Former councillor David Soknacki seeks council appointment for Scarborough East
The Ward 44 seat has been vacant since April, after the death of long-time councillor Ron Moeser.

TheStar.com
June 13, 2017
Jennifer Pagliaro

Former Scarborough city councillor and one of the top mayoral candidates who faced off against John Tory is seeking appointment in Scarborough East.

On Tuesday, David Soknacki applied to fill his old chair in Ward 44 for the next year and a half, telling the Star he doesn’t plan to run in the general election next year.

With his name in the ring, Soknacki is a frontrunner amongst 20 other applicants so far. They include former Conservative MP for the area Corneliu Chisu. The nomination period closes June 19.

“I do see it as a stewardship,” said Soknacki, a longtime Scarborough resident who runs his own business, commercially exporting herbs and spices. “I see it also as having somebody in place that will ensure a fair and level playing field for the candidates in 2018.”

The seat has been vacant since the death of long-time councillor Ron Moeser in April. Council voted to appoint a successor, not hold a by-election for electors to choose one. The vote on the appointment, which is up to council, will take place at a special meeting June 28.

Soknacki was first elected as a councillor in the old city of Scarborough in 1994 and was re-elected to an amalgamated council for Scarborough East in 1999. A popular conservative councillor, he was budget chief during David Miller’s first term as mayor and served until 2006 when he chose not to run for re-election.

Soknacki dropped out of the 2014 mayoral race two months before the vote, at the time polling polling between 3 and 6 per cent. After Tory’s victory, the mayor asked Soknacki, who had detailed policies on cutting policing costs and reviewing operations, to serve on a transformational task force examining the Toronto Police Service.

The former councillor canvassed elected officials at city hall on his bid for reappointment, sending an email with his intentions on Tuesday.

In the note, he said concerns have been raised about whether he would seek election in 2018 and if he planned to intervene in the continuing debate over the Scarborough subway.

Soknacki previously said council’s decision to scrap a planned, fully-funded light-rail line to replace the Scarborough RT and build a more expensive subway extension that would serve less people helped push him to run for mayor.

“I will make my decisions based on the evidence and stand my ground against those who use bully tactics to try and get their way,” he told the Star at the time.

On Tuesday, the former councilor, who became known for taking principled and heavily-researched positions during the mayoral campaign, said he would vote for what’s best for Ward 44 if the subway debate returned during his appointment. The matter is expected to come up for public discussion once again in “late 2018,” but its unclear if that will be after the election. Soknacki said he doesn’t plan to stir up the debate ahead of time.

“I’m not there to fight old battles or to resurrect issues that council have already addressed,” he said.