State Of The City Speech

Somebody better buy a paper shredder for CREFAAC (Committee to Re-elect Eddie Francis At All Costs). My confidant found another one of those CREFAAC memos in a garbage can near City Hall the other day and forwarded it on to me. The strategists still seem to be trying to trash things I guess but unsuccessfully from what I can judge. I think they had better stop now before the consequences become quite troubling.

I could not understand the reason for the memo until I looked at the agenda for the next Council meeting. It appears that the May 1 Council meeting is being postponed since the Mayor is going to deliver his "State of the City" speech at the Cleary that night instead.

At least this time his Chief of Staff and minions were able to book space in Windsor since they had enough notice and did not do it in the last minute. Who knows where we would have wound up otherwise given the throngs of people expected to attend to listen to Eddie. I heard that Puce was a possibility for the speech location but was discarded quickly. [One of the strategists was not local and thought the "C" in Puce was a hard one, not soft!]

You remember last year's speech don't you. Probably not because the Mayor did not publicize it and few turned out. I think that was when the City's Schwartz plan had already been denounced by most groups in Windsor and Eddie was afraid that the pesky environmentalists might show up, as they did, and cause him some problems.

I know that Kwame came last year but given the frosty relationship now, I doubt that he will come back again while Eddie is Mayor!

No doubt, the speech will be heavily advertised. It is only a relatively few months before the election in November. What better way to kick off a campaign (and win friends with Councillors by having them take a few bows too on stage). The best part of the deal is that the City pays for it all and no one can object since the previous speeches were given at this time in the past too. If only the CREFAAC strategists could run the City as well as they run the campaign we would not have to worry about economic redevelopment!

Anyway, here is the memo. As I said before, I cannot vouch for the truth of this document so you will have to judge for yourself.

MEMO

TO: CREFAAC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
FROM: SPEECH-WRITING TEAM

RE: EDDIE'S STATE OF THE CITY SPEECH

You have asked us to write a speech for the Mayor that will boast of his accomplishments. Naturally, the end result is supposed to be a cry that he be re-elected to continue to carry out the Vision that we created for him the first time around.

We looked at the major areas that he has tackled and here is our analysis:

-Super Bowl Success

We thought we had a winner here until someone reminded us of the 25,000 seat CFL stadium he talked about. (We said he was the only one who could build us an arena and look what happened to that promise!)

The Mayor still cannot give us real figures and we know that border traffic was down considerably. Being the poster boy for Budweiser did not help his image and he flipflopped on the press stories about all the vices that Windsor has to offer. Scratch that!

-Open and transparent Government Success

Even the Windsor Star is mad about us on that one!

We gave up counting the number of In Camera Sessions held. When Eddie went public, against our advice may we add, in the Council meeting in Tecumseh, Alan McKinnon and the pesky environmentalists hammered us! McKinnon got a bigger ovation than all of Council put together. With our luck, they are probably talking right now about setting up "informational" picket lines in front of the Cleary. Scratch that!

-Border Policy Success

Are you kidding?

We are against writing any more scare-mongering letters to residents. The 200 metre areas of "mass destruction" shown in the Schwartz presentation may have backfired too since even we know that DRIC engineers would take mitigation measures when building roads.

We have squandered precious time, failed to be accountable for resources spent {can't Administration undertake the simplest tasks quickly?), and are no closer to a realistic approach than 3 years ago. Windsor has been isolated from the Senior Levels, the Governor (but not her hubby) and our biggest buddy, the Mayor of Detroit. Even the Michigan Legislators have learned that we are sitting on $300 million and doing nothing other than threaten litigation. When Windsor could have been in the catbird seat, the opportunity has been derailed. Scratch that!

-Detroit Windsor Tunnel Success

After the Joint Councils meeting when we confirmed everything the Ambassador Bridge Co. had been saying and a region 1/10th the size of Detroit is taking 10 times the revenues. And if traffic does not pick up and the Bridge Co. renews its bid...Scratch that!

- Regional Relations Success

From being the best partner of Detroit to snow cleaner for the Super Bowl, what a come-down. Our economic "hired guns" tell us we have to partner with a much bigger region and we attack and patronize Detroit. The polling we heard about was wrong. Kwame won!

And as for the County, if Halberstadt can get them to agree with us on anything, we will take credit for it. Scratch that!

- Economic Development/Downtown District Success

Our story of success here with one national chain restaurant and a bus terminal while we have dozens of empty storefronts and a huge office vacancy rate does not play well in Peoria either.

And when citizens find out how much we are still paying out on Canderel even with the subleases and what it may cost us to get St. Clair College to come downtown...Scratch that!

-Huron Church Overpass Success

It was finished exactly on September 2005, the deadline date. Sure we paid an extra $406,000 premium to get the bridge done 45 days early and sure the kids use it---to have a smoke. But hey, this one's a winner!

Now if someone can explain to us how we can make a 40 minute speech talking about the overpass. Wait, I know...we'll spend the other 39 minutes talking about all of the Mayor's "in progress" items and showing artist's renditions of his latest dreams!