Cries of "shame" rose up as Toronto Mayor Rob Ford walked up to the podium to honor war veterans. One World War II veteran refused to shake his hand, calling him a "druggie." Unfazed, Ford declared moments later, "I'm not going anywhere," as calls to take a leave of absence swirl around the embattled mayor. The next day, he was signing bobblehead dolls of himself at City Hall to raise money for charity. 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford holds a Rob Ford bobblehead doll at Toronto city hall on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013. Up to 300 people lined up at City Hall Tuesday to buy the "Robbie Bobbie" dolls for $20 each, with... (Associated Press) 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford speaks during a press conference to advocate relief for the people in the Philippines affected by Typhoon Haiyan, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013 in Toronto. A defiant Toronto Mayor Rob... (Associated Press) 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford autographs a bobblehead doll in his likeness Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013, at city hall in Toronto. Hundreds of people lined up to be the first to own the bobblehead doll. The defiant... (Associated Press) 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford poses with a bobblehead doll in his likeness Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013, at city hall in Toronto. Hundreds of people lined up to be the first to own the bobblehead doll. The defiant... (Associated Press) 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, right, autographs a bobblehead doll in his likeness Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013, at city hall in Toronto. Hundreds of people lined up to be the first to own the bobblehead doll. The... (Associated Press) 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford speaks during a press conference to advocate relief for the people in the Philippines affected by Typhoon Haiyan, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013 in Toronto. A defiant Toronto Mayor Rob... (Associated Press) 
 
 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford speaks during a press conference to advocate relief for the people in the Philippines affected by Typhoon Haiyan, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013 in Toronto. A defiant Toronto Mayor Rob... (Associated Press) 
 
 Ford's refusal to resign over his admitted drug use has confounded Toronto's City Council. Allies and opponents alike agree that a stream of revelations of the mayor's erratic behavior _ from smoking crack cocaine in a "drunken stupor" to threatening to kill someone in a videotaped tirade _ has consumed Toronto's politics and has impacted the City Council's ability to tackle other challenges. 
 
 But with no clear legal path to force him out, the 44-member City Council is grasping for ways to shunt the larger-than-life leader aside and govern without him until next year's municipal elections. 
 
 It is an unprecedented effort but in some ways, it may not be a stretch. Toronto's mayor already has limited powers compared to the mayors of many large cities in the United States. He is just one voting member in the council and his power stems mostly from his ability, as the only councilor elected by citywide vote, to build consensus and set the agenda. That authority, many council members say, has evaporated in the crack scandal. 
 
 "We really just have to build a box around the mayor so we can get work done," said councilor John Filion, who has introduced one of two motions in the council designed to isolate Ford. 
 
 The first motion, which goes to a vote Wednesday, would call on Ford to take a leave of absence, apologize to Toronto residents for misleading them and cooperate with police. If he refuses, the council would ask the province of Ontario to pass legislation to remove the mayor from office. 
 
 The City Council has no authority itself to oust Ford because he has not been convicted of a crime. Toronto police said last month they had obtained a long-sought video of Ford apparently smoking from a crack pipe but that it does not constitute enough evidence to charge him. 
 
 The motion was introduced by City Councilor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who had been a supporter of the conservative Ford's policies since the mayor took office three years ago, riding a backlash from suburbanites who felt alienated by what they deemed Toronto's downtown-centric, liberal-dominated politics. 
 
 In an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, Minnan-Wong said he had been encouraged by Ford's election "because we shared the same policy aims: frugal government, working to eliminate waste, contracting out work where it made sense, and respect for the tax dollars of Torontonians." 
 
 "No longer can he set an agenda for council or build a consensus among its members," wrote Minnan-Wong, who is on Ford's executive committee. "No longer is there confidence in his judgment. Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Ford has lost the moral authority to lead." 
 
 News reports of the crack video's existence first surfaced in May, but it has not been released publicly. 
 
 After police announced they had the video, Ford confessed that he smoked crack last year while drunk and apologized. But he insisted he is not addicted to drugs and does not need rehab. He says he is ready to make his case before the increasingly hostile City Council. 
 
 "It's going to be rumble in the jungle tomorrow," Ford said Tuesday, as he autographed a "Robbie Bobbie" bobblehead doll at City Hall. 
 
 Despite the growing cries for Ford to go, the motion is unlikely to pass. Many councilors are loath to ask Ontario's provincial government to intervene in Toronto's municipal affairs, fearing it would set a dangerous precedent. Provincial government officials have publicly expressed reluctance to do so. 
 
 Another proposed motion would curtail Ford's powers, suspending his authority to appoint and dismiss the deputy mayor and his executive committee, which runs the budget process. It likely won't be debated until December because of the council's procedural rules. 
 
 Filion, the councilor who introduced that motion, said the idea is to prevent Ford from firing executive committee members _ such as Minnan-Wong _ who speak out against him. Councilors are also considering stripping Ford's authority to set the City Council's agenda, said Councilor Adam Vaughan, who opposes getting the province involved. 
 
 "We will shun him, curtail his power as best we can," Vaughan said. "He clearly has gone off the deep end, shot himself in outer space." 
 
 While Ford, 44, has lost political leverage, his core supporters have not lost faith in the populist mayor who refers to them as "Ford Nation." 
 
 "It won't be the end of Ford Nation, they just put up a billboard in support of him last week," said Nelson Wiseman, a political professor at the University of Toronto. "The movement and the anti-government sentiment it embodied that got him elected will stay alive ... His base will remain strong whether or not he's removed from office." 
 
 After winning office in 2010, Ford took measures that pleased his suburban voter base, including abolishing an annual $60 vehicle registration tax, squeezing valuable concessions out of the union representing 6,000 city workers, and reducing costs by contracting out half of Toronto's garbage collection. Ford claims to have saved taxpayers $1 billion dollars in the process, though councilors dismiss that claim as highly inflated since he has increased the cost of transit, among other public services, along with hiking property taxes. 
 
 City councilors say the mayor's travails are creating chaos around efforts to confront Toronto's most difficult challenges, including developing public transit service and reduce grinding commutes. 
 
 Ford opposes a proposed, fully-funded, light-rail transit plan in favor of a more expensive subway extension into a suburb where his support runs strong. 
 
 The subway project _ already controversial because it will force the city to raise taxes and seek federal and provincial money _ has been engulfed in chaos since the mayor took office and was further impacted after the allegations surfaced in May that Ford had been filmed smoking a crack pipe. As the mayor's influence eroded, councilors debated back and forth on the issue, voting on and then reversing its decisions several times, until making a final decision weeks ago. 
 
 "After the news surfaced about his personal life, that further disintegrated things," Filion said, adding that it caused councilors to distance themselves from Ford. "People are just openly scornful of him whereas six months ago they may have thought he was a wonderful mayor, and so we now have this fairly large power vacuum that someone needs to step in and fill." 
 
 At least one city councilor has been steadfast in his support of the mayor: his brother, Doug Ford. 
 
 "They are going to get up, 44 of them, and give my brother a public beating, a public butchering," Doug Ford said ahead of Wednesday's proceedings. "I'm going to have to stand there and watch it happen so we'll see how it turns out." ||||| Story highlights Court documents allege erratic, sometimes abusive behavior by mayor 
 
 Women "smoked joints" with Mayor Ford, staffers say in documents 
 
 Toronto City Council votes to ask mayor to take leave of absence 
 
 Ford tells council he bought illegal drugs in last 2 years 
 
 Explosive new allegations surfaced about embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in court documents released Wednesday -- the same day the city council voted to ask him to take a leave of absence. 
 
 The court report, more than 500 pages long, alleges a pattern of drug use, and erratic and sometimes abusive behavior by the mayor. A judge ordered the report's release late last month. 
 
 The documents include police interviews with former staff members, information obtained from surveillance crews and cameras, and even an examination of the mayor's garbage. 
 
 The documents were used by Canadian police to get a search warrant for Alexander Lisi, Ford's friend and occasional driver, whom police accuse of marijuana possession and trafficking. 
 
 Several staffers said they were asked to buy alcohol for the mayor. One incident described by a former staffer alleged that Ford, while driving, stopped the vehicle, guzzled some vodka, and drove on. 
 
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 Chris Fickel, who worked as a special assistant to Ford, said the mayor would ask him to perform odd jobs at his house. Fickel said he would be called "to change light bulbs in the front lawn, change batteries in his children's toys, buying cartons of cigarettes, bleach, laundry detergent and diet Coke for the mayor's wife." 
 
 One staffer told police the mayor was inebriated on St. Patrick's Day in 2012 and got into a physical altercation with two staff members. He alleges the mayor was verbally abusive and inappropriate with a female staff member. 
 
 Another staffer said the same night, he saw a woman who may have been an escort or prostitute in the mayor's office. 
 
 Ford's former press secretary George Christopoulos also said women often came to the mayor's office, "and told staffers that they have smoked a joint with the mayor on the street outside of the bar. These women were told by the mayor that they could have a job." Christopoulos would then have to interview these women and try to talk them out of a job. 
 
 None of the allegations against Ford has been proven, and he faces no criminal charges. 
 
 Ford vows to stay on the job 
 
 Despite the Toronto City Council's motion, the mayor of Canada's largest city insists he will stay on the job. 
 
 Wednesday's vote is largely symbolic -- it does not have the power to force Ford from his post. 
 
 The tense council meeting came more than a week after Ford admitted smoking crack cocaine 
 
 Days after that admission, a new video showed a ranting, swearing Ford threatening to kill someone. 
 
 During Wednesday's meeting, Ford made a further confession to the council. 
 
 He said he has purchased illegal drugs within the past two years, while he was in office. 
 
 Despite his escalating troubles, Ford insists he has been a good mayor and that voters will decide during next year's election whether to keep him. 
 
 "I have made a mistake. I am human," he said. "I apologize. I want to move on." 
 
 Ford said that he is being subjected to a "public flogging" and that the experience has been the most humiliating thing in his life, maybe the worst week in his life next to his father's death. 
 
 Despite the admission of drug use and of heavy drinking, Ford flatly denied that he is addicted to alcohol or drugs. 
 
 "The reason I drank or did drugs was not because of stress, it was out of sheer stupidity," he said. "That's all it was." 
 
 Ford's brother, Councilor Doug Ford, and other family members have defended the embattled mayor. 
 
 On Wednesday, Doug Ford appeared on CNN and blamed the scandal on politics. 
 
 "Rob does not come into work drunk," he told CNN. "He said he's tried illicit drugs under a drunken stupor." 
 
 "And he's not doing drugs. And he's not drinking. So he's moving in the right direction, in my opinion, but the public flogging, never seen anything like it. This man has apologized profusely. He's asked for forgiveness, and the rest is sheer politics down here."
– Toronto's crack-smoking mayor has made it clear he's not going anywhere despite his many scandals, but City Council has other ideas. Councilors will today consider a motion that would call on Rob Ford to apologize, take a leave of absence, and cooperate with a police investigation into his activities, CBC reports. Just one problem: Even if it passes (Ford, who made the motion the key item at today's council meeting, has promised a "rumble in the jungle" debate), Ford won't actually have to heed the request. If he refuses, the City Council can ask Ontario to pass legislation removing him, but the council itself can't remove him from office since he hasn't been convicted of a crime—and councilors are hesitant to ask Ontario to step in. With "no clear legal path to force him out," the AP reports, the council is looking for a way to isolate Ford and run the city without him, which could actually be possible, since the powers of the Toronto mayor are more limited than the powers of many mayors in big US cities. "We really just have to build a box around the mayor so we can get work done," says one councilor. A second option to be debated next month: a motion that would further limit Ford's powers, basically keeping him from being able to fire executive committee members who want him out. "We will shun him, curtail his power as best we can," says another councilor. "He clearly has gone off the deep end, shot himself in outer space." Much of the public, though, still loves Ford: Hundreds lined up to buy "Robbie Bobbie" bobblehead dolls yesterday; they're being sold for charity.