A woman accused of sending a bizarre series of letters last year threatening to bomb a west Toronto elementary school, shoot some of its staff and kill the principal has signed up to run for trustee in the upcoming election.
Linda Pitney, 63, filed her papers to run for Toronto District School Board trustee for Eglinton-Lawrence just before the nomination deadline Sept. 10.
Pitney is one of a trio of women facing several counts of threatening death and intimidation in connection with the letters, which allegedly targeted staff at Perth Avenue Junior public school.
Pitney and the two co-accused have pleaded not guilty and the case goes to trial in November after the Oct. 25 municipal election. She could not be reached immediately for comment.
"That's disgusting, terrible," said Joyce Carpenter, a resident living across from Perth Avenue school, near Dupont and Dundas Streets. The school is in the Davenport ward, approximately two kilometres from Eglinton-Lawrence.
Carpenter was one of dozens of residents living near the JK to Grade 6 school who received intimidating letters over the first half of 2009.
"It was devastating when we got those letters," Carpenter recalled.
Following a seven-month investigation, police arrested three women at their homes in July, 2009, including Rafat Parsaei, the 45-year-old mother of a child attending Perth Avenue school, and Shelburne residents Carol Tovell and her companion Pitney.
Both Pitney and Tovell are representing themselves in court, according to the crown attorney's office.
Pitney, a handwriting analyst, has listed the Yonge Street address of her company, the Canadian College of Kineseography, north of Eglinton Avenue with the city's elections division. Anybody living or owning property in Toronto is allowed to run for TDSB trustee, as long as they aren't a school board employee or in prison.
She will be running against two-time incumbent Howard Goodman.
"People sign up for all sorts of reasons and I don't have an opinion on this at all until I know the woman (Pitney)," said Goodman. "It's not appropriate to pre-judge. One of the delights of local democracy is everybody gets to have a say and everybody gets to put their name forward. And it is a delight because it is the core of democracy."