Pat Fiacco

His Worship, Mayor Pat Fiasco, Mayor of Regina, Saskatchewan

Pat Fiacco is the current Mayor of Regina, capital city of Saskatchewan, Canada. He has been mayor since 2000 and was acclaimed to his 2nd term on September 24, 2003 when no one ran against him. He is Regina's 33rd Mayor since Regina was incorporated as a City in 1903.

The son of Italian immigrants, Pasquale Fiacco was born in Regina in 1962, was raised and lived there throughout his life.

Mayor Fiacco has a keen interest in physical fitness and sports. He is a former provincial and Canadian amateur boxing champion. In 1999 he served as a Canadian Boxing Official for the PanAm Games and is currently the National Chief Official for Boxing Canada.

There was public outrage in 2004 when he announced that several inner-city and core area libraries would be closed because there wasn't enough money to fund them. He eventually reversed his decision under outside pressure.

Fiacco faces re-election in October, 2006, and has competition from people with different walks of life for the position of mayor, instead of the mayors' acclamation like the last civic election.

Issues shaping up for this tilt include the city's handling of a 2005 strike by a trio of municipal unions, institute a base, or minimum, property tax thus moving the tax load to the poorest neighbourhoods and proposed expansion of the city's limits to the area south of the Regina airport, of which the mayor owns several plots of land and lobbied the provincial government to have rezoned. As of Sept. 16, 2006, his only declared rival was Jim Holmes, a retired CUPE negotiator, running under the banner of a new citizen oriented political organization the Coalition for a Citizen-Friendly Regina.

Fiacco's political affiliations are unknown (though his campaign is headquartered at the same Broad Street address that Liberal MP Ralph Goodale campaigned out of federally earlier in 2006), but has generally followed a free-enterprise line oriented towards low taxes and economic growth.

Despite his "I Love Regina" slogan, he is disinterested in developing Regina as a city with unique character and is dedicated to turning it into a lifeless strip of big box stores.