Here’s what’s ahead as Mark Sutcliffe returns for another 4 years as mayor

Mark Sutcliffe is back for another four years as mayor, and he says the work begins from day one. He has a lot of big files on his desk, from turning around OC Transpo to finding money to pay for his promises. Arthur Whitecrummy has been following the campaign, and he joins us now to talk about what's ahead for the re-elected mayor. Arthur, what's waiting for the mayor as he prepares to start his second term? Well, one of the first tasks will be trying to figure out how to divvy up plum positions on council, the chairs of powerful committees like planning and transit. Some of the councillors who led them are gone, and there's a lot of veteran councillors who might want those posts. Sutcliffe could just appoint them, either rewarding supporters or building bridges with opponents. But he could also allow council to weigh in, something he did last time around to be more collaborative. Then he's going to have to start carrying out the agenda he ran on. He says he's eager to hit the ground running. The campaign is over. Now it's time to get back to protecting affordability, to get back to strengthening our local economy, to get back to improving our quality of life. It's time to get back to building a better future for Ottawa. It's time to get back to having everyone working together. It's time to get back to work. He's going to have to find enough money to pay for those promises. That's the next big order of business, drawing up a budget. It's expected before February. He's going to have to find a way to pay for cheaper transit passes and more police funding, more than 200 promises in total, all while keeping taxes to at most 2.5%. It won't be easy, with prices rising and OC Transpo facing a persistent deficit. Now that transit file has always been a headache, what will he be facing this time around? Well, he's going to want to see that LRT East extension open up soon. It was already supposed to be well on its way to a final stage of testing, but the schedule was pushed back during the campaign. Once that's done, he and OC Transpo will have to turn their attention to the West, where the Canada Day storms damaged the tracks, raising the prospect of still more delays. But there are signs of progress on the transit file. New electric buses have led to a big rebound in bus reliability. and Sutcliffe has a plan to speed up plans to buy more. It has the head of the local transit union hoping this might be the council that turns things around. So if we're going to get those buses and we're going to get a few more employees, as he said, and we're going to be able to continue to build off of what is already there, is it going to be a fix-all? Are we going to see a change tomorrow? Not likely, but we're definitely in the right direction and we didn't lose any traction with today's election. What else is in his agenda? And will he have the support on council to actually get it passed? Well, he wants to get more housing built and put Ottawa on a track to ending homelessness and signed big deals with the federal and also provincial governments to pay for some of those big promises like transit and a big chunk of his $10 billion infrastructure plan. He's feeling confident about his support at the council table. Almost all of the incumbents were re-elected, so he's got a lot of familiar faces to work with. Here's what he's expecting. I have a great working relationship with all of the current councillors. I think you saw that in the last four years. I got everybody working together. It was very collaborative. We cooperated on a lot of things. I'm ready to work with all of those councillors again. I think it'll feel very much like we're continuing the work that we've been doing over the last few years. We'll find out soon if that's true. The new term of council starts on November 15th, with the swearing-in expected shortly after. Thank you for this, Arthur. CBC's Arthur White-Crummey reporting for us tonight.