Abruptly kicked off Toronto city council over campaign spending, a defiant Jim Karygiannis is still working — unofficially — and vowing to win reinstatement.

Karygiannis told the Star on Thursday — less than 24 hours after his unprecedented expulsion by a city clerk who said she had no choice — that he was still offering help to Ward 22 Scarborough-Agincourt residents while working on a challenge to his ejection over apparent 2018 campaign overspending.

“I’m looking to come back and serve my constituents,” said the colourful councillor and former MP who just over one year ago was re-elected in the big new ward after a fierce campaign battle with former council colleague Norm Kelly.

“The phone calls have not stopped, the emails have not stopped, and the conversations with my constituents have not stopped. I’m looking forward to returning sometime in the near future in order to represent my constituents.”

Karygiannis’s only chance to win reinstatement, according to the City of Toronto, is going to court seeking “relief” from an expulsion made mandatory by 2016 reforms to Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act, and winning.

Otherwise, not only is the five-year councillor out of city hall, but he can’t be reappointed by his former colleagues to a council seat and he can’t run again until after the 2022 civic election. In the meantime, more than 100,000 Scarborough residents have no representation on the council that decides many issues affecting their day-to-day lives.

The issue at the centre of his expulsion appears to be a dinner Karygiannis held after he won the election in October 2018, to the ward created after Premier Doug Ford cut the size of council in mid-election from a planned 47 seats to 25.

City clerk Ulli Watkiss told Karygiannis on Wednesday he would forfeit office after he overspent an expense limit for “parties and other expressions of appreciation” by nearly $26,000.

The decision came after Karygiannis filed a supplementary financial statement with the city’s elections office at 11:24 a.m. on Oct. 28 — just hours before the 2 p.m. deadline for filing additional statements — which contained information showing Karygiannis violated Municipal Election Act rules, the clerk said.

“The Act does not give the City Clerk any latitude or discretion on this matter,” Watkiss said in a statement, adding the “forfeiture of office” is automatic if a candidate exceeds the amount allowed for that limit.

“Mr. Karygiannis is in default of the Act and is disqualified from being elected or appointed to any office until after the 2022 municipal election,” Watkiss wrote.

The campaign spending violation concerned a $27,000 event the Scarborough-Agincourt councillor held after last year's election.

Karygiannis described the issue as a “clerical error” and vowed to remedy it, although he hasn’t officially confirmed he will try to convince the courts that such an error should not see a duly elected local politician turfed from office.

While he was plotting his return, talk at city hall was over next steps. Shocked colleagues noted that no Toronto councillor has been ejected from office since amalgamation in 1998. As mayor, under the old rules, the late Rob Ford received no penalty in 2013 when a city-ordered audit found he overspent his 2010 mayoral campaign by more than $40,000.

Ford was later ordered out of office over a conflict of interest on a council vote, but a judge suspended that punishment pending Ford’s appeal of the ruling, which he won.

At the next city council meeting, scheduled for Nov. 26, Watkiss will declare the Ward 22 seat vacant and advise councillors how to move forward. Because it is more than 90 days to the next general election, the City of Toronto Act dictates that council must appoint a replacement or call for a byelection within 60 days of the seat becoming empty.

Two councillors, Gord Perks and Shelley Carroll, told the Star on Thursday that, should Karygiannis fail in his reinstatement bid, they will vote to hold a byelection that would cost, city staff say, between $325,000 and $375,000.

“We are so (early) in this term — one year away from midterm — I think we would need a byelection,” Carroll said. “Three years is a long time to deny a ward democracy.”

Carroll, who won a return to city council in 2018 in Ward 17 Don Valley North after quitting her previous ward to run provincially, said the city clerk’s office offered candidates full briefings on changes to the Municipal Elections Act including campaign spending rules.

“I think it’s difficult for incumbents, because you keep functioning and managing your ward through the election, but there were ample updates on the rules,” she said.

Mayor John Tory wouldn’t say, before the clerk’s briefing, if he favours a byelection or appointment.

Meanwhile Kelly, the veteran councillor defeated by Karygiannis last year, told the Star he is open to returning to city hall to replace Karygiannis — but Kelly isn’t counting Karygiannis out just yet.

“For me it’s premature” to talk about a council appointment or byelection to fill Karygiannis’s seat in Ward 22 Scarborough-Agincourt, Kelly said.

“Jimmy is, among other things, a fighter,” Kelly said of Karygiannis. “Nothing has congealed, I think it’s still a fluid situation so we’ll just have to see how it plays out.”

He was receiving calls, emails and texts from former constituents and “political activists from across the city.”

“They’re saying ‘You’d better get back in there,’” at city hall to represent more than 100,000 Torontonians who suddenly have no city councillor, Kelly said.

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A review of Karygiannis’s financial statements posted to the city’s elections website shows that he claimed a $27,083.50 expense — which would be largely responsible for the overexpenditure cited by the clerk — for a dinner at “Santorini Grill” on Dec. 21, 2018.

The event was at first listed under “fundraising events and activities” in an initial financial statement, not under the separate “parties and other expressions of appreciation” category.

According to the initial filing, Karygiannis charged $10,000 in staff fees, $1,751.50 for invitations, brochures and flyers, $4,032 for dinner and $11,300 for “fundraising event services.”

In expense filings, none of the money Karygiannis raised for his campaign is specifically connected to the dinner.

Under the Act, much of the costs of holding campaign fundraising events are not subject to campaign expense limits.

In the initial filing, there were no expenses listed under the parties and appreciation category, which is subject to expense limits.

In his supplementary filing, submitted on Oct. 28, it appears that expense was moved into the parties and appreciation category. In that additional filing, under that category, there is the same $27,083.50 expense listed as “Dec. 2018 appreciation dinner.” There is a second expense listed for $5,000 for a post-election victory party.

Together, the expenses under that category total $32,083.50. The clerk said the limit for Ward 22 candidates in that category was $6,120.80, meaning the supplementary filings show Karygiannis overspent the limit by $25,962.70. The supplementary filing was also audited.

The dinner being initially listed as a fundraising event was one of several issues raised in a request for a compliance audit of Karygiannis’s campaign finances filed by elector Adam Chaleff in June.

That request, and another similar request filed a month later, was granted by the committee, but the external compliance audit is on hold pending a court challenge to it launched by Karygiannis and expected to be heard in February.

Running against Kelly, Karygiannis raised $217,000 — far more than the spending limit for the campaign of $61,207.95 and well in excess of the amount raised by the other 24 councillors who ran successful campaigns.

City spokesperson Brad Ross confirmed that Karygiannis’s removal from office does not preclude a compliance audit moving forward.

Municipal law expert John Mascarin, with Toronto firm Aird & Berlis, was as surprised by Karygiannis’s ejection as non-legal observers and suggested the precedent goes beyond Toronto council.

“I don’t recall anyone recently having been removed from office for this type of an election finance issue,” he said.

Karygiannis is a seasoned politician, who served as a federal Liberal MP. He was first elected as a councillor in 2014.

A colourful and pugnacious character on council, he often ruffled the feathers of his colleagues and Speaker Frances Nunziata, with whom he often traded barbs. But his lively presence around city hall was quickly scrubbed away, with Karygiannis’s nameplate removed from his office, as well as the council directory outside it and even the city website.

City staff said Karygiannis is not entitled to severance if his council ejection is upheld. His office staff, who take care of constituency issues, continue working at least until the ward once again has a councillor, who will decide on staffing.

Until Ward 22 Scarborough-Agincourt councillor once again has a representative, staff members report to Watkiss.