In its July 2013 Amended Statement of Defense court filing, the city claimed Inzola was disqualified from the bidding process for not following the RFP requirements and rules, while denying any bias or corruption in the selection process.

The city also made several allegations of political corruption against Inzola and Cutruzzola in its filing.

“The Plaintiff and its principal, John Cutruzzola … are part of a faction who wish to remove the Mayor (Susan Fennell) from office by tarring her reputation so that she may be replaced with someone more amenable to the Plaintiff’s style of doing business and able to reward the Plaintiff for its financial and political support,” read one such allegation.

“The Plaintiff was familiar with the development process and exceptionally adept at obtaining and using political influence to meet its goals,” read part of another.

While the city continues to deny any bias, it has since withdrawn the allegations of corruption toward Cutruzzola and Inzola and replaced it with 20 new paragraphs of defence.

The city’s legal team’s filing of that new “Fresh as Amended Statement of Defense” came on March 8, 2018 — just one month before the start of trial.

A month earlier, a motion filed by the city’s lawyers for discovery seeking thousands of documents was struck down. In that decision, court ruled the request unreasonable so close to trial, calling the requested documents irrelevant to the case.

A motion by the city to have the case dismissed dating back to February 2016 was abandoned just a few months before that, in November 2017.

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

At least four members of council, including Elaine Moore, Gael Miles, John Sprovieri and Grant Gibson, are expected to be called as witnesses.

The public trial is being held in courtroom 103 at the courthouse in Orangeville located at 10 Louisa St. It’s expected to last eight weeks and all proceedings will be held at that location.

With files from Peter Criscione.