Late Thorold Mayor Ted Luciani One of Few To Vote ‘No’ To Caslin Cabal

Dec. 11, 2014 – Photo by Denis Cahill

In 2016, Ted Luciani Was One of Only Eight Elected Reps Brave Enough to Vote Against Hiring Carmen D’Angelo to Niagara Region’s Top Administrative Job

A Brief Tribute from Doug Draper, reporter/publisher, Niagara At Large

Posted August 17^th, 2023

If or when you enter the lobby of Niagara, Ontario’s regional headquarters where St. David’s Road turns into Sir Isaac Brock Way in Thorold, you may look along one of the walls and notice the portrait of Al Caslin along with those of six other past Regional Chairs going back to the formation of Niagara Region in 1970.

I have say that the sight of Caslin’s portrait up there with those of Gary Burroughs, Debbie Zimmerman and the others is an insult to them and it should come down. No other elected member of the Region’s council – and I know I’m far from the only Niagara citizen who feels this way – has done more to soil the reputation and healthy functioning of our regional government than Al Caslin.

If you have any doubts about that, visit a report released in 2019 by Ontario’s Ombudsman called “Inside Job” as exhibit number one. You can review a copy of that report by clicking on a link made available at the end of this tribute to an elected representative of a completely different sort.

That elected representative was Ted Luciani, who died this past July 27^th at age 75.

Ted Luciani served as an elected representative in Thorold for 18 years, eight of them, from 2010 to 2018,  as the city’s mayor when as one of Niagara’s 12 city and town mayors, he also held one of 30-some-odd seats on the Region’s council.

Through those years of service, he, like all politicians had his shares of highs as lows in the eyes of his constituents. And Ted Luciani’s highest water mark for me – one that failed to receive any attention in recent mainstream media reports about his passing – was his very brave and principled decision, during a snap regional council meeting Caslin called on October 31^st, 2016, to join only seven other elected members of the Region’s council to vote against hiring Carmen D’Angelo as Caslin’s preferred choice to play a major role in steering the Region as its chief administrative officer.

In other words, he had the intelligence and courage to vote against that ‘Inside Job’ detailed more than two years later in the Ontario Ombudsman’s bombshell report.

I had a phone interview with Ted Luciana at the time of the 2016 vote and he told me he had some calls from representatives of the Caslin cabal, pressuring him to vote for Carmen D’Angelo, but “I couldn’t do it.”

For that he may have paid a political price as many who defied the cabal did back then. But for that he forever deserves respect as a politician who should set a bright and shining role model for others.

With that, I share my regrets with Ted Luciani’s family and friends and hope that he rests in peace.

(For the record, the other seven elected representatives of the day who had the spine to vote against hiring D’Angelo for the next two or three years until he mercifully left the scene were Pelham’s Dave Augustyn, Thorold’s Henry D’Angela, St. Catharines Kelly Edgar,  Brian Heit and Debbie MacGregor, Welland’s George Marshall and Lincoln’s Bill Hodgson.)

Read the Ontario Ombusdman’s report, titled ‘Inside Job’, by clicking on  – https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/resources/reports,-cases-and-submissions/reports-on-investigations/2019/inside-jobjob . 

NIAGARA AT LARGE Encourages You To Join The Conversation By Sharing Your Views On This Post In The Space Following The Bernie Sanders Quote Below.

“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders