The skunk would not come out from underneath the man’s car. Animal control wasn’t picking up the phone.No one was listening to him.At a council meeting in what was then known as East York the man made his case. He wasn’t on the agenda, but just showed up to speak, as the council allowed anyone to do.After he had aired his frustrations, then-East York mayor Michael Prue got animal control to authorize three hours of overtime, freeing the skunk and solving the problem.“That was democracy in your face,” Prue recalls. “That never happens in Toronto, that never happens in the legislature, but it’s what people expected and wanted.”It’s the kind of hands-on local representation Prue says is missing under the megacity, something he staunchly opposed in 1998 when it brought together East York with Etobicoke, Scarborough, York, North York and the old City of Toronto.Read more:Ford to slash Toronto city council What do Toronto councillors do?As Premier Doug Ford plans to chop Toronto city council almost in half — leaving the city on the brink of arguably the most massive change since amalgamation — the Star went back to the last mayors of these municipalities to see if their hopes, fears and worst nightmares had come true, 20 years later.Of the five living former mayors — Scarborough’s Frank Faubert died in 1999 — only former York mayor and current Ward 11 Councillor Frances Nunziata did not respond to requests to comment. Michael Prue, East YorkPrue’s fears were that the unique character and community spirit of East York would never be the same.“I told people at the time of amalgamation it would be slow to change because the people had huge character and just huge joy in where they lived, and participated,” he said. “But it didn’t take long for things to start happening.”Amalgamation changed services like garbage collection. The collectors were no longer ...
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