Members of Scarborough’s Sheppard East Village Business Improvement Area are well-acquainted with Councillor Chin Lee, a BIA board member and a council centrist who votes with Mayor Rob Ford more often than not. On April 26, their relationship with Lee afforded them a rare opportunity: a private meeting with Ford.

Ford was visiting the area with Lee that Tuesday, and Lee brought him to the boardroom of the Toyota dealership owned by BIA chair Mark Bozian. During an informal conversation of 20 to 30 minutes, BIA members asked the mayor to make their neighbourhood a priority for streetscape improvements.

“It’s going to take us a while to work our way through the system, to talk to committee chairs, department managers, that sort of thing,” said the BIA’s executive director, Ernie McCullough. “We thought, ‘What the heck, if he’s gonna come, he’s the top man, let’s try the idea on him.’”

Ford was noncommittal. Nonetheless, the business owners got extended face time that may not be available to their competitors in wards not represented by Ford supporters.

Ford, whose reputation for zealously pursuing solutions to residents’ small-scale problems helped propel him to victory, has continued his legendary constituency work as mayor. He makes house calls throughout the city, sometimes irritating local councillors by declining to inform them he is doing so, and regularly accompanies his allies on ward visits.

According to a list of his recent meeting partners, however, he rarely or never accompanies his critics.

Why not? Councillor Paul Ainslie, a member of Ford’s executive committee, said left-leaning councillors probably aren’t inviting him.

“I think he’s been pretty open with everyone,” Ainslie said. “I know he’s been in some councillors’ wards on the executive, and I’ve had people on the left say to me, ‘Why should I bother?’ I’ve been like, ‘Try him. Just ask him. Have you even asked him to come to your ward?’ It’s like, ‘Why should I? He’s not going to come anyway.’ I was like, ‘You’d be surprised.’”

Said Councillor Adam Vaughan, one of Ford’s fiercest critics, who represents left-leaning Trinity-Spadina: “I’d never be able to live it down. . . if I had the mayor show up at a community meeting with me, my reputation would never recover.”

Councillor Paula Fletcher, another Ford critic, said only the most severe of local problems might genuinely require the mayor’s intervention. She suggested that Ford allies might be bringing him to their wards for “PR reasons,” to demonstrate to constituents that they hold sway with the mayor.

“Is he visiting libraries to see how well they’re used, is he visiting rec centres, has he been to Riverdale Farm? Or is he out doing ward visits with friendly councillors that are of more of a promotional nature? I don’t know,” she said.

“It’s okay if he’s visiting wards. But. . . a lot of time spent like that? There are big issues in this city. I want him to also be out meeting with the United Way, out meeting with CivicAction, meeting with environmental groups, parks groups, with people that are building the city.”

Under freedom of information law, the Star obtained a list of the people and groups Ford met with between Feb. 22 and July 7. The list provides another glimpse into the workings of a mayor who has gone to unusual lengths to hide his day-to-day itinerary.

Unlike David Miller, Ford does not release a basic advance schedule. After reporters obtained his internal schedules via freedom of information and revealed that he had met with controversial businessman Johnathan Vrozos, his staff began listing almost all meetings as, simply, “Meeting.” In July, the Star filed a new request for the names of his meeting partners, which was fulfilled this week.

Among the highlights:

• Of 25 listed meetings with councillors, 21 were with loyalists, four with centrists. Ford listed four meetings each with two committee chairs, Giorgio Mammoliti and Cesar Palacio.

• A Mar. 30 listing said “Archbishop Sotirios.” Contacted at his office, the Greek Orthodox leader said, “I’m not going to go into details, but I had him over for lunch at my place with former premier (Bill) Davis and former premier (Mike) Harris.” Ford also met with Harris in December.

• Ford met on Apr. 29 with Rogers Communications chief executive Nadir Mohamed and McDonald’s Canada president John Betts. “The meeting with Mayor Ford was an introductory meeting. The mayor was reaching out to the Toronto business community,” a Rogers spokesperson said. Said a McDonald’s spokesperson: “The meeting in question was simply an opportunity for our president to be introduced to the mayor.”

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• Ford also listed meetings with representatives from Cogeco and Astral Media and from three corporate lobby groups: the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD); the Toronto Industry Network; and the Greater Toronto Sewer and Watermain Construction Association. He did not list meetings with leaders of any non-profit groups that focus on the poor, with minorities, on environmental issues or in the arts. He does, however, attend community functions held by ethnic and arts groups.

• The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, a pro-Israel organization that works to combat anti-Semitism, was one of two non-business advocacy groups Ford listed a meeting with. The other was the National Congress of Italian Canadians, which did not lobby him.

In an emailed statement, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief executive, Avi Benlolo, said he spoke to Ford on Mar. 2 about “about the rise in anti-Semitic activity as noted in the Toronto Police Annual Hate/Bias Crime Report, as well as anti-Jewish hate in the gay pride parade and on university campuses.”

Benlolo was referring to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, which decided in April to withdraw from the 2011 parade after Ford threatened to cut funding to Pride if QuAIA participated again. Though many Jewish groups consider its message hateful, the group itself says it is simply criticizing Israeli policy.

Ford did not meet with Pride representatives, though they made numerous requests.

• Ford met most often with Toronto’s top bureaucrat, city manager Joe Pennachetti, who is leading the review of the city’s services and operations. Ford listed 10 meetings with Pennachetti, up from none in his first three months in office.

• Other than Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the only non-Toronto politicians Ford listed meetings with were both from Italy: the premier of Milan, Guido Podesta, and “Mayor Giuseppe Cioffi.” A Giuseppe Cioffi is mayor of the municipality of Pescosolido, population 1,584.

The Cioffi meeting was likely arranged via a local association of expats from his town, said Michael Tibollo, president of the National Congress of Italian Canadians, which scored a five-minute meeting with Ford the week before June’s Italian Heritage Month.

“It took us a while to get the meeting. I think it was a couple of months in the process,” Tibollo said.

• Leaders from Trillium Health Centre and Credit Valley Hospital briefed Ford on their proposed merger the day before they announced it on Apr. 7. Trillium has a hospital in Etobicoke.

Click here for the complete list of Mayor Rob Ford’s meetings.