Mayor Rob Ford may need to woo council’s six centrist swing voters if he is going to win the looming budget battle. So he puzzled many councillors two weeks ago when he made a calculated decision to alienate one of the centrists — over, of all things, a traffic light.

Traffic light projects usually sail through council without a discussion or a vote. The mayor almost never tries to stop them. But at council’s July meeting, Ford placed an unusual “hold” on a proposed new Dufferin St. light near an elementary school in the Davenport ward of centrist Councillor Ana Bailão.

Then, according to another centrist, Councillor Josh Colle, his allies lobbied other councillors to vote to kill the project.

“I think a lot of councillors were surprised that a local issue was being so heavily lobbied on,” Colle said.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said Ford was simply being the principled and prudent guardian of taxpayer money he has always been. The city’s expert traffic planners had deemed the light unnecessary, and it will cost $150,000 that Holyday said Ford believes could be better spent on more dangerous intersections.

But Bailão thinks Ford may have been attempting to send her a message.

She has frequently opposed him. By trying to thwart a strictly local project she had fought for, he signalled to her and other centrists, intentionally or not, that he can make their lives difficult if he chooses to play hardball.

Whatever Ford was trying to convey, his plan may have backfired. He lost the vote 25-9 — with every centrist present, and five members of his hand-picked executive committee, voting against him. And, in defeat, he soured his relationship with Bailão.

Asked whether Ford’s effort to deny the Dufferin St. and Gordon St. light would hinder his efforts to win her support on larger issues, Bailão said: “It obviously didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth.”

“You have hundreds of letters from parents, you had community meetings. It’s not something that I brought to council without doing my homework in my community,” she said. “And when you have to fight so hard to get something that’s so important to your community — something that, usually, people understand — it makes you question why.”

Colle said the vote was one of the most significant of Ford’s term. The outcome demonstrated, he said, that independent-minded councillors will not be cowed into voting with the mayor.

“If it’s a strategy to sway votes, I don’t think it’s a productive strategy,” Colle said. “And it’s one that I don’t think is sustainable. So I think everyone will realize that there’s much more productive ways to get people on side.”

Ford’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Holyday acknowledged that it is uncommon for a mayor to hold up a traffic light project. But he said he is “positive there was no attempt to send any message to anybody.” He noted that Ford also placed a hold on a $70,000 light in the ward of left-leaning Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam. That light was also opposed by transportation staff.

“Safety requires some expertise,” Holyday said. “It can’t just be a vote of how many people would like a light here or a light there. There has to be some logic to it. A lot of people might duck that kind of fight, but that’s not Rob Ford. He sees right and wrong, and in this case he was clearly right. Clearly right.”

He added: “If Bailão is upset about this, she should get over it.”

Ford placed another hold on a matter dear to Colle, the Lawrence Heights revitalization plan. Ford released the hold after Colle joined him in voting to remove the Jarvis St. bike lanes, prompting speculation that he had placed the hold as a veiled threat.

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Colle said it is possible that the hold was released because he had provided Ford’s staffers with additional information they had asked for. But he did not sound convinced.

“I’d like to think that’s what released the hold,” Colle said, beginning to laugh, “but you can hear me chuckling, right? I’ll leave it at that.”

Ford lost the Lawrence Heights vote 38-1.