by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Last week we promised to publish a retort to allegations of competence made in these pages by Union Party councillor Marvin Rotrand. Like politicians, we keep our promises. So here are counter-charges by Rotrand’s Vision Montreal rival for the Snowdon district, Michelle Serano, on four key issues that Rotrand raised. But first, the opening salvo: “I’m concerned about Mr. Rotrand’s memory and interpretation of reality,” says Serano.

Housing: Serano admits that a number of new housing units were built in the last four years, especially in her neighbourhood. Problem is, they were mostly condos. “I took personal offence at that claim,” she says. She says that former mayor Pierre Bourque was responsible for the planning and budgeting of most affordable housing units, and all the administration does is “cut ribbons.”

Environment: Serano says she is skeptical about the administration’s claim to protect greenspaces like Île Bizard and Beaconsfield’s Angell Wood, given their past behaviour. “They’ve cut down 15,000 trees in four years,” she says. “St. Joseph’s Oratory is a perfect example. And they’ve only planted 500.” Meanwhile, she castigates the city for not cutting ragweed, which is reportedly worse this year than ever.

Public transit: Three fare hikes in two years. ‘Nuff said. “I see that as an additional tax on the poor.”

Water: Serano admits our water system’s out of date, but it’s “been out of date for 60 years, not just the last four.” She doesn’t think commissioning yet another study on the problem will help any. “They’ve commissioned so many studies, rather than doing anything, that it’s become an embarrassment.” Yowza!

• The big story in municipal politics this week was the Gazette’s three-part series on sleaze at City Hall, where investigations by reporter (and former Mirror newsperson) Linda Gyulai revealed that all but 18 of 302 companies that contributed to the mayor’s party received fat city contracts as rewards. The opposition’s hands aren’t clean either, as some of the same companies made contributions to Vision Montreal in 2001. But Tremblay’s team, the Gazette says, clearly made out better: of the estimated $800,000 donated over four years, about $650,000 were said to have made it into Union coffers.

Team Tremblay went into damage control mode, calling the three-part series “sensationalism,” “demagogic” and “intellectually dishonest,” and promising to make an official complaint to the Quebec Press Council. Pierre Bourque, promised to create an independent ethics committee, with teeth, should he win office on Nov. 6.

All the same: four years, and not even a million bucks Canadian switching hands? That’s pretty small potatoes, by most standards. And it’s not as if this is anything new to Canadian politics. “Look at the Gomery commission, and that’ll give you a clue” as to the scope of the scandal, said one political scientist. And besides, the new chief electoral officer won’t be starting an investigation, as no laws were actually broken.

• Louise O’Sullivan, the head of Équipe Ville-Marie and borough mayor candidate who left the Union Party last December, is convinced that her rivals are out to get her. That’s hardly shocking—this is politics, after all—but she’s convinced there’s a whispering campaign against her surrounding her departure from the Tremblay administration. She says she presented a letter of resignation on Dec. 1 announcing she’d be leaving the post on Dec. 31 because she was frustrated at the way the administration was spending the public’s money. But recently, a friend of O’Sullivan’s who lives on Redpath Crescent told the councillor that the friend’s neighbour, the head of a large company, had heard that O’Sullivan was forced out. O’Sullivan says she heard the same rumour from another source. “Someone’s lying here, and it isn’t me,” she says.

O’Sullivan may be getting used to dirty tricks. In August, she found that alternative version of her party’s Web site, www.equipevillemarie.com, had been cyber-squatted by her Union rival Benoit Labonté.

• All those cranky suburbanites who chose to demerge from the megacity come Jan. 1 may come to regret it. The Montreal Transition Committee came up with these estimated hikes in property taxes for a single-family dwelling in some of the independent-minded municipalities: $1004 in Westmount, $649 in Beaconsfield, $600 in Baie d’Urfé, $563 in TMR, $527 in DDO, $500 in Montreal West and $378 in Côte-St-Luc. But the biggest losers will be in Senneville, where residents will face a whopping $1,132 jump, representing a 23 per cent rise.