Mayor Bob Bratina, Hero or Villain?

Photo credit: Mississauga Business Times

Certainly Mayor Bratina has had his share a of being immersed in controversy during the span of his term thus far.  And certainly he brought some of it upon himself by seeking to shift the blame for a decision to give his Chief of Staff a substantial raise, to the Human Resources Department. It presented as an unnecessary error (see our write up here), that culminated in a reprimand doled out by Integrity Commissioner Earl Basse.  Still, Mr. Basse's conclusion and action, seemed proportional to the error Bratina made, given that the error did not, in Mr. Basse's opinion, warrant any additional form of reprimand, other than naming it as such. 


On the other hand, Mayor Bratina asked to see the financials for the Hamilton Waterfront Trust and, at that
time, he was met with some serious criticism from his council who, for the most part, came to the defense of the Trust and its administration.


Recently, The Bay Observer has suggested that the Trust has been anything but sound, with the story referenced in this article in The Hamiltonian. 


Throw in the fact that Bratina was formally censured by his council, prior to a decision being rendered by the Integrity Commissioner and one starts to wonder about the nature and intensity of the tension between the Mayor and his council. 


It could be that the censure, the reprimand from the Integrity Commissioner, the Mayor's Waterfront Trust request for financials and other points of tension are disparate events without any particular connection. At this point, there is nothing to suggest otherwise.


The Mayor's query into the Waterfront Trusts' financials,  assuming for a moment that some or all of the allegations in The Bay Observers' story become substantiated, may leave us all to wonder.......


.... on this front, is Bratina the hero or the villain? Time will tell. 


The Hamiltonian