Pitfield wants Ward 29
Councillor's retirement clears the way for comeback
Jane Pitfield wants back into city hall and she’s chosen to run in Toronto-Danforth Ward 29.
Case Ootes the current rep held a media conference this afternoon announcing he won’t seek re-election in this east end ward. And at 3 p.m. Pitfield registered as a candidate.
“I was very surprised when councillor Case Ootes announced his retirement,” she told the media at the city’s election offices.
She met with councillors Ootes, Cliff Jenkins and Michael Walker weeks ago indicating her interest in running if any of them choose not to run.
“All of them said they thought they’d return,” she told the Town Crier today.
Then last night, Ootes called to tell her he would not seek re-election.
“I felt my interest is so strong in coming back. Why wait?” she said in an interview.
Although the former Don Valley West councillor is best known for representing Leaside, after all she even wrote a book on the former town, she also represented ward 29 in the past.
“I have chosen ward 29 because actually this is where I started,” she said at a press conference. “I opened my campaign office in 1997, competed in the amalgamation election, came third. And then opened that same office again in 1998 when I was fortunate to gain a seat on city council in the by-election.”
From 1994 to 1997 she was a school trustee in a part of East York that covered the ward.
While she lived in Leaside for years, she currently resides in ward 25 and has no immediate plans to move into ward 29 instead.
“Ideally, I’d like to live in the ward I represent,” she says. “But the amount of time I devote to it (job), it will be as if I live there.”
In 2006, she ran for mayor in Toronto and came second to then incumbent Mayor David Miller.
“I have a very strong commitment to serve. This next term will be a very exciting time at city hall,” she said after filing her nomination papers.
Politics is in her blood on her father’s side the Brysons as her great, great grandfather George Sr. and great grandfather George Jr. served in the Quebec government.
That was part of the focus of a book she wrote called Blazing the Trail in the Pontiac about her forefathers who were in politics, banking and lumber industries in the 1800s.
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