Mayor Rob Ford flexed his political muscle, easily winning victories on three key campaign planks including a contentious request to the province to declare the TTC an essential service.

But it’s not clear if these early victories have given Ford the political capital he will need to pursue his more controversial pledges, such as contracting out garbage, killing Transit City and delivering a property tax freeze.

“I think some of those issues — like killing Transit City — are probably going to be a little bit trickier for him,” Councillor Shelley Carroll said afterwards.

However, that was not the case Thursday. After four hours of debate Thursday, councillors voted 39-6 to repeal the unpopular vehicle tax as of Jan. 1. Then hours later in the early evening, they voted 28-17 to ask Dalton McGuinty’s provincial government to declare the TTC essential, which would deny transit workers the right to strike. McGuinty said earlier in the week that he is “very open to the idea.”

An unhappy Bob Kinnear, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, said after the vote that an essential service designation would produce “more work-to-rules” and “more labour-management unrest”; he said council had voted to abandon century-old workers’ rights.

TTC chair Karen Stintz said the vote reflected the will of the public. “Certainly the firefighters and the police are deemed essential, and if you asked Torontonians what they believe, they believe transit is essential,” she said.

The new city council also voted to reduce councilor office expense budgets from $50,445 to $30,000. That passed 40 to 5.

Rookie councillor Jaye Robinson, who is a member of Ford’s executive committee, said the day could very well be an indication of what’s to come.

“I think that there’s probably a trend here forming on those key issues that he clearly had overwhelming support for during the campaign,” she said. “Whether that will carry to everything, I’m not sure, but certainly I think he’ll have the support of council on those real Ford issues.”

As for what that means for Transit City, Robinson predicts a compromise will be negotiated.

Ford later told reporters he was excited to put money back in taxpayer’s pockets.

“It’s a great day. And I campaigned on this. And I want to thank my colleagues for supporting this huge tax cut,” Ford said later. “I look forward to saving the taxpayer’s more money in the next four years.”

Throughout the morning, left-wing councillors grilled Ford on how he planned to make up for the $64 million in lost car tax revenue, without cutting city services. The mayor has promised no “major” cuts and last week at executive committee went even further: “no cuts.”

The mayor and his administration have still not provided specific examples as to where they will find the necessary savings. On Tuesday, city manager Joe Pennachetti said there is a $280 million surplus from the 2010 operating budget.

Councillors unsuccessfully tried to pin Ford down on whether he planned to use that one-time money to balance his budget, which will be launched Jan. 10.

The mayor suggested cuts are still on the table after he — along with a majority of council — voted against two motions that would have prevented city services being slashed as a result of the vehicle tax repeal.

For the most part, it appeared from Thursday’s council meeting the left-wing was picking their battles when it comes to Ford’s initiatives.

It was apparent early on in the day that the vehicle tax was doomed, with progressive councillors such as former budget chief Shelley Carroll pledging to support the mayor.

“It’s time we admit we failed,” she said. “We did not explain” to Torontonians what the tax would be used for.

Council also voted down a motion from Councillor Anthony Perruzza to retroactively repeal the tax as of September 2010, which would have meant issuing refunds to those who had to renew over the past three months.

Perruzza had argued this would have been the most fair, since everyone in the city would have had to pay the fee twice. Ford defended the move afterwards by saying he can’t go back and fix everything his predecessor did.

“Merry Christmas to all our constituents,” speaker Frances Nunziata said after the vote.

Deputy mayor Doug Holyday said he plans to consult councillors on narrowing the list of allowable office expenses so that they could no longer use money from their office budget to sponsor sports teams and make donations to local groups in their ward.

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And while he supported dropping the spending limit to $30,000 from $50,445, Holyday said $30,000 is still relatively generous.

“I personally would have preferred less. But I’m willing to go along with what’s happened here and I think the mayor gets full marks for putting that up.”

With files from Paul Moloney