Toronto

At least 38 pages of e-mails containing the words “crack cocaine” from the account of a former Mayor Rob Ford staffer won’t be made public.

The City of Toronto released the first batch of e-mails Friday in response to freedom of information requests around Ford’s scandal involving crack cocaine allegations.

City officials have been swamped with 29 requests from several media outlets, including the Toronto Sun, asking them to disclose the mayor’s office internal communications from the time period when Ford was under siege by the drug allegations.

The Sun has requested all correspondence by several Ford staffers that includes the words “crack cocaine.”

The first e-mails — 186 pages — were solely from the e-mails account of Brian Johnston, a former policy adviser in the mayor’s office, who resigned back in May. City officials took out an additional 38 pages of e-mails based on freedom of information legislation that allows them to redact e-mails to and from constituents or that could be described as “of a personal nature.”

Almost all of the 186 pages provided by the city to the Sun were daily news summaries sent out by the city’s own strategic communications department.

The only other topic covered in the documents was an e-mail from city staff announcing they had started recruitment for citizen positions on the Build Toronto board.

Johnston resigned from the mayor’s office on May 30 as Ford battled allegations he was caught on video smoking what appears to be crack cocaine. The staffer was one of several who quit the mayor’s office amid the controversy. The alleged video has yet to surface publicly.

Ford has maintained he is not addicted to crack cocaine and has refused to address the allegations he is on video smoking the drug.

A week after the allegations surfaced, Ford said he couldn’t comment “on a video that I have never seen or does not exist.”

Some of the mayor’s office’s internal e-mails have been obtained by the Sun outside the freedom of information process.

As the Sun reported back in June, Ford’s former chief of staff Mark Towhey sent an e-mail to staff the day before he was fired with the subject line, “Direct Order.”

“Do not answer calls from the mayor tonight,” Towhey tells staff. “Take the night off.

“Will explain in the AM. Earl (Provost), George (Christopoulos), David (Price) call me when you can.”

The next day, Towhey was formally fired by Ford and walked out of City Hall by security.