The sex doesn't cut it

Good, juicy sex scandals are hard to come by these days. Most of the variants of official corruption are relatively boring and could use a bit of titillation to make them palatable. Now Toronto, Canada has come to the rescue with a new model for those who might be caught up in some sort of official malfeasance – cry ‘private relationship’, trot out a few salacious, sex related details and hope the dogs follow the false scent.
(Picture: Pam Coburn CTV.ca)
That’s the script for the unfolding cronyism investigation in Toronto’s City Council. Pamela Coburn, the $140,000-a-year executive-director and her second-in-command at the municipal licensing department, Joseph Carnevale, have been suspended while their management of the department is investigated. Under question are politically connected members of licensing department staff, including three relatives of deputy mayor Joe Pantalone, as well as Mr. Carnevale's startling rise from a temporary bylaw enforcement officer to Ms. Coburn's second-in-command, with a six-figure salary, in less than a year.
Ms Coburn’s local supermarket appears to be her favoured recruitment centre for budding city by-law inspectors and taxi driver trainers. It’s understandable that she would favour relatives of councilors for positions; after all, you can never have too much influence when you are a civil servant. The curious part, with the manager of the supermarket her personal friend, is where the benefits might be in hiring shelf stackers and check out chicks for relatively technical positions.
At least one whistle-blower complained that the department, which enforces municipal bylaws and property standards and regulates such industries as taxis and restaurants, had degenerated into a "honey pot of cronyism".
Another commented "There isn't a politician on the floor of council who doesn't owe her."
When Coburn fronted a media conference to put her side of the story, she did so with her teenage children in tow. Media folk scratched their collective heads, wondering what the kids might be able to add in her defense.
After touching, unsatisfactorily on the cronyism allegations, Coburn swung into her real defense; that an illicit affair, with Carnevale, that had been barely mentioned in the media, as a reason for her suspension.
To save her own sorry arse, Coburn destroyed her ‘lover’s’ future and subjected her kids to this sordid sideshow.
Where has this woman been? Who really cares about them getting their rocks off? Sex scandals, those ordinary, man-woman, a romp under the covers or on the office desks, just don’t cut it anymore.
Now if she forced all those questionable appointees to have sex with her that could be a whole new story. If she was providing a stable of supermarket bimbettes (of either gender) for the sexual pleasure of councilors and senior management, well there might just be a hint of worthwhile scandal there.
But no, it’s a simple office romance it seems, "I, like all employees, and all citizens of this city, I'm human, and I cannot regret that I came to care deeply for another person," she said. "I did not choose to feel this way, but it was a life event for me."
I’m looking forward to seeing the real issues unfold, to finding out how she might have benefited from the alleged cronyism.
Meantime, there is a lesson for blokes who get the urge for a bit of a romp on the side; if Coburn is any guide you well be fucked up every which way.