It was the most boring press conference city hall has seen in a month.

No swearing. No threats. Just a punctual start-time, a few calm answers to reporters’ questions, and a hockey reference to lighten the mood.

In his official debut as the quasi chief magistrate, Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly talked a bit of policy, offered kind words to Mayor Rob Ford, and reintroduced his newly transferred staff.

“No one governs alone,” Kelly said, as a group of cheery-looking ex-Ford staffers stood behind him in a line.

“It’s very important to have a team of good people assisting you. And I am delighted to introduce the team that will be helping me advise council,” Kelly said.

“Like any good hockey team — and I hope it’s the Leafs this year — it’s a blend of veteran and rookies. But all of them (are) united in a common cause and enthusiastically pursuing it.”

Among the group was a smiling Earl Provost, Ford’s former chief of staff, and Sunny Petrujkic, ex-deputy chief. When a reporter asked how everyone was feeling about their new boss, the mayor’s former policy adviser, Sheila Paxton, piped up: “We’re feeling just great.”

For the first time in nearly three weeks, Wednesday seemed to mark a return to some normalcy at city hall.

The day began with a public works committee meeting, which debated a plan to manage traffic congestion, discussed litter reduction and determined the terms for an auction of old street signs.

Around the corner and down the hall, a new row of cubicles and some frosted glass had been freshly installed in an office space that once belonged to Ford. The locks have been changed, and the mayor no longer has a key.

Outside the mayor’s office, out-of-town reporters had packed up. When Ford arrived at city hall just before 3 p.m. and walked quickly past, without taking questions, the scene wasn’t live-streamed on CNN.

But beneath the tranquil atmosphere, the duelling power structure was causing trouble.

At 3:30 p.m., budget chief Frank Di Giorgio was on his way to a meeting with Ford to talk about the property tax increase. Later, he’d sit down with Kelly.

With annual budget discussions about to start next week, Di Giorgio is in the awkward position of having to please two mayors.

Asked whose opinion he was more concerned with, Di Giorgio was diplomatic: “I’m treating them equally.”

Ford has said he wants a tax increase of no more than 1.75 per cent, including funds needed to help build a subway, and a 10-per-cent reduction in the land transfer tax. Di Giorgio hopes for a compromise. He would reduce the land transfer tax by less than 10 per cent, but look at redistributing it so that the burden is shared between the buyer and seller. He also thinks a 2.5-per-cent tax hike is more realistic.

Di Giorgio is hoping he can bring Ford on side. But ultimately, it is Kelly’s call. At his afternoon news conference, the deputy mayor confirmed that, technically, Di Giorgio reports to him, since budget committee is a subcommittee of the executive, which Kelly now chairs.

It’s exactly the sort of scenario Councillor Anthony Perruzza worried about during the unprecedented special meetings last Friday and Monday that stripped Ford of many of his powers.

“I believe that, to some degree, creating a second mayor’s office would add to the controversy, would add to the drama down here, and not bring the calm and the reason that we needed to bring,” Perruzza said Wednesday.

“I hope that I’m proved wrong, because what I really want — and what I think we all want — is to be able to move forward and be able to conduct the business of the city in a reasonable, rational way.”

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Ford has suggested he feels betrayed by Kelly, who was appointed to the position this summer after former deputy mayor Doug Holyday won a provincial byelection.

Kelly said that was not the case, and that he hoped he and Ford could find “common ground.”

“I think I — and along with a lot of other people — believe in the end that this was more of an intervention by members of council,” Kelly said. “We are all hoping that he heard us loud and clear and understands that we still hope that he will take some time off and rehabilitate himself.”

Asked how policy will be handled under the duelling-mayor structure, Kelly said he’d be “going forward in a cautious sort of way.”

Meanwhile, Ford’s new chief of staff Dan Jacobs spoke with reporters about the people who will stick with the embattled mayor.

One person not on the list was David Price, the mayor’s controversial director of operations and logistics, and a Ford family friend. A city spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that Price was no longer employed by the city. A source close to the mayor told the Star the move was a direct result of the mayor’s diminished budget, which left him unable to pay the $130,000 salary his former high school football coach commanded.

And while the mayor left city hall three hours after arriving without taking questions, his lawyer, Dennis Morris, did spend a few minutes with reporters.

Morris was asked how the mayor was feeling about his reduced role.

“He accepts it today, and tomorrow is another day,” he said.

As for his threats to take council to court: “Things are percolating. There’s nothing to say positive or negative. I think things are just under consideration.”

A reporter asked Morris what he was doing at city hall. Was he providing political advice?

“I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m just sort of ah, listening.”

With files from Robert Benzie, Joel Eastwood and Jane Gerster