Dare We Say Ex-Football Player Spence "Dropped the Ball"?

Continuing its investigation into the folie a deux between the Toronto District School Board and the predatory union whose services were absurdly expensive, the Toronto Star reveals that the problems were all documented back in '06 in a 130 page report. Despite that, however, nothing much has changed:

The Star found high charges for small jobs performed by the 900-strong Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, which forms the backbone of the TDSB’s facilities division. The Star found charges of almost $3,000 to install a simple electrical outlet in a school library and a charge of $143 to screw in a pencil sharpener.

You would think that Chris Spence, the ex-CFLer who heads up the board, would have been irate back then, and even angrier today. And, indeed, he is, in his own phlegmatic, banal and cliched way:

In an interview Wednesday about the Blackstone report, TDSB director Chris Spence said some progress has been made, and the report is “working its way through the committee structure” at the board.

“To use a football analogy, we are trying to move the yardstick. There is no quick fix,” said Spence, who became director two years after the review. “But I am not running, I am not hiding from the problem.”

It has taken six years for the report to work its way through the board's committee structure (whatever the heck that means)?!? To use a football analogy, you're a real punter, Chris, and there is little doubt that in allowing this problem to persist for so long, it should be game over for you.

Update: Oh, the delicious irony of it all--Spence is the author of a book called--wait for it, now--On Time! On Task! On a Mission!

Guess he forgot to re-read his own advice.