Mayor Yvon Labrosse of Montreal East

  Montreal East which had a tradition of being run by long term mayors, starting with Mayor J. Versailles from 1910 to 1931, Edouard Rivet ruled from 1962 to 1982.
  When the 75-year-old Rivert had a stroke, Labrosse -- who had joined council in 1969 -- became interim mayor. Labrosse had worked at the Gulf refinery, which was one of the big four that funded 90 percent of the budget of the small town of 3,800. Labrosse beat Joseph Patriarco and became mayor of the small town.
  And true to the dictum that oil tends to do little to help democracy, Labrosse got in the habit of making borough meetings incomprehensible to onlookers, something which he was entirely unapologetic about.
  Now the town had a thing for giving freebs to residents. They just couldn't help it. One veteran Councillor Maurice Senez was tossed in jail for income tax fraud but managed to keep serving on council, which didn't make the mayor too happy.
   Soon Labrosse himself was in the crosshairs of his opponents, as he had allegedly given free gravel to a car dealership. He also allegedly used city resources to help build six houses in the area. He was sick of the attacks so he openly asked for a probe in 1984. He was also known for taking a ton of trips and allowing councillors to do the same on the city nickel, as they would take about five journeys a year to places like San Antonio Texas or Ottawa. He was removed from office in 1985 by the province, which about 1,000 of the 3,800 Montreal East residents to sign a petition supporting the Mayor, as they felt that the investigation was a waste of their money, however the cash was really mostly coming in from big industry, so there's some sense that lavishness wasn't entirely inappropriate.
   In October 1985 provincial police decided there was no reason to charge Mayor Labrosse with any crime and he eventually won all of the lawsuits against him and sued to have his legal fees refunded. He got his expense account back in 1986. However the refineries started their long march to closure at that point and Labrosse had to deal with that. In 1987 Labrosse declined the Montreal invitation to rename his stretch of Dorchester after Rene Levesque and so eight blocks in that part of town (along with Westmount) still bears the customary name.
   In 2000 he fought against the mergers and by 2004 the folks livin' there made Mtl-E the only municipality in the east to demerge. He had tried to run as a city councillor for Montreal in 2001 but lost due to the fact that he wasn't known in the borough he ran in. However he did get voted back as mayor of Montreal east in 2006 but lost his bid for re-election in 2009 but 806 to 800. He is in his late 70s now and apparently still alive.
   Nowadays the city is sitting on a goldmine of land abandoned by the refineries that could conceivably add another half million residents to the island.