The mood at city hall continued to shift during Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly’s third day as the most powerful person at city hall, with his new chief of staff, Earl Provost, making an early morning visit to the press gallery with offers of access.

“There’s a new protocol,” said Provost, standing in the Star’s city hall bureau. “The deputy mayor will talk to the Toronto Star any time you want.”

Provost then offered to arrange a roundtable with Kelly — something that would have been unheard of with Mayor Rob Ford, who has frozen out the Star for years. Provost, as part of the mayor’s staff, routinely ignored inquiries from the Star. That time of his political career is still not up for discussion.

“None of us will be discussing the mayor or our time in the mayor’s office,” said Provost.

Kelly, who was assigned most of the mayor’s powers and budget earlier this week, is settling into his new role as the de facto leader.

Ford was scheduled to speak at a Toronto economic development event at Casa Loma Thursday night, but in the future Kelly expects official invitations like that will fall to him.

“In a go-forward perspective, the expectation may be that invitations like that would go to my office,” Kelly said, noting that this invitation could have come before the past week’s events.

“See the scale over there?” Kelly said earlier in the day to city workers, pointing to Ford’s brightly branded “Cut The Waist Challenge” scale.

“Find a new home for it.”

The scale currently sits in the fishbowl, the glass-walled workspace that houses mayoral staff, who now work for Kelly. Ford no longer has a key to the room. The sign outside has been changed to read “Deputy Mayor.”

“We’ve quickly moved to establish a support staff to the office of the deputy mayor,” Kelly said, walking through the unlit room at 8 a.m. Thursday.

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Kelly points to the door of one of the adjoining offices in the fishbowl.

“What always bugged me when I would come in here to talk to somebody was that they would never have nameplates up,” Kelly said. “So I want to make sure they put them up, so we know who’s here and where they are.”

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Kelly is less specific about the policy changes he’d like to see, saying one of his first jobs this morning was gathering information about the upcoming city budget deliberations.

Kelly said on Tuesday that he intended to uphold a commitment to fiscal conservatism, but on Thursday wouldn’t elaborate on whether he thought he could keep Ford’s promises.

“We’re going to find out,” Kelly said. “We’ll do our best.”

Despite his new powers and responsibilities, Kelly said Ford is still the mayor.

“He’s the titular head of council. And he’s wielding the statutory authority,” Kelly said.

The deputy mayor said he hasn’t spoken to Ford yet, but has some idea of what he’d like to say.

“I’d like to discover — or uncover — our points of common agreement, whatever they may be,” said Kelly. “And at this point I couldn’t tell you what they could be, although I think there will be a common desire to bring in as tight a budget as possible.”

Kelly said he was hearing a chorus of support from his fellow councillors.

“I’m pleased that when I’m walking around the second floor, or other parts of city hall, members of council from both sides of the spectrum come up to me and offer their support,” Kelly said.

“That’s better than shaking their fists at me,” says Kelly, shaking his fist and pantomiming an angry yell.