefit himself or his family. Sadly, despite all his years at city hall, that concept remains alien to Ford.

Rob Ford’s ill-advised meddling seems all the more foolish because it was so unnecessary