Second chance gets challenged by first impression

Simon Wookey is running a campaign in Davenport that asks a question not being raised in any other downtown Toronto riding: Can city hall be successfully fought by throwing out the young guy with one term under his belt? Adam Giambrone must be the only incumbent in town taking his seat at an all-candidates meeting in a nursery school classroom, inside the Mary McCormick Community Recreation Centre near Dundas and Dufferin, only to have a sign perched at the top of a Jeep Cherokee hovering over his head through the window: “DO NOT VOTE GIAMBRONE”. The point of contention isn’t his NDP affiliation, or Giambrone assertively aligning himself with Mayor David Miller — rather, it’s a situation where long-ignored no-parking rules have been enforced with the installation of bunkers around auto body shops following the emergence of townhouses just north of Dupont Ave. Flyers posted around Ward 18 accuse the councilor of engaging in some unspecified “communist and dictatorship act”. (The poster gets dissected in a Spacing Votes comment thread, with responses from Adam’s detractor, Danny Nardelli.) Raised in this debate is whether Giambrone isn’t doing a good enough job communicating with constituents because he’s too young. Wookey jumped into the race after hearing 29-year-old Giambrone say that he assumed the job was his to keep for another term — and, with other potential candidates fixated on overhauling the overall city systems rather than shooting the messenger, no one seemed likely to match the towering appeal of a trained archeologist whose main hobby involved grooming himself for a career in politics. But ties binding Giambrone to both the mayor and the federal NDP are being questioned by 35-year-old Wookey, who is young enough to get away with referencing Star Wars, yet old enough to argue that experiences outside the system give him the credibility to fix it from within.

The nightly ritual of door-knocking suits the Type A personality that Wookey has switched into hyperdrive to counter the incumbent’s Type B tendencies, seizing every opportunity to leave a first impression, faster than the potential voter can possibly absorb it — even if it’s a game played out in a matter of split seconds, a la Malcolm Gladwell’s theories from Blink. Red colours on his campaign literature transmits a message of its own, especially since Giambrone’s popular predecessor Mario Silva sailed off to Ottawa, and the Liberal Party hasn’t lost the affection of the mostly Portuguese working-class homeowners. There’s no shortage of affirmation when Wookey asks them if it’s possible to plant a cartaz on their front lawns. Reasons for voting for him dominate the campaign brochure — including a “Citizen Service Guarantee” promising that all complaint calls are returned within 48 hours, and an emphasis on showing respect for seniors — but backed up with more rational reasons why the Giambrone era should come to an abrupt end than simply calling him a pinko commie bastard: Tax increases, TTC fare hikes, salary increases, excessive spending on bike racks and bike lanes, ignoring the community and dividing them on issues and, most contentiously, has stated his desire to follow in the steps of Jack Layton from City Hall to Parliament Hill. Wookey’s connection to the neighbourhood seems genuine enough, given how he bought a house on Havelock St. when his career goals were transitioning from Cordon Bleu chef to underwater cameraman. Lately, he’s been busy investigating green technologies for his father Richard’s real estate development business — which, most significantly, involved the re-imagination of Yorkville. “I grew up learning to appreciate the idea of creating great communities where people could live, work and play”, Wookey references his own platform. But those neighbourhoods didn’t include buildings like 1011 Lansdowne Ave., a 23-storey apartment complex of ill-repute where the most recent murder investigation found that the laundry room security videotapes were erased by so-called security guards.

Wookey’s first debate since he was a student at Jarvis Collegiate is a pretty small-scale Tuesday night affair, and not just because the room is usually occupied by 3-year-olds. The four other candidates on the ballot are more like talk radio callers than city council contenders — all of them a generation or two older than those dashing young gents seeking to win local affections. An audience question about whether Giambrone intends to dump out of his starter marriage with Ward 18 in favour of a federal seat comes early in the proceedings, and his response is a slippery one: “I have 37 years to go before retirement …” he pontificates. But for all of Giambrone’s evasive boasts about how significant he feels the role of a Toronto city councilor can be, possibly more than the job of an MP, the main concerns in Davenport seem to teeter between downtown and small town, except the rinky-dink matters surrounding strange men who flash their genitals in public, kids who leave beer bottles strewn around the park, and Coffee Time locations whose tables remain mysteriously popular after 2 a.m. “At what point did we stop telling people it was wrong to do these things in public spaces?” Wookey wonders rhetorically. Yet, all the planning chaos associated with the renewed desire to purchase homes downtown has placed Giambrone’s effectiveness under regular scrutiny. Wookey spouts off against the “build and bail” approach to development, wondering why everything that goes wrong ends up being blamed on “the boogeyman at the OMB“. The meeting also gave Giambrone’s most dogged detractor an opportunity to step out from behind the wheel of his SUV, wondering why his body shop customers can no longer plunk their jalopies on the industrial street after complaints from people who’ve moved into residences erected nearby. When challenged, Giambrone launches into a defensive soliloquy that shows off his political mettle, every word seemingly accompanied with a different hand and/or arm gesture, a reminder that Wookey has to keep hammering away at the argument that he’d be quicker on the draw when responding to the concerns of constituents. Not even being proverbially spat on from clear across the nursery classroom seems to dishevel Giambrone, though, as he gracefully concludes after stating his controversial case: “It’s good to finally meet the man who’s been putting up the posters.”