Leiper Isn’t Mayor Material: BENN

The mayor is but one vote on a council of 25. That means that the mayor needs to build a consensus for every meaningful vote.

Former mayor Larry O’Brien discovered that the hard way and was disposed of at the next available opportunity.

Ex-mayor Jim Watson used favours to create the Watson Club. Favours such as appointing like-minded councillors to standing committee chairman jobs who would support him. For those who did not join Club Watson, he put a great deal of energy and zeal into undermining them whenever the opportunity arose. Ask former councillors Rick Chiarelli and Carol Anne Meehan.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has managed to build his own team of supporters. The core is comprised of Watson Club members, along with a few middle-of-the-road councillors.

Which takes me to potential mayoral candidate Jeff Leiper. He is part of a six-to-eight member group that tends to vote en bloc. Except when it doesn’t. That group is perpetually short some five-to-seven votes, except when it is short by 10 (see budget vote). Very simply put, Leiper has demonstrated that he is not able to build meaningful coalitions.

He has demonstrated that he is not capable of convincing middle-of-the-road councillors of the relative merits of his position. What he has demonstrated, over the course of the last 10 years, is that he would not be a particularly effective mayor.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.

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