TORONTO

He’s a dead mayor walking.

That’s how Rob Ford looked Friday night as he shuffled out of the mayor’s office he refuses to surrender.

Ford — escorted by his new driver and City Hall security — didn’t speak to the growing throng of reporters from local and international media outlets as he pushed his way to the parking garage elevator.

He also didn’t respond to shouts from a handful of people who had waited outside to either shower him with praise or heckle.

“Nah nah nah nah hey hey goodbye,” one woman sang loudly and repeatedly as she stood on the chair of her motor scooter.

Ford has made it clear he won’t say goodbye.

In various speeches and apologies delivered this week, he continued to talk about “moving forward” as mayor.

There are no signs he is considering quitting and more signs that he will dig in for the next year.

Sources confirmed to the Toronto Sun that Ford gave every member of his mayor’s office staff $5,000 raises on Friday before council stripped him of his powers.

It’s a surprising taxpayer-funded pay hike given Ford’s penny-pinching persona but it is part of a growing list of surprises that have rocked

Toronto municipal politics the last few weeks.

Despite admitting he’s smoked crack cocaine, bought illegal drugs in the last two years, “might have” driven drunk, was “hammered” out in public and held a boozy “out-of-control” party in the mayor’s office on St. Patrick’s

Day 2012, Ford has refused calls to quit.

This week, council voted overwhelmingly to urge Ford to take a leave of absence.

On Friday they voted to strip Ford of all the powers council delegates to the mayor. He is now the mayor in name only — a title then-councillor Kyle Rae predicted in August 2010 that Ford would hold if he ever became mayor.

The push to place, as one councillor described it last week, a “firewall” around Ford will continue on Monday with councillors considering a motion to place Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly in charge of the executive committee rather than the mayor.

That motion would also cut Ford’s office budget and move most of his staff beyond his control.

The move won’t come without a fight from the mayor on the council floor and likely in a courtroom.

Ford promised council Friday that he would drag the city to court over the move to limit his powers. In a bizarre twist, the man who campaigned on “respect for taxpayers” promised the lawsuit against the city would cost taxpayers an “arm and a leg.”

Given the growing number of contradictions between the Ford voters elected and the Ford now clinging to the mayor’s chair, it isn’t surprising his former chief of staff Mark Towhey described him as a “dead man walking” during an interview on Newstalk 1010 on Thursday.

If he is politically dead, Ford doesn’t seem to know it yet.

He promised throughout the week he’ll run in the next election.

“The councillors had their say today, the taxpayers are going to have their say on Oct. 27,” Ford said after Friday’s vote.

Only 344 days to go to find out what the “taxpayers” actually have to say about it.