Key to getting a top gig in the Ford mayoralty? Endorse Ford, or be Karen Stintz
We’re just over a week away from the first days of the Rob Ford mayoralty, and the buzz over whom he’ll be relying on to herd the new council has begun. Will he reach out, Obama-like, to the people who ran against him in the election? Or will he fill his chamber of secrets with cronies and lackeys? According to the Globe and Mail, the people with the inside track are (almost) all people who endorsed him during the election, with one exception:
Mr. Ford is expected to announce as early as Monday that Doug Holyday will be deputy mayor, Frances Nunziata is his pick for council speaker, Mike Del Grande will be appointed budget chief and Karen Stintz will be the mayor’s choice to lead the Toronto Transit Commission, according to a city hall source. Ms. Nunziata, a former mayor of York, was widely expected to snag the speaker’s job she coveted. She was one of the first councillors to publicly support Mr. Ford’s mayoral bid. Ms. Nunziata said Friday that she is “absolutely” still interested in replacing Sandra Bussin as the boss of council’s monthly meetings. But she said she was still waiting for formal word from the mayor-elect.
Del Grande and Holyday both endorsed Ford during the election, as well (though Holyday took his sweet time doing it); interestingly, Stintz did not. Like some other less-bombastic fiscal conservatives on council, Stintz refused to endorse either Ford or George Smitherman. As one of the more vocal critics of David Miller, Stintz (councillor for Eglinton-Lawrence) adds a little representation from the downtown to Ford’s inner sanctum. Putting Stintz in the TTC’s chair is probably a good sign for at least the Eglinton LRT portion of Transit City.
As for who gets named to the top jobs in the rest of the Ford administration, there seems to be just one tip: get a time machine, go back to September and endorse Ford. If that’s not in the cards, hope that Ford needs some extra urban representation from middling conservatives. (There’s no word about whether Ford has kept a seat warm for his brother, council rookie Doug Ford.) But if we were Adam Vaughan, we wouldn’t wait by the phone.
• Ford chooses long-time allies, right-leaning councillor to form new administration [Globe and Mail] • Mayor-elect picks Holyday for key role [Toronto Sun] • Buzz builds as mayor set to fill top jobs [Toronto Star]
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