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<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nVote Desmond Cole!<\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone who attended the screening of the documentary City Idol, which had its world premiere April 26 as part of the Hot Docs film festival, left the theatre convinced that Desmond Cole will one day win a seat at City Hall.<\/p>\n The star of the film, the then-24-year-old Cole, was the winner of City Idol, a grassroots-organized competition that saw almost 80 people vie to become candidates in Toronto’s municipal election last November. The winners (there were four, one each for Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and downtown) received volunteer support to run a campaign in the ward of their choosing, but the documentary focused solely on Cole’s win of the competitive albeit feel-good contest — which was designed to encourage more people to run for city council — and the frustratingly difficult battle he faced to gain recognition and votes once out on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n Cole couldn’t have picked a more challenging ward to run in. The audience watched as he sat patiently waiting his turn to speak during all-candidates debates as Helen Kennedy (who had the support of the NDP machine, plus experience as Olivia Chow’s right-hand-woman at City Hall) and Adam Vaughan (well-known Citytv reporter and son of former councillor Colin Vaughan) duked it out over who took donations from whom. The contrast between the we-can-change-the-world atmosphere of the City Idol events and the outside reality are painfully obvious while watching him knock on doors that are never answered in Alexandra Park. When election day roles around, Cole (who is just as articulate as Vaughan and, at least in this movie anyway, 10 times as charming) looks noticeably exhausted, frustrated and dejected.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Something I learned is that campaigning is kind of a secret and I wonder why we don’t question that more often,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cole tells me after reliving the experience through the film. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want people to see what that experience is like.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n So will he run again? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That’s the question everyone wants to ask. I now understand why politicians never want to answer it, because you just don’t know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Cole, who’s looking forward to gaining more experience as a youth outreach worker. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have a lot to learn. I’m not going to come back to the public again until I have more to offer. But let’s put it this way: I want to run again.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Perhaps driven by an article in the Toronto Star that compared him unfavourably to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (Daley, it said, is a doer; David Miller is a talker), Mayor Miller announced that Toronto’s green building standards could become mandatory by the end of the year, making the city a North American leader in green buildings. (Take that, Chicago!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"http:\/\/www.eyeweekly.com\/eye\/issue\/issue_05.03.07\/city\/photos\/city_cityhall.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt isn’t easy building green<\/h3>\n