Rarely has such a dizzying display of municipal machinery created such calm over a metropolis.

Mayor John Tory’s first 100 days in office have been marked by an unprecedented flurry of activity and announcements from a politician who revels in outworking everyone around him. His days begin just as the security guards open city hall and end after most of his peers are safely tucked in bed.

“He’s done a lot,” says Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong. “No one can say he’s in his office doing his fantasy football pools.”

There he is, berating inconsiderate boobs who stop and park on arterial roads during rush hour. And ordering them fined and towed.

Here he is skating at the city hall rink; hamming it up on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, laughing at himself; getting serious with scofflaws; rushing up to Ottawa to meet the PM; hosting mayors from across the country; convening various departments to find a way to coordinate major events so the whole city doesn’t come to a standstill; chiding city staff for barring Uber taxis and failing to enter the 21st century; lamenting how the library can track overdue books but the city can’t map frozen water pipes . . .

And spitting mad about cost overruns on the subway extension to Vaughan.

Despite the whirly-burly, Energizer-bunny frenetic schedule that frequently takes him outside of city hall to the far reaches of the city, the result is a reassuring calm that has descended on Hog Town.

Toronto’s municipal makeover is only beginning, but already, 100 days into his term as mayor, Tory has changed the global narrative about his city. Shut it down, in fact.

Toronto feels like a different place. American late-night comedians must go elsewhere for embarrassingly easy material.

There are no more whispers of late-night drunken parties inside the mayor’s second-floor office.

City Hall security guards are back to fighting off boredom. The media encampment outside the mayor’s office is a fading memory.

And city staff must be alert at briefing sessions, because the mayor actually reads the reports.

“I’m thoroughly enjoying it,” says Councillor Gary Crawford, sounding nothing like a budget chief nervous about seeking nearly $10-billion worth of spending approvals from city council this week.

“There is a different tone around here,” Crawford says.

“Far more calm,” adds Councillor Paula Fletcher. “Welcome calm. Focus on work. Being available. Attentive to the city. There’s a steep learning curve, but he wants to do the right thing.”

Tory says he had two urgent priorities entering city hall as mayor last Dec. 1 — the first to be elected mayor without first serving as a city councillor.

He had to rekindle the spark in the civic workforce, because they felt beaten up and worn down from the public spectacle that was the Rob and Doug Ford show.

Secondly, he had to restore the public’s confidence in their city.

The most common comments he says he gets on the street are along the lines of, “Thanks for restoring my sense of pride about my city,” for bringing sanity to city hall.

Some polls suggest nearly two in three Torontonians approve of the job he is doing.

The numbers might have been higher had he not delayed action on one election promise and outright broken a second one. First, Tory said he needed data before moving to privatize garbage collection in the eastern half of the city (where it is still collected by city workers). Then, he raised transit fares, contrary to his campaign promise.

The fares needed to go up because the TTC was in worse shape than he imagined. Former mayor Rob Ford cut back bus routes to the suburbs so drastically that he had to restore some of them, Tory said. The fare hike went to repair the damage.

As a sop, children under 12 now ride the transit system free.

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Tory came to office boasting about his great working relationship with Premier Kathleen Wynne. They get along famously, yes. But it hasn’t earned Tory any favours yet.

Wynne is still dumping housing costs of $86 million on the city this year. And when Tory suggested both sides were working on a fix, Wynne pulled out the carpet from under him, leaving him red-faced and scrambling to borrow money from the city’s reserves to fill the hole.

Then, displaying that he has a lot to learn about the city, and the many minefields that exist everywhere, Tory was caught offguard by another provincial bill for shared infrastructure.

Asked if he is chastened by the rebuff, Tory deflected the question: “I have a better understanding of how big the task is.”

The province and federal governments have definite fiscal challenges, he said. Still, they will have to deal with the reality that Toronto is the country’s largest city and has unique issues and needs.

“I’ve just started. I’ve just begun the task of convincing them. I’m not going away.”

The next hundred days will tell us even more about Tory and the underpinnings of his administration. The city will replace its city manager, the head of the civic workforce; and the police service board will choose a new chief. Tory’s imprint will be on both decisions. Few will question his choice of city manager; many are hanging on his influence over who will be new chief.

Considering his workload, Tory might have been wiser to leave the explosive police file to a designate on the board. Instead, he jumped right in and will be blamed or lauded for the choice to replace Bill Blair.

“The police chief? He can’t screw that up. It will be part of his legacy,” said Councillor Fletcher.

At city hall, Tory has totally transformed the working environment. He holds news conferences regularly so media don’t have to chase him around town. He treats city council with respect. But Tory made one huge gaffe in picking his executive committee, the inner circle that has his ear. He failed to put a single “progressive” councillor on the team. Council’s political left was shut out.

Councillor Maria Augimeri says Tory has a long way to go to restore her faith.

“He left a bad taste in my mouth,” she said, adding she had bought his talk about inclusiveness, only to have him reject people like her.

“It’s like a form of racism, being rejected for your politics. It hurts. John Tory left a lot of talent by the wayside. That’s a damn shame. He has to wear that. We are good people.”

Apparently, the mayor is a quick study. He likes to close gaps, fix problems. He has a year to fix the hole in Augimeri’s heart.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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