Windsor's mayor is firing back at Ward 3 Councillor Rino Bortolin for comments he made earlier this year that he could not get funding for alley lights.
Bortolin got in trouble for suggesting to a reporter that he could not access funding to install lights in an alleyway where a hypothetical rape happened. It turned out there was no rape, and Councillor Joanne Gignac complained to the integrity commissioner about the comments. This week, Bortolin made a formal apology to the council.
The same night, councillors approved funding for three lights in alleyways and asked the administration to come back with a policy guiding where lights should be installed.
Mayor Drew Dilkens expressed frustration with reporters afterwards and said Bortolin's comments were false.
"He's had money all along," said Dilkens pointing toward funds available to all councillors. "Somehow he's framed it as though somehow the city was stopping him. He just couldn't get it, and he was the little guy being held down when the fact is the money existed."
Dilkens pointed out, in 2015, Bortolin successfully received funding to install lights in alleyways and parks.
"The notion that seems to be left is that somehow the city was blocking and holding back when in fact in 2015 he asked for money from his ward fund [and] got it," Dilkens said. "There never was a barrier."
Bortolin emphatically refuted Dilkens' statement and said he started working to have lights installed in alleys a year ago. He said he had asked for funding for alley lights several times including making a request to the public works department, and the planning department. He said he even asked if he could use ward funds and was told he could not. When he pushed, he managed to get four lights installed six weeks ago.
"This is not a simple 'Oh I could have used that all along.' That statement is blatantly false. I have tried to do this many different times in many different ways," said Bortolin calling Dilkens comments petty. "We have been blocked at every single opportunity."