Mayor Rob Ford’s schedule shrank again this winter, with “private” time by far the most common item on his internal itinerary and City Hall appointments few and far between.

From Nov. 1 through Feb. 11, a period of more than three months, Ford’s itinerary listed a total of seven meetings with businesspeople, community groups and politicians from other governments. He also booked phone calls with three politicians: with the prime minister, the new premier, and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

The itinerary listed only three meetings with Toronto councillors, allies Mike Del Grande, Denzil Minnan-Wong and Doug Ford, and five with senior city officials, including two with city manager Joe Pennachetti.

By contrast, the itinerary listed 88 blocks of time as “private.” Many of Ford’s weekdays included nothing but the “private” time, meetings with his own staff, “office/reading/correspondence” time, and unspecified “calls/events” in the evening.

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Ford’s early-term 2011 itineraries were filled with meetings and public events, and even the diminished itineraries from 2012 were heftier than the most recent version. Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 26 of 2012, for example, he booked 28 meetings with officials other than members of his staff.

The new itinerary was released by Ford’s office in response to a Star freedom of information request — a month after the one-month legal deadline. Ford’s office ignored the city’s freedom of information officials until a reporter informed his press secretary last week that the Star would be publishing an article on the unexplained delay.

The press secretary, George Christopoulos, did not respond to a request for comment. Ford has defended his work ethic in the past, saying that he works into the night returning residents’ phone calls and that he refuses to spend his time behind a City Hall desk.

“I’m just doing what people want me to do,” he said last year.

Ford’s itinerary has never included all of his comings and goings, so he may well have held meetings he did not list. And the new itinerary covers a period in which he was undoubtedly distracted by both the conflict of interest court lawsuit that nearly cost him his job and a separate, unsuccessful challenge to his campaign financial practices.

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The itinerary also covers the last month of the high school football season. As the Star previously reported, Ford, the coach of the Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School Eagles, takes off work nearly every afternoon during the season to coach practice in Etobicoke at about 3:30 p.m.

Ford scheduled almost no work other than meetings with his own staff and office time in the month of December. Though City Hall virtually shuts down for Christmas between Dec. 21 and Jan. 7, he took a 10-day vacation to Florida on Dec. 10.

Current and former Ford staffers have told the Star that Ford’s struggles with alcohol intensified in late 2011. (Ford said the Star’s March report on his alcohol issues was “an outright lie.”) His workload began dropping significantly around the same time.

Ford cherishes his one-on-one interactions with everyday residents. Between November and mid-February, he scheduled 41 constituent meetings or appointments that may have been such meetings.

The itinerary also listed 30 appearances at events, including photo opportunities. Among the events: the Santa Claus Parade, a Variety Village fundraiser, the anniversary celebration of an Etobicoke bakery, a casino consultation meeting, and the Chinese Business Excellence Awards in Markham.

As in the past, Ford did not schedule meetings with non-business organizations focused on civic issues, the arts, or environmental concerns. A meeting with the Armenian Community Centre was the only listed meeting with a community group.

The scheduled business meetings were with billboard companies Pattison Outdoor and CBS; Enviro-Cement Technology, which makes “environment friendly concrete solutions for the construction industry”; Darius Mosun, a businessman and Toronto Parking Authority board member; and executives from Mondelez Canada, which had announced plans to close the major Mr. Christie’s bakery.

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