The anti-corruption squad has stomped the game board with their arrest of Mayor Michael Applebaum, so the upcoming city elections need a rethink.
Applebaum had planned to return to the CDN/NDG borough to return as mayor of that area. But that appears to be no longer possible.
So the NDG/CDN district will need a new borough mayor, and running for borough mayor is a tough proposition, as only someone with some established credentials would be thought to have a chance and many of those people would usually rather stick with the good thing they've already got rather than risk going for the big ring. Also, many possible candidates have moved on, or been discredited, or both.
Jeremy Searle might switch from trying for the Loyola city councilor seat to make another run at borough mayoralty while "Concrete" Pete McQueen would surely be thinking about trying for borough mayor as long as he could find a supportive flunky to run in his eastern NDG district. Him sitting as the sole west end Projectionist was not a good experience for anybody involved.
And as for Applebaum, I like to think that I was the first one to publicly call him out for his suspicious behaviour in print, at least, as the suspicious phone pole scandal that I first raised here five years ago kept on stinking and might well be part of the charges he now faces.
Significantly, former city councillor Marcel Tremblay hasn't had his name raised anywhere, even though his hand was on many projects in the same area, which is nice to see.
It seems ridiculous in retrospect that not only was Applebaum the borough mayor, but he was also a real estate agent and chief of the zoning committee.
From my experience you can only walk by an open box of cookies so many times before grabbing one to munch.
He made sure both his real estate interests and his zoning committee business were kept ultra-secret. And that's a red flag. Indeed Applebaum could keep a secret, when his brother died, some in his inner circle said that they didn't even know Applebaum had a brother, as he didn't mention the guy once ever.
I have conducted considerable amounts of research on Applebaum and his affairs but I will not speculate on what issues he will be charged with, although the obvious ones would be the Vista project and the Wilson/Upper Lachine housing project, both being large-scale developments done with some involvement of certain individuals said to had ties to the local Mafia.
Applebaum is considered innocent until proven guilty and we make no assumptions of guilt but keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of people charged with crimes either plead guilty or are found guilty in a court of law.
So why on earth did Applebaum make such a brazen grab for the mayoralty if he had so much to hide? He likely believes himself not guilty, so whatever the charge he is being slammed with, he's probably got some other optics, one in which he doesn't seem guilty.
On the other hand, a former veteran cop told me that he could tell just by Applebaum's eyes that he was up to no good.
So now that he is gone, the city will need a replacement mayor for the replacement mayor and perhaps the likeliest contender is Alan DeSousa, borough mayor for St. Laurent.
DeSousa, who could talk an angel down from heaven, would be the natural choice because he and Applebaum didn't see eye-to-eye one bit, particularly near the end when Applebaum narrowly beat him for the job of interim mayor.
And if DeSousa becomes interim mayor, I'd very much like him not to publicly announce that he won't run for mayor in November. If someone asks, he should simply answer, "let me see if I like the job first."
Applebaum had planned to return to the CDN/NDG borough to return as mayor of that area. But that appears to be no longer possible.
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| Alan DeSousa as seen portrayed in a future biopic acted by Waheed Murad III. |
Jeremy Searle might switch from trying for the Loyola city councilor seat to make another run at borough mayoralty while "Concrete" Pete McQueen would surely be thinking about trying for borough mayor as long as he could find a supportive flunky to run in his eastern NDG district. Him sitting as the sole west end Projectionist was not a good experience for anybody involved.
And as for Applebaum, I like to think that I was the first one to publicly call him out for his suspicious behaviour in print, at least, as the suspicious phone pole scandal that I first raised here five years ago kept on stinking and might well be part of the charges he now faces.
Significantly, former city councillor Marcel Tremblay hasn't had his name raised anywhere, even though his hand was on many projects in the same area, which is nice to see.
It seems ridiculous in retrospect that not only was Applebaum the borough mayor, but he was also a real estate agent and chief of the zoning committee.
From my experience you can only walk by an open box of cookies so many times before grabbing one to munch.
He made sure both his real estate interests and his zoning committee business were kept ultra-secret. And that's a red flag. Indeed Applebaum could keep a secret, when his brother died, some in his inner circle said that they didn't even know Applebaum had a brother, as he didn't mention the guy once ever.
I have conducted considerable amounts of research on Applebaum and his affairs but I will not speculate on what issues he will be charged with, although the obvious ones would be the Vista project and the Wilson/Upper Lachine housing project, both being large-scale developments done with some involvement of certain individuals said to had ties to the local Mafia.
Applebaum is considered innocent until proven guilty and we make no assumptions of guilt but keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of people charged with crimes either plead guilty or are found guilty in a court of law.
So why on earth did Applebaum make such a brazen grab for the mayoralty if he had so much to hide? He likely believes himself not guilty, so whatever the charge he is being slammed with, he's probably got some other optics, one in which he doesn't seem guilty.
On the other hand, a former veteran cop told me that he could tell just by Applebaum's eyes that he was up to no good.
So now that he is gone, the city will need a replacement mayor for the replacement mayor and perhaps the likeliest contender is Alan DeSousa, borough mayor for St. Laurent.
DeSousa, who could talk an angel down from heaven, would be the natural choice because he and Applebaum didn't see eye-to-eye one bit, particularly near the end when Applebaum narrowly beat him for the job of interim mayor.
And if DeSousa becomes interim mayor, I'd very much like him not to publicly announce that he won't run for mayor in November. If someone asks, he should simply answer, "let me see if I like the job first."