The Real Story On The Joint Councils Meeting

No picture today. No amusing image. No frivolity. Just my version of what happened. You should read all the way to the bottom to see why I had to change what I wrote late last night. I am more controlled today.

No you did not read about it in the Windsor Star! Yesterday's meeting was a disaster for Windsor once the story filters out, especially if it ever reaches the mainstream media in Detroit.

Let me give you a brief summary of what took place and give you what I picked out as the highlights and the lowlight. As Blogmeister, the biggest thrill was that some Detroit Councillors actually read my BLOG since a number of the questions asked came right from my Blog yesterday. And they picked out the tough ones too!

There were 2 presentations. One was on the Tunnel and the second on the new border crossing. There were 2 speakers on each topic, one from each side of the river. On the latter presentation, Detroit was treated to the sales pitch by Gridlock Sam Schwartz who was flown in for this special occasion at Windsor taxpayer expense! [Iwas introduced to him for the first time yesterday. He told me that he has given around 50 such presentations so far]

Effectively, the Tunnel show and tell was a sales promo to make Detroit our partner in some magnificent transaction that Eddie refuses to talk to us about. It is obviously some kind of leasing deal. The Tunnel's "financial value" was greater as a whole we were told rather than as two halves. Apparently, we were told that the public sector can work better on something like this than the private sector. (Of course no one mentioned that the total "public" Tunnel tolls are higher than the private bridge tolls).

There was an explanation given about the differences between the deals each side made on the Tunnel to justify why the Windsor region with a population of 500,00 receives 10 times the revenue of the Detroit region with a population of 5,000,000. ie $6,000,000 to $600,000.

The pitch now was for us both to select a business model that captures the long-term value of the Tunnel for each side. [Detroit at least owes it to the Bridge Co. for increasing the amount of money that it will receive from that which Windsor initially wanted to offer Detroit I bet! The question is whether Detroit really wants to deal with Windsor at all now]

In answer to Councillor Halberstadt's question as to when the Detroit lease ends, it was said to end in 2020. Then one of the presenters made the remark that "Leases can be broken!" I hope a DCTC rep took down that unfortunate comment that will come back to haunt Detroit in a lawsuit if they try.

One interesting point was the mention of Mich-Can by so many people, so many times. It is almost as if their project, or rather their group, is being positioned as the favoured one. That should make Ross Clarke smile especially after Eddie also mentioned him at the Heavy Construction Association meeting too. It was Mich-Can primarily and not Ojibway or the Central crossing or the Industrial crossing or whatever else that area was called (Note that Sam said it was not the preferred corridor however in his presentation).

Schwartz talked about "redundancy" being an important point. I do not think that he talked about the Ambassador Bridge falling down, falling down, falling down as he did before.

There was a bit of a discussion for coming up with a joint business model for a new bridge crossing in the same fashion as a new business model for the Tunnel.

The Mayor admitted that Windsor roads or access (or lack of them) is an issue on our side. The best he could say when Windsor's lack of action was compared to Detroit's actual roadbuilding was that there are plans for $300 million in BIF funds for roads (if we ever can agree on what is to be done before the Feds pull that money and give it to Sarnia)

We had the skirmish between Councillor Jones and Dan Stamper of the Bridge Co. (or as the Councillor called him 2 or 3 times, "Stambler" or "Stampler," even after Stamper corrected him in his pronunciation.) I make the assumption that the errors were the result of the Councillor being caught up in the excitement of the moment since matters were getting tense.

The Councillor needs to learn how to ask a question if he wants an answer. The Councillor asked about the Twinned Bridge impact, not the impact of the route. It was the "road" that may impact all of the homes, schools and graves, not the "Bridge" itself. Unfortunatley for the Councillor and the result he wanted, it is the Government that builds the road that may cause the negative impact not the proponent. Stamper, stambler or stampler or whoever it was standing there anwered the question asked although the Councillor obviously did not like what he heard so he had to ask it again.

Stamper did point out the difference between Canada and the US and it was an ugly moment to be sure. The truth sometimes hurts though doesn't it.

What he said is that the US side had already gone through the pain of the Ambassador Gateway project with the disruption it caused the US Community while Canada has not done a thing for border roads. He said Canada was, in effect, now asking the US to expropriate the 300 homes in Delray (as reported in the Detroit News) so that Canada would again suffer no pain. He said the US was being asked also to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more for another border infrastructure just down the road from the Ambassador Gateway, a project the US City planner admitted was built to accommodate a twinned bridge. Stamper asked why this was fair for the US side.

Then there was the moment that disgusted me and made me ashamed to be from Windsor.

And how was it done. Why through Sandwich of course. Sandwich was our historical link to the past. Sandwich was part of the slavery route and 50,000 slaves used the Underground Railway into Sandwich. Sandwich had a "magnificent history" we were told and we had to preserve that history. The history and linkage was so strong for both sides of the border that we cannot lose that area.

If you did not know any better, it sounded like someone was going to go through that part of Windsor with bulldozers to level everything that didn't move and everything that did. Someone was out to destroy our heritage and that of our neighbours in Detroit. Only Windsor could save that link to the past provided Detroit Council was on our side as well and helped us.

What utter rot! What a joke! What a disgrace.

I am not sure if the enemy was the Bridge Co. (I do not think so) or more probably, the results of what DRIC might be proposing if Sandwich was to be overrun with a new crossing. Whatever it was made me cringe.

I could not believe what I was hearing.

Perhaps I am overreacting. I hope so because otherwise, if this is viewed as a ploy by the other side, we are doomed!