No. No. No. And still no. That’s all Mayor Rob Ford and his executive committee heard from the public for almost 23 hours Thursday, into Friday. Do not take the axe to city services that have made Toronto an enviable place to live.

How many ways can you say no? How about 169 — the number of deputants who overcame obstacles the mayor put in their way to speak out — in verse and rhyme and satire and a puppet show. Only one or two told the mayor to cut away to his heart’s content.

Why are so many people opposed to the mayor’s direction, months after electing him? Where are the supposed majority who want Ford to take the axe to the bloated bureaucracy and too-rich services? Where is Ford Nation? Ford’s Flock? Where’s the average citizen, not belonging to any of those partisan groups, who just wants a healthy, affordable city?

Ford’s council allies suggest these people are all too busy working to find time to give their views on city finances. The ones who showed up at city hall are unionists, the usual suspects with vested interests, organizations whose reps are being paid, by taxpayers, to show up and protest.

The argument doesn’t sell.

They are absent because the mayor has proved himself entirely unreliable. He has failed to produce evidence of the fat at city hall. He brings in consultants who tell citizens the very services they treasure — libraries, police, firefighters, recycling, day care, TTC, snow removal, public gardens, museums, arts and culture — are where the “savings” must be found.

The conclusion, then, is that those services are the frills, “gravy,” excess that should be privatized or sold “in a heartbeat,” as the mayor’s brother suggests of libraries, including one branch in his own ward.

That’s not what Rob Ford promised them. He said he could find close to $2 billion in the city budget without the average citizen noticing. He could do it without cutting services. “Guaranteed,” he said. That’s why the mayor could immediately kill the vehicle registration tax, a revenue source of more than $60 million a year, when he took office. That’s why he recklessly promises to kill the land transfer tax and its $250 million annual revenues. Not needed — not when $2 billion of gravy existed.

Turns out he can’t find vats of savings. Easy money. The KPMG consultants he brought in to sniff out the fat have filed their findings and the savings would have to come from real services that people use and cherish.

In short, Mayor Rob Ford’s credibility is shot, shredded, blown to bits — victim of his excessive rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims.

The mayor’s battle now is not for Ford Nation. The goal is not to change the minds of the hard-core left who feel no service should be privatized and no cuts made. The fight is over the hearts and minds of the silent majority in the middle — the very people who took a chance on Ford as mayor because they want a fiscally sound city and a city that embraces arts and culture and libraries and social assistance to priority neighbourhoods.

With the gravy fast disappearing, average citizens are saying, “I want my vote back.”

A father voted for Ford because of his promises. Only now, his wife is threatened with the loss of overnight bus service that gets her home from her chamber-maid job at a downtown hotel. And his mom has applied for a bed in one of the city’s 10 seniors residences, but some councillors see this as a frill to be sold off.

So, his response to the mayor’s cuts is “No. that’s not what you promised. That’s not what I voted for. I want my vote back.”

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Ford and his committee are to make recommendations to council in late September. By then, the mayor’s name could be mud.

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