Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion is holding a news conference Wednesday in Streetsville during which, friends and supporters say, she’ll confirm she’s seeking a 12th term.

“I believe … she will make an announcement that will say she has registered and plans on running for re-election,” Brian Crombie, a friend and advisor of the 89-year-old mayor, said Tuesday. “She will speak about the importance of a council that will work together and not be dysfunctional.”

Councillor Pat Saito, a friend and supporter said the mayor, who has served since 1978, has made clear her intentions to run again.

“I don’t think she will ever have enough of doing what she can for the city,” said Saito. “Mississauga is in her blood … I think her faculties are as acute and sharp as any other member of council, and in some cases more so.”

Her long-expected announcement (she had previously said she would run if her health held out) means McCallion, currently in the middle of a judicial inquiry probing the extent of her involvement in a $14.4 million land deal, will take her case and popularity directly to the voters on Oct. 25.

Justice Douglas Cunningham’s report will not be issued before the election.

The inquiry, called by council last year, has been hearing evidence this summer that McCallion was intimately involved in the quest by her son’s company to build a $1.5 billion hotel, convention centre and condominium complex near city hall, a project the mayor said she supported for the benefit of the city, not her son.

McCallion, through her lawyer, has said she didn’t know Peter McCallion held an ownership stake in the company despite witnessing a trust agreement signed by him and a business partner in 2007.

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