TORONTO, Ont. - The marathon executive committee meeting at City Hall has drawn to a close, Friday, after being held for over 22 hours.
Hundreds of Torontonians descended on City Hall starting at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday to have their opinions heard about the proposed budget cuts.
It was officially the longest council meeting in the history of Toronto.
There were 344 people who registered to speak, and just under 200 of them got the chance to speak because they stayed all night. Anyone who left, lost their chance.
Only one incident required security to remove a man who acted up and acted out his frustration by yelling at councillors who were gathered to witness the deputation.
When it was over, Mayor Rob Ford tweeted
@TOMayorFord: "Thank you city staff, councillors and all residents who participated and expressed their views. It was a marathon, but worthwhile session."
During the meeting, Mayor Ford went in and out of the room several times overnight for a half-hour at a time.
There was frustration even before the meeting started since it's being held in a small committee room and not in council chambers.
Several chairs and a projection screen were set up in the City Hall rotunda to house the overflow of people looking to get a chance to speak or listen to the proceedings.
Fellow resident Katrina found it hard to believe everyone is being crammed into a small committee room and two other overflow rooms.
"This is absurd, there is a huge amount of space in this building to provide the room for 300 people to sit and listen properly to what the city has to say about what's going to happen with our services -- and that's not happening today," Katrina said.
A suggestion to move the meeting into city council chambers was rejected by the mayor, who said he planned to hear from all 300-plus deputants.
"I am going to sit here all day, all night, all morning until everybody has had a chance to speak," Mayor Ford said.
Normally people get five minutes to speak, but that was cut to three minutes because of the huge crowd.
Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti told 680News that in his 16 years on city council he has never seen such a large number of people registered to speak at an executive meeting.
"We'll probably be there until two or three o'clock in the morning after we ask staff questions and move our motions. So it will be a marathon." Mammoliti said.
Potential cuts include closing library branches, eliminating TTC's overnight buses, shrinking the Toronto police force and selling the Toronto Zoo.
Initial discussion on Thursday included several topics, with a large focus on arts funding both downtown and in the city suburbs.