Lastman’s right-hand man remembered as ‘bridge builder’
Alan Slobodsky, who guided the madcap mayoralty of Mel Lastman and then scores of real estate developments that helped shape Toronto, is being remembered as a “bridge builder.”
“I’ll never meet another like him. I was crying when I heard. I’m crying now,” Lastman, 83, said in an interview after Slobodsky, 54, died July 18 following cancer treatment.
“He did the lobbying (for councillors’ votes) and everybody liked him — not a bit like me,” said Lastman, Toronto mayor from 1998 to 2003. “With Alan there were no threats or anything like that and we never lost a vote I cared about.”
Slobodsky trained in urban planning. Lastman hired him as an aide while mayor of pre-amalgation North York and then took him to the new “megacity,” eventually making him his chief of staff.
According to the Star in 2000: “Slobodsky would wear out a team of experienced torturers, before he’d reveal where Mel gets his dry cleaning done, let alone anything of value.”
After a series of Lastman gaffes, including being photographed shaking the hands of visiting Hells Angels, the Star’s Royson James wrote: “Don’t blame the boys in the mayor’s office for the behaviour of the current occupant. They, or any replacement, are simply overmatched.”
The bond remained strong after Lastman retired and Slobodsky set up a successful practice as a development consultant and lobbyist.
When Lastman was upset last year by news of Slobodsky’s pancreatic cancer, his ex-aide promised to call every evening with treatment updates — “and he did, until two days before he died. His wife called then instead.”
Steve Deveaux, chair of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, said Slobodsky was adept at forging truces between builders and neighbouring residents because he could see and understand both sides, rather than just advocate for his client.
“He was a bridge builder between the development community and city hall,” Deveaux said.
“He was always spot on to the task at hand, which was growing the city.”
Slobodsky also loaned his expertise, free of charge, to a residents’ group fighting a condo complex proposed for land around the Jaffari Centre mosque in Thornhill Woods.
Rom Koubi of the Association to Preserve Thornhill Woods said Slobodsky, who lived north of the mosque, became a personal friend who remained upbeat and working until very recently.
When Slobodsky received a counterproposal for the project that he considered more objectionable than the first proposal, he was “jumping up and down” until Koubi told him he had expected as much, or worse, based on Slobodsky’s expert guidance until that point.
“Alan stopped and said: ‘You know what, I taught you well.’ ”
Slobodsky is survived by his wife Rochelle and children Jonathan, Alyssa, and Tara.
Bond between Lastman and Slobodsky lasted long after the former mayor retired