In the inevitable sitcom that will arise from the ashes of the 2010-14 term at City Hall, we’ll have Gordon Pinsent playing the rich, misanthropic suburban council with a taste for certain vices but an earthy ability to mouth catchy populist platitudes. Leah Pinsent will portray his wily and ruthless campaign manager/chief of staff who’s the only one her father (both on and off the set…I’m so meta) is truly afraid of, and who keeps the mayor on message if not always on the straight and narrow. Ron James is the shouty and long suffering, left wing east side city councillor, fighting a losing battle against the creeping gentrification of his working class ward. Peter Keleghan, the oleaginous senior city staffer with the silky savvy to tell his elected overseers exactly what they want to hear without saying a single thing that makes a lick of sense.

And in the role of the bumbling, know-nothing but generally amiable councillor with a propensity for nodding off during meetings, and who keeps getting returned to City Hall, election after election despite never making any sort of contribution there? Sean Cullen? Andy Jones?

Who’d you pick for your Councillor Frank Di Giorgio (Ward 12 York-South Weston)?

Because, let’s face it, the man’s a walking, talking, living, breathing sitcom character of a city councillor. Our very own Inspector Clouseau, making a hash of things up the ladder of municipal politics since 2000, and for 12 years before that as a North York city councillor, until he winds all the way up to the lofty position of budget chief. The budget chief, people. For a city of over 2.5 million. Frank Di Giorgio. Budget chief.

Granted, we have been experiencing a type of political event horizon for the past 4 years. Anything is possible, including a Budget Chief Frank Di Giorgio scenario. It probably says more about the Ford administration, that all it had in its quiver after the resignation of the previous budget chief, the loathsome Mike Del Grande, was the not loathsome Frank Di Giorgio.

Still.

I say it again.

Budget Chief Frank Di Giorgio.

Undistinguished is how I would best summarize my perception of Frank Di Giorgio. Undistinguished with a passing note of incompetence. Again, as with all these profiles we’re doing, I have to admit that the man could be a crackerjack constituent councillor, doing a bang up job for his residents. After being in elected office for 25 of the last 28 years, he must be doing something other than just putting his name out there, right? Right, Ward 12?

I’d easily rate him up there in the top 3 of city councillors to ask questions of staff and their colleagues that elicit the most baffled of responses. I’m sorry, Councillor Di Giorgio. Could you repeat your answer? I didn’t quite understand what you were asking me.

There was that time, back during deputations for the 2012 budget when the councillor did his funky mash-up of social housing and ghettos. You know, poor people. Living together in one building. We all watched Good Times, didn’t we? It was funny but…at the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather be The Jeffersons?

I’m sorry, Councillor Di Giorgio. I didn’t quite understand what you’re getting at.

I don’t think of him as the malicious sort, like his predecessor in the budget chair, nor intentionally destructive. It’s more a question of being out of his depth. Why strive for anything more than keeping taxes low and the streets paved and plowed? Does it have to be more complicated than that?

I will give Councillor Frank Di Giorgio full marks for loyalty though. When tapped for the job of budget chief by the Fords, the man did his utmost to deliver what his bosses wanted, up to and beyond defying the laws of physics* and sound economic policy. Yeah, Mr. Mayor. We probably can push down that property tax hike a bit while still making room for money to build your Scarborough subway. Yeah, why not. Let’s see if we can trim that Land Transfer Tax, yet another source of revenue, just a hair. Councillor Di Giorgio even went along for a bit of a joy ride on Mayor Ford’s budget day wild goose chase, tracking down millions of dollars in cuts nobody would even notice.

Cut $7 million from this year’s planned tree planting? Why not. Council’s general business and travel accounts? Who needs them. $2 million in program increases in the operating budget? Gone. Gone, gone, gonzo.

But perhaps Councillor Di Giorgio’s most important vote happened a couple months prior to this year’s budget.

Back in November, he was one of the few councillors that voted against stripping Mayor Ford of his procedural powers after the crack video scandal broke wide. The councillor didn’t even want the mayor to apologize for lying about the whole crack smoking business. Now, that’s loyalty, folks. Forgive and forget. Let’s just move on.

Such a display of loyalty earned Councillor Di Giorgio high props from Mayor Ford who named him one of the very few councillors, a handful really, that he thought worthy enough to be voted back on to council in this upcoming election. As the mayor’s made abundantly clear over the last few days, he doesn’t work with just anybody down there at City Hall. It takes a special breed to earn that kind of… respect, I’d guess you could call it, from someone who doesn’t make work friends easily.

So congratulations, Ward 12. Your long time councillor has dutifully earned himself an elite spot on Mayor Rob Ford’s thumbs-up roster, those who supported the mayor ‘when times were tough’. (Episode 2: Ford Nation). The few. The proud. The easily cowed.

Councillor Frank Di Giorgio. Certified member of the tattered remains of the once triumphant Team Ford.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr

* Not actually defying the law of physics. Added purely for emphasis of the ludicrousness of the mayor’s budgetary expectations.