Ford sought speedy street repair
Mayor’s family company treated like other firms, city official says
Mayor Rob Ford personally asked top city officials to approve drainage and pothole repairs outside his family’s company in time for its 50th anniversary celebration — but when the Star asked the city who had made the request, an official incorrectly said it was a company representative other than the mayor or Councillor Doug Ford.
A Rob Ford aide asked city transportation staff to come to the road beside the Deco Labels and Tags building in mid-July.
The city complied, holding a meeting at the Etobicoke site with the mayor himself and his special assistant, Chris Fickel, acting transportation chief John Mende said Thursday.
Later in the month, Ford asked Mende and deputy city manager John Livey to meet with him for the sole purpose of getting an update on the status of the project, Mende said.
The project, which included repairs to Greensboro Dr. potholes and drainage culverts, was completed in mid-August at a cost to the city of $7,000 to $10,000.
Ford deliberately avoided the media Thursday, leaving from a side door after landing at the island airport following his trip to Chicago. His spokesperson would not comment, either, referring reporters to a statement in which he said Deco got no special treatment.
Ford is also facing heavy criticism for using his office staff and city resources to help with his football teams.
Even his council allies believe he should not have made the repair request himself.
“I think the mayor needs to separate his mayoral duties and his city duties from his personal and business relationships,” said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, the public works chair.
The Star twice asked director of transportation services Peter Noehammer who had sought the repairs. Noehammer responded in August and again in September that the city been contacted by a Deco representative who is not an elected official.
“With respect to who called, my understanding is it was someone from the company. That’s as much as I know,” Noehammer said in September. “If it were any company — we have conversations with pri- vate individuals all the time — I don’t think I should necessarily be telling you, even if I knew, who the specific person was.”
Mende, Noehammer’s superior, said Noehammer was not aware at the time that the request had come from the mayor.
Mende said he was on vacation when the Star first contacted the city; Noehammer, who is usually in charge of the Scarborough district, was filling in for him.
Councillor Adam Vaughan directly accused Ford of wrongdoing.
“This is a clear-cut example of using one’s office to gain preferential treatment for private interests. He’s using his office to benefit his company. Period,” Vaughan said.
In August, Noehammer said the project had been expedited by a month or more — but not because it benefited the Fords. He said the city had treated Deco as it would any of the many other companies that call the city with requests related to upcoming events.
“As long as it’s something that we ordinarily perform, and not above and beyond what we ordinarily do, we don’t normally have too much of a difficulty with it. If it does facil- itate some sort of milestone event, we try to oblige,” he said. The Deco representative, he said, had asked the city if workers could sweep the street before the anniversary. The representative also asked if the culverts could be repaired at the same time as Deco had its parking lot repaved. The city investigated, Noehammer said, and determined that the culverts were indeed damaged and that the street was not draining properly. Normally, Noehammer said, “the repair would be scheduled for some point during the year by our contractor that does such repairs.” But by “fortuitous” coincidence, he said, the contractor repaving the parking lot was the same company, Gazzola Paving Ltd., with which the city has the local contract for ditching, asphalt and concrete work. “It made some sense to do it all at once rather than come back at a later date and disrupt the area,” he said. Two members of the Gazzola family donated the maximum $2,500 to Ford’s mayoral campaign. There is no suggestion that they behaved improperly.