The city’s most flamboyant candidate is facing fines over her postering practices. And if Ward 27 candidate Enza “Supermodel” Anderson wasn’t already in trouble with the city, the incumbent ratted on her.
“I don’t know what [Ward 27 councillor Kyle Rae’s] problem is,” Anderson says. “I don’t know what everyone is concerned about. You know my chances of winning are probably very slim but the thing is to give voters a choice.”
Anderson’s signs, stuck to utility poles downtown, violate at least three by-laws that prohibit election signs within one and a half metres of the curb, on poles located between the curb and the sidewalk and within 15 metres of intersections and crosswalks.
“There is a $205 fine for each poster that the staff find,” says Rae, “and I hope the staff find them all and there’s probably hundreds of them. There’s an election act that I am compelled to follow and she should be – or he should be – compelled to follow it.”
That’s at least partly right. Bill Blakes, the city’s manager of Municipal Licensing And Standards, says candidates can be fined up to $205 for breaking an election sign by-law and $20 per sign after that.
On top of the potential fine, Blakes says, “normally the policy is that if we have to remove the sign we charge back for the cost of removal. And I’ve rounded that to $20 per sign. That’s only if we remove them and we wouldn’t necessarily even charge them.”
So why did Anderson take the risk? “I have no other means,” she says. “I don’t have any money so this is the sort of grassroots way. I don’t have the resources to go door-to-door and handing out flyers and stuff like that.”
Rae has little sympathy for the drag queen’s monetary woes. “She could have fundraised. She registered in January so she could have been fundraising from then on.”
He says that Anderson’s postering contributes to littering in the village. “There are so many complaints in the neighbourhood about postering and the trash on the street. The posters don’t even last very long because they get covered up in about an hour.”
According to Anderson, that’s why she did it. “I put them on posts because I knew they would just be torn down and covered over,” she says. “I wasn’t sure [they violated the by-law]. I thought of them as flyers.”
While Anderson concedes her signs are illegally placed, she says that the election rules are unfair because incumbents with money have advantages, including budget-funded newsletters.
Anderson says that Rae is making a big stink over a minor infraction. “I don’t think my postering is that big of a deal compared to Barbara Hall’s campaigning a year ago.”
In other election news, cops are on the lookout for a blue-haired clown after he had a scuffle with Mark Reid, Rae’s husband. The clown was putting up anti-Rae posters around the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood with slogans including, “More break- ins and one murder,” “Gay-owned businesses harassed by police, again,” “More panhandling and crackheads” and “More parking tickets than safe parks.” All feature the addendum, “Thanks Kyle Rae (and Mr Fantino).”
The day the signs went up, Reid was out shopping and saw the clown putting them up. He called Rae to tell him about it.
“So I said fine, get me a copy of one,” Rae says. “Get one off and bring it home. So he went over to do that and the guy stopped Mark and he assaulted him. He hit him. He shoved him and hit him.”
Tony Crawford of 52 Division confirms police are investigating the allegations. Crawford declined to give details, but says it has nothing to do with Rae’s involvement.
“Whatever Kyle told you is right,” says Crawford. “This is not an unusual situation. It is not that Kyle has recommended this. We would do this with anyone.”
As of last Friday Crawford said they were “very close” to identifying the blue-haired clown.
Rae says he finds the posters themselves laughable. “I’m disappointed that he didn’t include SARS, the blackout, and the wet weekends as my fault,” Rae says. “Actually people are stopping me on the street and laughing about them. They’re childish.”
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