Da Vinci's City Hall

Episode 1

Zero to Sixty Pretty Quick

44 mins

This episode and the series picks up where "Da Vinci's Inquest" left off. We see Dominic Da Vinci has moved from the halls of the city coroner's office to those of City Hall as the newly elected Mayor of Vancouver. One of his first official PR opportunities as Mayor takes place at a night out at the local Hastings Park horse racetrack. With his two aides, Sam Berger and Rita Mah, running detail duty, Da Vinci is introduced to Lloyd Manning and Roger Woo, who independent of each other have the potential to be the savior of the financially troubled racetrack as its new owner. Further PR for Da Vinci takes place the next morning when Da Vinci is invited to a pancake breakfast at an elementary school located in a poorer section of town. The school's principal voices to Da Vinci her opposition to a proposed park nearby. More green space appears to be a motherhood issue, however her opposition stems from her fears that it will be a breeding ground for drug dealers and pimps preying on her students. The pimps are especially troublesome in her mind as the school is located close to the City's known "kiddie stroll". Two homicides investigations are also underway the morning after. The first is of a formerly diagnosed mentally ill man living in a half-way house in a effort to get readjusted to community life. The investigation is led by reinstated Homicide Det. Angela Kosmo and her new partner Det. Joe Finn, formerly of Internal Investigations. In that previous life, Finn did investigate some unfounded allegations of police impropriety by Angela which led to her demotion from Homicide. On the surface, their new partnership does not seem to be suffering from their past animosity. Also on site are Kosmo's former partner Mick Leary, who is there in his new role as City Coroner - Da Vinci's old job - the detective's superior Police Chief Bill Jacobs and his opportunistic second in command Sgt. Charlie Klotchko, the latter two who voice their opposition to such half-way houses located in residential neighborhoods. Kosmo and Finn eventually solve this homicide, perpetrated by a half-way house neighbor with night vision goggles and a high-powered rifle, but not before Finn is attacked and bitten by the neighbor's dog, who Finn shoots dead. The second homicide looks to be a gay-bashing which took place along what is known as the gay stroll in Stanley Park. Councillor Jason Horne has taken a special interest in this case as a representative of the gay community. Det. Chick Savoy, also new to homicide from his previous role as police forensics expert, and Lou from the coroner's office undercover two bodies of young boys found buried deep in a city park. Long deceased and found near the site where another body had previously been found, Leary suspects that they are the bodies of two missing aboriginal youth and that the three bodies are associated with a possible pedophile ring from about 10 or 15 years earlier. The political differences between Da Vinci and Jacobs resurface - not that they ever probably went away - in the police's handling of a squat in a commercial building which is planned for redevelopment, the squat led by homeless activist Joe Friedland. Jacobs uses the force of the police department to harass the squatters, while Da Vinci prefers to negotiate with Friedland, with whom he promises to find suitable permanent accommodation for those homeless in the squat. This episode with the squat is just start of the power struggle between the Mayor and the Police Chief in their roles as City officials. They also clash on manpower issues, the unresolved conflict resulting in each side plotting against the other while Jacobs and Klotchko continually feign cooperation with the Mayor. Back with the homeless issue, Da Vinci calls in retired traffic detective Zack McNab to act as his undercover eyes and ears at the squat. Two developments take place back at City Hall. The first has Manning, who looks to be the main contender for purchasing the racetrack, accusing that there was a leak in information which caused him to lose the City's lucrative advertising contract during the previous administration. Da Vinci needs to placate Manning in the continuing negotiation for the racetrack purchase, but also believes there may be some merit to Manning's accusations. With the racetrack, part of the selling feature may be Da Vinci's ability to influence Council to install slot machines at the track to increase revenues both for its owner and for the City. The second is Da Vinci's first meeting with City Administrator Julia Forsythe, who discuss the possibility of cross training between the police and fire departments in an effort to increase efficiency, increase overall manpower and save money. Forsythe supports the idea in theory and promises to look further into this issue. This ends a busy first week for the new Mayor.