Mayor Rob Ford: councillors want to get back to work as police budget looms

ABOVE: Most councillors seem unsatisfied with Mayor Rob Ford’s apology. Jackson Proskow reports. 

TORONTO – City councillors say they just want to get back to work and put Mayor Rob Ford’s personal problems behind them.

Easier said than done: Budget talks are looming, and with them tense financial negotiations with Police Chief Bill Blair – the same person Ford’s brother and lawyer pilloried on Friday in what a police spokesman called a “ concerted attack.”

Blair said Thursday he’s seen a video purporting to show the mayor smoking what looks like crack cocaine. And he was “disappointed” after viewing the video.

READ MORE: Mayor Rob Ford admits to smoking crack cocaine

Ford said Sunday he supports the police, even as he reiterated calls for Blair to release the video (Blair says no).

Councillor Shelley Carroll, a former budget chief, is worried any bitterness between Blair and the mayor could obstruct upcoming budget negotiations.

“I’ve never seen a … completed police budget without that moment when the mayor, the city manager, the police chief and the budget chief sit down to iron out the last few million dollars,” she said. “It always gets tense and generally that tension is mitigated and the budget balanced by that last conversation in the mayor’s office. I can’t imagine that conversation happening this year.”

Related: Ongoing coverage of Mayor Rob Ford

Negotiating a police budget – the biggest single chunk of operating expenses – can be tense at the best of times.

Last year the city’s police budget amounted to $1.013 billion, the overwhelming majority of that in officer wages – but not before a faceoff over new hires. While on AM640 Monday morning, the mayor said he wants to add 150 more officers to Toronto’s ranks.

The city’s budget chief Frank Di Giorgio doesn’t think this year’s police budget will be a problem.

Senior members of council agree they want to get past Mayor Rob Ford’s ongoing personal scandals so they can deal with running the city.

But they’re divided as to whether the mayor’s mea culpa was sufficient.

WATCH: Norm Kelly says the mayor offered a blanket apology

The mayor offered an apology on his Sunday radio show for “mistakes” he’s made. He singled out a St. Patrick’s day episode at city hall last year that got “a little out of control,” and admitted to being “hammered” at the Taste of the Danforth in August. But he has steadfastly avoided addressing allegations of drug use and a months-long police investigation into an alleged crack video his friend is accused of using extortion to get.

“I just want to say, the city continues to operate, there’s work that needs to get done, there’s budgets that need to get passed, there’s many issues facing council. And at this time I think it’s really important that we pull together and figure out how we continue to move the city forward,” Stintz told reporters at city hall Monday morning.

She refused to say what she thinks the mayor should do, choosing instead to say “he’s long stopped taking my advice on matters.”

The city’s deputy mayor Norm Kelly, who met with Ford on Saturday to go over councillor “concerns” and the mayor’s options, wouldn’t comment on whether his participating in the police budget would cause problems.

“That’s something that one should reflect on. I’m glad you raised it,” he said. “I think that is something the mayor should reflect on.”

The mayor ignored reporters’ questions when arriving at city hall just before noon on Monday despite a promise on his Sunday radio show to answer all questions from the media so long as reporters weren’t at his Etobicoke home.

WATCH: Karen Stintz says the city must find a way to move forward. 

– With files from Jackson Proskow