On a tour of the ward, Nunziata rode in the passenger seat of her constituency assistant’s car, pointing  out the things she wanted addressed as she spotted them through the window. There were weeds in need of removal, and a shipping container that, in her view, should no longer be allowed on a resident’s front lawn. Nunziata said she has little patience for the pace at which city hall moves, compared with how things were done back when York was its own municipality. “What frustrates me with the City is sometimes it takes a long time to get anything done,” she said.

These days, she says getting projects moving can mean conducting studies, hiring consultants and navigating layers of bureaucracy. “I get very aggressive,” Nunziata told me. “I want it done now.”

Among the projects that move too slowly for her, she says, are the installation of splash pads she’s advocated for in spaces like Maple Leaf Park.

Her combative approach has also played out in her role as Speaker of Council, where Nunziata is tasked with keeping councillors, and at times the public, in check. In 2013, she found herself at the centre of arguments at city hall, after issuing a letter instructing councillors to mind their behaviour. She has held the role of speaker since 2010, across the terms of three mayors—Rob Ford, John Tory, and Olivia Chow.

“I’m not ready to retire yet,” she responded decisively when I asked about the biggest piece of unfinished work she’d like to tackle if re-elected. She paused to choose her words. “Probably, I think I need one more term.” If re-elected, Nunziata said she hopes to build more affordable housing, renovate the Weston Lions Arena, work with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) and the provincial government to build a LaunchPad, providing free sport opportunities that aim to reduce youth violence, and see through the Weston Loop project, which would bring new multi-use trails through the ward.

Nunziata told me she believes her legacy is as a trailblazer. “I’ve had a lot of hardships in my life, personal and politically, … through domestic violence, verbal abuse from council, sexual abuse from council, and I survived, and it made me stronger,” she said.

As for her record, Nunziata seems to side with whoever is mayor. When Tory was mayor, Nunziata voted the same way as him for the majority of council motions. In 2023, towards the end of his tenure, she voted against declaring homelessness a public health crisis and providing 24/7 warming spaces until the spring. She is a strong supporter of the police and has consistently voted in favour of Toronto Police Service budget increases. In Chow’s three years as mayor, Nunziata has largely voted in alignment with her.

In 2024, the Office of the Integrity Commissioner of Toronto found Nunziata breached the City’s code of conduct when campaigning for the election she won in 2022. The Commissioner report found her office used constituent emails, obtained through the work of the councillor’s office, for campaign purposes. Nunziata told me she welcomed the Integrity Commissioner’s report: “It was clear in the report that I had no knowledge of it, so I was exonerated, and I accept their findings.” The report, rather, found her responsible for her staff’s action on her behalf and recommended that Toronto City Council should vote to reprimand Nunziata.

“When you see my other opponents, they’re going to tell you that it’s time for a change,” Nunziata told me. But she disagrees, and feels it’s both “disgusting” and “dirty politics” when her age is brought up. (A member of Nunziata’s campaign team said she preferred not to share her age in an emailed statement.) “With age comes experience,” said Nunziata, adding she feels the City needs someone with her level of know-how, rather than someone new.

Nemoy Lewis, an urban planning professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, works with a team of researchers to study how transit development can contribute to housing insecurity. Weston—home to a large number of Black renter households—has one of highest eviction filing rates in the city, according to Lewis’s research. The area has also experienced rising land values. Lewis said this makes it difficult for marginalized people in York South-Weston to experience the full benefit of increased transit in the area. “Some of the most consequential changes in Weston are very difficult to see, especially from the sidewalk,” said Lewis.

Residents have long grappled with the tension between development and affordability. And Nunziata’s critics say they feel she’s become complacent to residents’ needs (her campaign refutes this, saying she has “the same drive as she has always had.”).

“There’s certain groups that are strong supporters of her,” said Marcia Stone, chair of the Weston chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which advocates for low- and moderate-income people across a variety of issues. “And then you have others that don’t feel that she’s doing enough. She sides with the developers.”

Even her critics commend Nunziata’s role in paving the way for women in politics. But they are unconvinced that it makes her the best person to represent them in 2026. York South-Weston resident Tanya Connors, says it can be difficult, at times, to understand her priorities. “Does she even know who she’s supposed to be representing at this stage?” Connors asked. “It’s time for somebody to look at the ward and see different things, to see a different picture, to have a fresh perspective,” she told me.

In recent years, York South-Weston has also attracted attention because of recent violent incidents, like the fatal shootings of Toronto Police Service Constable Marc Pinizzotto and eight-year-old JahVai Roy. The police charged multiple young people as a result of their alleged involvement in these killings.

Mohamed Abdullahi, 32, who grew up in the Mount Dennis area and works as a truck driver, dedicates his free time to supporting underserved young people through a community non-profit called WEE Serve Youth. When Nunziata advocated earlier this year for the Weston Lions arena to be redeveloped as the MLSE Launchpad, Adbullahi was supportive of the move. He sees outside influence as the broader challenge in the ward—decisions being made by the province and even by other city politicians that ignore the residents speaking up about the area’s aging infrastructure and rising costs. “It’s people that don’t live here that are making decisions,” he said.

Nunziata’s main opponent, Chiara Padovani, comes to the ballot with on-the-ground community organizing experience. She has spent a decade working at the North York Harvest Food Bank as a social worker. In 2024, Padovani co-founded the York South-Weston Tenant Union and led a sweeping rent strike to push back against above-guideline rent increases. (The organization has now expanded and merged with Climate Justice TO to become the Toronto Tenants Union.) More than anything, Padovani says her experience as a social worker has instilled in her a sense of urgency to address food insecurity and the lack of affordable housing residents face. “There’s fire under my feet. I want to get shit done immediately,” said Padovani.

Padovani is going up against what she calls a “political dynasty” in Nunziata, where she says her biggest challenge is overcoming the name recognition of an incumbent. Frances’s brother, John Nunziata, was the area’s member of parliament from 1984 to 2000.  If elected, Padovani said she would focus on housing affordability, road safety, increasing youth recreation opportunities, and flood mitigation in Rockcliffe-Smythe. She had detailed plans for each of these priorities when I asked her what she hoped to accomplish. She explained at length her aim to create a city-school board partnership to reduce youth programming wait lists, pass an anti-Above Guideline Rent Increase bylaw, expand the city’s Multi-Unit Residential Income Acquisition Program (which converts market rentals into affordable housing), and legalize sewage ejection pumps in floodplain homes.

Nunziata and Padovani aren’t the only ones squaring off in York South-Weston come Oct. 26. The ward has a total of nine candidates running for city councillor, including Daniel Di Giorgio, who has served as Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee (Di Giorgio’s father, a Toronto city councillor from 2000 to 2018, was defeated by Nunziata in the 2018 election when the ward boundaries were changed). But many of the other candidates have little information about themselves available online.

Whoever wins, residents of York South-Weston say they want their councillor to be more present in the community. Stone, similar to Abdullahi, is wary. “We have politicians that don’t talk to the people. At all three levels, they don’t,” said Stone. “The way that people in the community see it, though, they come out for photo opportunities.”