It's not that De Baeremaeker is putting on an act. He has learned, though, that a positive attitude helps to get things done: If people like you, they'll usually listen to you.

"You can't beat the enemy. You have to seduce the enemy."

Allan Crawford isn’t allowed to talk to me anymore. The outspoken Parks, Forestry and Recreation employee faced a disciplinary hearing Feb. 1 for blabbing to me about an idea he had for breathing life back into BikeShare, Toronto’s now-defunct, popular bike-lending program... Rookie city councillor Adam Vaughan says he wasn’t surprised to hear Crawford was disciplined for speaking out of turn. “It’s part of a disturbing sense I get that we’re not supposed to talk about stuff,” he says. Are there more appropriate channels? “There could be, [but] everything I’ve felt so far [as a councillor], I’ve felt like we’re not supposed to talk about it. I’m finding it really uncomfortable.”