Who’s going to take on Bratina?
By Andrew Dreschel
Mayor Bob Bratina’s recent musings about seeking a second term of office have jump-started rumours about who may take a stab at unseating him.
Though there are still two and half years to go before the 2014 municipal election, the community and City Hall are already buzzing with speculation.
Some of the high-profile names to surface who are not members of city council include former Liberal MPPs Marie Bountrogianni and Sophia Aggelonitis, both ex-cabinet ministers and esteemed for their personable brand of politics.
Richard Koroscil, the recently retired president and CEO of Hamilton airport, is also being bruited around as a possible candidate.
Koroscil, a former chair of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, is currently a director of Metrolinx, the provincial organization that manages transit planning for the Toronto-Hamilton area.
But the name heard loudest and most persistently is
Mark Chamberlain.
Chamberlain, an award-winning entrepreneur and businessman, is a highly regarded community leader known for his commitment to social causes, including poverty reduction and job creation.
This is not the first time Chamberlain has been seen as possible mayoral material. The same happened during the unsteady early days of Fred Eisenberger’s administration.
His response to the latest round of rumours is more or less the same as back then.
“It’s not on my radar right now. It’s something I haven’t given any thought to at this stage,” says Chamberlain.
“There are too many other urgent and immediate things on my plate to focus on.”
You can read what you will into qualifiers like “right now” and “at this stage.”
That takes us to City Hall where councillors Chad Collins, Lloyd Ferguson, Tom Jackson and Terry Whitehead are all part of the mayoral scuttlebutt — much as they were during the Eisenberger years.
Of the four, it’s probably safe to say that
Ferguson and Collins are giving it serious consideration, though both are playing it cool.
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