By I. John Harvey (as we enter the municipal elections voters should read this article again)

It's something out of a Hollywood movie and almost as unbelievable.

Large sums of cash. Un-tendered contracts given to ex-lovers. Extra-marital affairs. Millions of dollars of public money squandered through bungled management and cronyism. Done deals, undone. A vanishing witness.

But this is no film, it's a case of truth being stranger than fiction and what makes it a horror story is that it's your tax dollars at work.

Probe Won't Hear Everything

For 18 months the Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry and its sibling, the Toronto External Contracts Inquiry under the firm hand of Madam Justice Denise Bellamy, have chipped away at the back room deals of City Hall.

At the core of the inquiry it's about how a $43 million leasing deal ended up costing more than $80 million. The second stage is now probing how and why decisions were made - and are made  - at City Hall.

Bas Balkisson

The testimony has made huge headlines, but what is just as interesting is the testimony we won't be hear from key players.

Ron Saunders, former lover of then-city treasurer Wanda Liczyk, has refused to come to Toronto from his Newport, R.I. home to tell how, after getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in untendered contracts in North York, he and partner David Maxson were then invited to install a $3.8 million tax collection software system in the amalgamated city of Toronto where Liczyk had established her dominance.

Wanda Liczyk

Questions Still Remain

We won't hear all the details about how a rival system was shoved aside because Liczyk was more comfortable with the system Saunders had devised and installed while he was intimate with her at North York

Neither will David Maxson  tell his story about those decisions while a third computer "consultant" Ball Hsu, who scored $10 million for contracts originally tendered at $2 million, has vanished and is thought to be in mainland China.

For Councillor Bas Balkisson, who led the charge since 1998 to dig into just how business is done behind closed doors at city hall, it's a bittersweet victory.

"I came from a third world country where who you know gets things done," he said. "That's why I came to Canada. I don't play favourites - yes, if I know someone I'll argue their case but not like this."

His ire was raised when he first noted a simple item like copiers being requisitioned for approval through council about 1998.

"I asked if there were networked (connected to the main computer system and to allow them to do double duty as printers and fax machines)," he said. The answers he received only raised his curiosity and soon it became a personal mission.

What upset him was the reluctance of staff to be forthcoming with information at how contracts were arrived at. In some cases, he was just stonewalled.

Balkisson was among the first whistle-blowers whose cries of alarm at how city business was being conducted slowly gathered steam and began attracting support of a coalition of politicians from across the political spectrum.

Support Grew

"Anne Johnstone and (then councilor, now Mayor) David Miller started to support me first," he said. "Mike Walker who sat next to me started to understand what was going on because I kept talking about it and then the NDP caucus got behind it."

Ironically the inquiries, which began in September 2002, will probably cost upwards of $17 million, according to estimates by the City Solicitor presented to council last May.

"I think it is fair to say that the City of Toronto did not anticipate that the Inquiry would last this long," noted Justice Bellamy in her remarks at the end of the first stage. " It initially budgeted for only 40 days of hearings. City staff did not even think the City required legal representation.  The reality bears no resemblance to these early assumptions: 70,000 pages from 20,000 documents, 12 parties with standing, 46 lawyers, and almost 130 witnesses who testified during the course of approximately 180 days."

"I'd say I'm satisfied so far, but, completely? No," Balkisson said. "From what I know of this because I've been involved so long nothing surprises me - and there are a few surprises coming. But there are lots of unanswered questions still."

His biggest concerns about what the second inquiry will miss is direct testimony from businessman Ball Hsu whose company Ball Hsu and Associates was paid $10 million for contracts originally tendered at $2 million to provide software and support for City Hall computers and their network system.

"This guy just up and disappeared," fumes Balkisson. Records show Hsu was granted standing - that is he could have a lawyer at the inquiry to represent his interests - but in June 2003 after changing counsel twice, left for his native China and has not been seen since.

No Trace of Hsu

The only remaining trace are several political donations to both the PC and Liberal party and municipal candidates in the name of Ball Hsu and Associates.

Still, the close quarters relationship between a plethora of "consultants" and suppliers has detailed in the inquiry has already started to change the way business is done at City Hall.

Mayor David Miller announced in late November that he is looking to restructure and reorganize starting at the top by eliminating some high level commissioners' positions.

The big names snared in the headlines emanating from the inquiry have also captured attention.

Liczyk's close relationship with MFP Leasing salesman Dash Domi is also at the heart of matters . Lobbyist and political bagman Jeff Lyons similarly came under fire for his cozy relationship with insiders at city hall and lucrative contracts awarded to him on behalf of vendors and suppliers to gain access to that inner circle in an effort to win city business.

Celebrity status was supplied by Maple Leaf hardman Tie Domi whose brother Dash was the slick and well-connected salesman for MFP. It was Dash who accompanied Jacobek and others on a trip to Philadelphia to watch a Leaf-Flyers game that caught Jacobek in the lie that sunk his political career. First Jacobek denied the trip and association only to later admit it.

Tie  testified he'd been given an envelope of cash by his brother at Christmas but couldn't remember all the relevant particulars of where he'd spent it.

More salacious was the testimony of the former city treasurer Wanda Liczyk who, it turns out, had more than a passing professional interest in vendor Michael Saunders.

In an affidavit filed before the inquiry, Liczyk first denied she'd slept with Saunders, but as the linens were publicly washed it emerged that Liczyk had a well-known affair with Saunders, a married and still drinking and struggling alcoholic. That relationship started about 1986 - about a year into her rise through the civil service -  when she worked in North York.

Classic Rise To Power

Her rise through the ranks was meteoric in the classic sense.  By 1997 she was ensconced as part of then Mayor Mel Lastman's transition team within the amalgamated Toronto as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer until June 2001 when she was appointed to Toronto Hydro, earning $320,849 as vice-president. She resigned that position  two weeks after testifying at the inquiry.

By her account, in the late eighties, she was a pathetic, lonely character, married to the job, working 12 hours or more a day and whose only social outlet and contact were co-workers and Saunders.

Saunders, an American, was flogging tax-collection software; Liczyk was open to more than a sales pitch as it transpired. The relationship ended about three years later but the two remained friends - Liczyk often calling on her cell phone to tell him about her day and chatting for up to an hour at a time.

In fact, admited Liczyk on the stand, Saunders' relationship started with spread sheets and extended to between the sheets with her and he seems to have abused the privilege it according him. Under shield of her office, Saunders, a consultant, often ignored staff requests, ran his own show and seemed well versed on what had gone on in closed door meetings he had not attended, according to earlier testimony. He was rude, a bully and over-rode staff as if he were in charge, they said.

Liczyk's biggest clanger - and the one that may yet earn a rebuke if nothing else from the
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario which is watching the inquiry closely - was in pushing boy-pal Saunder's TMACs accounting system which he had installed and serviced in North York during her watch there.

In the end Liczyk appears to have pushed a rival company tax collection system favoured by Scarborough and Etobicoke , the TXM200, off to the sidelines about 1997-1998, in favour of her former lover's system.

Contracts Not Tendered

In all, Saunders and his buddies - and his daughter whom he flew to Toronto at taxpayer's expense, - netted more than $675,000 in untendered contracts.

Commission counsel David Butt was succinct in skewering Liczyk.

"In December '97 you signed these approvals for Mr. Saunders and Maxson and then more approvals in March, May 16  and July.  All sole source, all untendered, possible concerns  about contract splitting and a clear exceeding of authority in one(case and the total amount for 1998 for those  contracts is $675,000," he put to her Nov. 9. " Would you agree that given the nature of your relationship to Mr. Saunders that has some appearance  problems? "

Her response: "Today, yes.  At the time, I did not believe that to be the case."

"No Reason To Tell"

Liczyk testified earlier that since the intimate relationship had ended seven years earlier, she saw no reason to tell anyone and insists it did not influence her business decisions saying: " I didn't think it was relevant to the City of Toronto and the business decisions that we were making."

But in approving those untendered contracts, now she admits she overstepped her authority.

"I  should have taken these to(then Chief Administrative Officer) Mike Garrett for approval and it was an oversight for me not to have done that," she testified.

Day by day, in the hearing room on the third floor of the Easy York municipal building, lawyers scratch away at the web of intrigue. But the man who started it all is still probing for more.

"We're accountable to the taxpayers," said Balkisson. "If we don't know where and how the money is being spent, how can we change anything?"