Election notebook

>> City scuttlebutt on who's running whereand what's going down

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

-- "Hogwash. It's only rumour," says St-Leonard Mayor Frank Zampino, on the notion that he's set to jump from his role as Gérald Tremblay's lieutenant to federal politics. Zampino denies that he's set to trade in his impending second-in-command status to fill Alfonso Gagliano's seat once the corpulent M.P. hangs it up. "There were never any discussions between myself and the Liberal Party of Canada," says the 11-year mayor of the Italo-Montreal district, now banging doors for Tremblay. "The first thing people say is, 'Are you running for Bourque or Tremblay?' Around here they won't open the door for you if they think you're running for Bourque," he says.



-- Bourque's second-in-command, Jean Fortier, is also the subject of scuttlebutt after he curiously gave up his Darlington riding in Vision stronghold Côte-des-Neiges in order to challenge Monkland-area incumbent Michael Applebaum. Fortier says he volunteered to switch districts to accommodate Saulie Zajdel, who, as a result of electoral map changes, would have had to square off against Marvin Rotrand. Cynics have quipped that this proves that Zajdel has more clout with Bourque than the second most powerful man in the city. Fortier, who reports working 90 hours a week and never taking a holiday, says NDGers are interested in the megacity as it will "free up $100-million in tax cuts." He'd also like to increase the population of the island, noting that the current City of Montreal has 800,000 residents, whereas 1.3 mil lived here in the early '70s.



-- Earlier this year Jeremy Searle crowed repeatedly that "Gérald Tremblay's a Bourque clone." But now that his favoured mayoralty candidate Vera Danyluk has fizzled out, he's decided to call Tremblay "boss." The former insurance salesman, who entered council eight years ago in a nail-biter, won comfortably last go-round, as opposition barely mustered a last-minute candidate to run against him. Now Searle's faced by the formidable Darryl Grey, an American-born minister at the Union United Church, who is sometimes likened to Jesse Jackson. Searle has already accused Grey of "using the race card." But Grey, a contrast in his soft-spoken style, says "I like to think that voters are offered two good candidates." If Searle wins, he promises to "put my trademark fanaticism to work in the area of pedestrian safety and traffic."



-- Since its maiden run in the early '70s, in which layabout Nick Auf der Maur beat the aristocratic, arrogant yet endlessly clever Charles Lynch-Staunton, the downtown Peter-McGill district has been cursed with part-time councillors. They include the constantly-ill Georgine Coutu and more recently Gerry Weiner, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister whose career in city politics was marred by a questionable land deal near the Atwater Market, after which he has apparently mistaken his phone for a hand grenade, rarely returning or answering calls. This spring Bourque dumped Weiner and 11 other councillors. Now Bourque's Carolina Gallo La Flèche, a not-unattractive paper company pencilpusher, will duel Tremblay's Louise O'Sullivan Boyne, a personnel company executive who insisted on verifying this reporter's identity before exposing her platform. Her plans range from attacking poverty to preventing canines from drinking from the water fountain at Percy Walters Park.



-- Marvin Rotrand, a dissident councillor whose only stab at working within the administration ended a dozen years ago when he quit the MCM after the Overdale fiasco, now says he's ready to work with what he figures will be the next administration, the Tremblay team. But just in case, the comb-over king has been seen gleefully clutching a clipping from a CDN community paper, citing an anonymous rival confessing "we can't figure out how this blasted guy gets so much for his constituents even though he's in the opposition."