Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson marked his first 100 days in office yesterday.

How important is the 100-day mark to you?

I think over the years it’s become more of a media fixation: the media will pick the first 100 days of the mayor, premier, prime minister and so on. I think it pushes all of us in politics to not coast for those first hundred days and live in a bit of a honeymoon period, but actually deliver something.

The first 100 days is considered to be when you can most easily get things done.

Yeah, to a certain degree, but I think one of the things I’ve tried to do and what I think a lot of people around here have appreciated is there’s a much more co-operative approach. And that’s not great news for reporters, because you miss some of the fireworks that used to go on, but I think the public sent a pretty clear signal that they wanted a different tone and a different style.

There does seem to be an allergy to controversy around here. I’ve heard you described as a “story-killing robot from the future.”

(Laughs) Oh really? I hadn’t heard that. Sorry about that.

How do you keep that co-operative atmosphere?

There probably hasn’t been a day gone by in the last hundred days that I’m not down visiting the councillors, which the returning members tell me is something new. They didn’t often see the mayor. Often I’ll have meetings in their boardrooms or offices, just keeping the lines of communications open. It’s the old Holiday Inn expression: “No surprises.”

Surprise me with something we don’t know about you.

I like going to movies on my own. I find that in this job you’re surrounded by people all the time. I live near the Coliseum on Carling Avenue, and I’ll just go there and watch a movie and sit there on my own. Now, a couple of times people have come by and they’ve seen me sitting there on my own with a bag of popcorn and a Diet Coke, and I can just tell they’re thinking, this guy’s a real loser and he’s the mayor. But it’s actually my one little escape to sort of relax, recharge the batteries and see sometimes a good film.

So your escape from crowds is in a crowd?

Yeah (laughs), but it’s a dark crowd.