With less than $5,000 remaining for his mayoral campaign fund by mid-August 2006, Terry Kilrea signed the lease for his campaign office on Richmond Road, then promptly decided to drop out of the race, a court heard yesterday.
A full day of cross-examination from Mayor Larry O’Brien’s defence attorney Michael Edelson ended with him wondering why Kilrea would rent the office when he knew there wasn’t enough money to continue the campaign for 31/2 more months.
According to Kilrea’s testimony, he would have signed the lease one week after he rejected an alleged offer from O’Brien for an appointment to the National Parole Board in exchange for dropping out of the race and endorsing O’Brien.
Instead, by September 2006, Kilrea had registered to run in Bay Ward and threw his support behind Bob Chiarelli, who Kilrea lost to in the 2003 election.
Edelson accused Kilrea of “perpetually complaining about the conduct of other candidates,” during both the 2003 and 2006 elections, while personally displaying little regard for the Elections Act.
On the last day of the 2003 election, Kilrea registered a complaint against Chiarelli, accusing him of posting signs too close to polling stations.
In 2006, Kilrea twice lodged official complaints against Alex Cullen, alleging he used city resources for his re-election campaign. Cullen also lodged a complaint against Kilrea, claiming he raised funds and spent outside the legal time frame for municipal campaigns.
The Municipal Elections Act would have prohibited Kilrea from soliciting or spending campaign funds prior to January 2006. Edelson brought up a number of occasions when Kilrea would have at least spent some money on things like campaign business cards and maintaining a website.
Kilrea insisted he did no wrong.
“There was no action taken against me. Therefore I don’t feel anything was done incorrectly,” he said.
The day started with Edelson questioning Kilrea on the date of the initial meeting between the two of them. In Kilrea’s December 2006 affidavit, he said the meeting was on July 5. In March 2009, he revised the date to July 12 when he met with the Crown prosecutor.
Kilrea takes the witness chair for a third day today.
