How city hall will fill Rob Ford’s vacant council seat

It’s a rare occurrence: The last sitting councillor to pass away was Frank Faubert in 1999. According to the City of Toronto Act council must now declare Rob Ford’s seat vacant in the next two sessions.

“They are going to do that May 3rd to 4th,” said city spokeswoman Jackie DeSouza. From there council has 60 days to pass a bylaw calling for a byelection or appoint someone to fill his Ward 2 seat.

“In the whole time that the city has been amalgamated there have been 12 vacancies council has had to fill,” said municipal lawyer John Mascarin. “Ten of them have been appointments; only two have been filled by byelection.”

But brother Doug Ford, a former Etobicoke North councillor, says he’s already spoken with 25 councillors and the mayor, urging them to choose a byelection.

As for whether he will run, “I’m going to wait and see what council decides,” said Ford. He would be the presumptive favourite and residents of the ward seem loyal to the Ford brand.

“They sort of had the pulse on the area they were serving. He did go out and talk to the people, and see what concerns they have,” said resident Tony Goslinski.

Those who ran against Rob Ford in 2014 say they’re thinking about running again. Andray Domise, founder of mentor-ship and development program Techsdale, came in third and isn’t ruling out a second shot at a council seat.

“I would say that there are a few people who ran last time around who are interested in running this time again. I heard there are a couple of new voices who do want to be involved,” said Domise.

“The median income of Rexdale is $10,000 lower than the rest of Toronto. To me that’s embarrassing, people ought to be ashamed of that. The next councillors who comes along really has to have their chops to deal with those issues up front.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The median income of Rexdale is $10,000 lower than the rest of Toronto. To me that's embarrassing, people ought to be ashamed of that. The next councillors who comes along really has to have their chops to deal with those issues up front."

Munira Abukar, whose campaign signs were defaced in 2014, says she’s also interested in running again but is waiting to see what council decides.

Though the most democratic option, a byelection would also be the most costly. “It would be around $250,000 to run,” said Mascarin, who believes council may likely appoint a new representative to fill the seat.