On Monday, Aug. 12, as councillors and officials conducted city business, police watched Mayor Rob Ford’s black Escalade, which was parked in the lot of an Etobicoke high school.

Moments later, officers watched Alexander (Sandro) Lisi — the mayor’s friend, occasional driver and a suspected drug dealer — leave the area and walk to his nearby Range Rover.

The meeting with Lisi was just one of at least 10 times since the spring that Ford and Lisi either called each other or met in person during work hours and when city affairs would have seemed to have demanded the mayor’s attention, according to recently released police records.

On that August day, when Ford met with Lisi in the school parking lot, councillors chastised his drunken behaviour, captured on video, at the Taste of the Danforth street festival several days earlier. One Ford ally said, “A mayor needs to act like a mayor.”

In the wake of his admission that he has smoked crack cocaine while in office, Ford pledged to continue doing the work he was elected to do. However, a Star analysis of recently released police documents found Ford spent parts of many work days, while being paid by taxpayers, with a friend now charged with extortion and drug trafficking.

All details of Lisi and Ford’s activities contained in this article are derived from police documents and have not been proven in court. Mayor Ford has said he cannot comment on the allegations because they are before the courts.

Police surveillance captured Ford’s dealings with Lisi because they monitored Lisi’s phone and followed his vehicles believing that Lisi “utilizes his cellular phone to communicate and set up drug transactions with suspected drug dealers and clients.”

Police watched on Thursday, July 11, roughly an hour after Ford called Lisi from his SUV at 4:48 p.m., as the two men stopped at an Esso station. Lisi placed a manila envelope inside Ford’s vehicle while Ford was inside the station’s kiosk.

The police also believed Lisi’s travels, typically in a black Range Rover registered to another man, showed him “picking up and delivering items in a manner very indicative to that of drug trafficking.”

Ford’s interactions with Lisi during work hours, at least those monitored by police, were frequent in August, with six on separate days that month.

On Tuesday, Aug. 13, the day after the meeting in the school parking lot, Lisi received a call from Ford’s family company just after 4 p.m. That day, police watched Ford and Lisi meet on a footpath into Douglas Ford Park, named after the mayor’s father.

The men “made their way into a secluded area of the adjacent woods where they were obscured from surveillance efforts and stayed for approximately one hour,” police said in search warrant documents.

The men left in separate vehicles. Police scoured the area and found a bottle of Iceberg Vodka and juice where the men had met.

Ford refused to make himself available to the media that day to discuss his drunken behaviour at the Danforth festival.

Unlike his mayoral predecessors David Miller and Mel Lastman, Ford has been steadfastly secretive regarding his daily itinerary of public appearances. The Star has repeatedly had to file freedom of information requests to learn how the mayor has spent his time.

On another workday, Thursday, Aug. 8, a police video camera recorded Ford’s Escalade in Lisi’s Etobicoke driveway at 11:43 a.m.

In his official work schedule, Ford had the hour from 11 a.m. to noon booked off for a “Constit visit.”

Meanwhile, the turmoil at city hall simmered. Ford had lost another staff member — the eighth to resign or be fired since mid-May when the crack video scandal triggered an exodus from his office.

It was not the only time Ford made time for Lisi during political setbacks.

On a Thursday in May, Ford’s push for council to open the door to a downtown casino fizzled. He criticized Premier Kathleen Wynne for not committing money and killing the deal and then he cancelled the special council meeting he had called for the following Tuesday.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

That same day, Lisi talked to Ford at 3:29 p.m. for two seconds. It is not known what was said.

On at least one occasion, Lisi met the mayor on city property.

After 5 p.m. on Wednesday, July 24, police followed Lisi and saw him dip into the underground lot at city hall. Ford, waiting at the entrance, “swiped him into the controlled access area,” the police said.

Since taking office, Ford has repeatedly brushed off criticisms that he’s a “part-time mayor” who arrives at city hall late and has internal itineraries frequently peppered with “private” appointments during work hours.

Ford has often responded to the accusations in a similar way, claiming, “I work harder than any mayor ever has.”

His brother and ardent defender, Councillor Doug Ford, once said the mayor works “non-stop, 18 hours a day.”

A few weeks ago, Ford railed against a city worker photographed sleeping on the job, saying he would seek the firing of both the employee and a manager if the man was indeed sleeping.

Ford called the incident “a complete embarrassment and a black eye on our city.”

On the afternoon of Sept. 19, Ford stood surrounded by reporters at a factory, refusing to answer questions about the future of a top aide being investigated for abusive behaviour at a GO station. “It’s actually no one's business what happens in my office,” Ford said.

Less than an hour later, Ford arrived at Lisi’s home, where he lives with his parents. A police camera caught Lisi’s Range Rover pull up at 3:06 p.m., followed three minutes later by Ford’s Escalade.

Ford’s SUV remained for more than hour before leaving. Lisi left minutes later, driving in the same direction.

From 3 p.m. to 9:02 p.m., numbers from Ford’s family company and his SUV’s OnStar “called or was called by Lisi 13 times,” the police documents state.

The longest call lasted two minutes and 15 seconds.