The Marketing Of The Cleary Deal

Do you understand this statement of the Mayor? We are giving away the Cleary, an asset of taxpayers worth at least $16 million, for nothing and paying someone several millions of dollars more to take it off of our hands and he said "The Cleary's losses are going to be picked up by someone else."

Huh??? Please tell me who other than taxpayers are picking up the losses? Taxpayers are out $16 million plus right off the bat! It's like your spouse telling you about all of the money saved while maxing out your VISA card!

If you understand the words to mean nothing more than the way the deal is being sold to taxpayers before an election, you will be fine.

You know of course that we have NOT seen all of the details about the Cleary deal, and we won't! And you know from what we HAVE seen that the deal sucks. (Sorry Execs of DWBIA, read the whole BLOG first before you dump on me again. I want a downtown campus as I have written before!).

I may even have to say nice things now about Councillor Gignac since it appears that she was the only Councillor opposed to the deal. (No disrespect intended but three of the "financial" Councillors---Valentinis, Halberstadt and Brister---were conflicted so it was a slam dunk for Eddie!)

Should we be happy about a deal from a Mayor whose negotiating skills and under whose Administration fiascos have included:

• allowing St Clair College to walk away from the Income and Security building
• a settlement with MFP in which we "saved" millions but it cost us much more than we thought we bargained for (and we have still done nothing to try and recover the extra we paid out)
• not being able to help bring about a taxi strike settlement
• failing to get us an agreement on the border file
• doing a Keg parking deal that would be interesting to see
• offering a great price on Canderel subletting---for the Tenant
• doing a deal on the bus terminal that is a winner----for Greyhound and
• being the one who brought forward the Park 'N Go Garage agreement now in receivership.

People will focus on the small stuff frankly. What seems absurd. Because that will get people angry. Paul at Blue Blogging Soapbox points out as an example:

• "As icing on the cake, city staff and their kids will get a 30-per-cent break on college tuition and the city can remain rent-free in the Huron Lodge nursing home - which will be owned by the college as of July 1 - while construction of the new nursing home is delayed for six months. "
  
  Nice perk if you can get it - which most of the city’s taxpayers can’t.
  
  Can someone please explain to me why the city staff and their kids deserve a special taxpayer subsidy for St. Clair college?
  
  ‘’Icing on the cake'’ - how about salt on the wound?

The deal was done in a really neat way too. The City discussed it in camera. Councillor Gignac's concerns, whatever they are, were heard only in camera (with some tantalizing bits in the Star this morning). Then the details came out in the Star. And the dreaming begins again.

Let's see what kind of nerve Councillor Gignac has. I wrote to her and offered to give her space to set out her concerns so the public can see what kind of a deal it is. Let's see what her problems are. But don't hold your breath that she will write to let us all know.

One thing though. You cannot view this as true negotiations between the City and St. Clair. The City wanted to get rid of the Cleary to eliminate a Casino competitor, Eddie needed the deal for his re-election and Strasser held all the cards. The deal was not about how much the City would get but how little the City would pay out!

So let's try and work it out:

1. Cleary appraised value: $16,000,000
2. Half the salary for two years of the 125 mostly part-time employees who opt to stay at the Cleary, but as employees of the college: $2,000,000
3. Capital costs for renovations: $846,000
4. City makes $29,000 for a parking garage (Ahhhh still competing with private parking lots. So much for the Receiver who thought he could do a deal re the parking garage behind the Cleary!)
5. "Icing on the cake" well only if you work for the City (don't worry, that will be sold as a cost saver as a tax-free employee perk! Don't you just "Love this Place!") plus a million savings for the City on rent

TOTAL CITY COST $18,000,000

Now I had been told by a well-placed source how this deal would be sold and it came true. It was not that it was costing the City anything really. The City was saving money such that we should congratulate City Hall. Sure we were getting rid of taxpayer assets for nothing and giving away taxpayer money too to have someone take the Cleary off our hands but it made sense.

The theory was that the Cleary was costing taxpayers $800,000 a year. So if we held it for 25 years, it would drain City coffers of $20 million which we would lose. Never mind how much more would be lost when the Casino expansion opened. So in this manner, we were bringing people downtown into the new urban village so stop complaining!

Whoa---remember how poor Councillor Zuk got hammered for suggesting to give doctors free space in Canderel since we were paying rent anyway. What's the difference?

The story really falls apart when you examine it. It is nothing more than a play by numbers game. As the Mayor said, "We wanted to be sure the city and the college were equally getting the same benefit."

• Now the loss is almost a million a year which brings it up to the $25 million a year Gord mentions (Wow, look how much this deal is saving taxpayers and St. Clair is "only" getting $19 million of value. Now that is Big "N" negotiating!)
• "Sources" say that the Cleary project that was worth new $33 million is only worth $16 million now. I'd rather see that appraisal report if you don't mind rather than trust "sources.". Mind you, if the City ran it into the ground, then it might only be worth that. And I guess "prime" riverfront property isn't worth that much any more after the City's Canderel giveaway.
• Let's see, "half the salary for two years." Isn't that full salary for a full year. By golly, isn't that what an employee might get as a "severance payment" that St. Clair was unwilling to pay and wanted the City to be responsible for!
• We sure stopped St. Clair from flipping it and making a profit. All it means is that they could "sub-let it" and make a profit. And if the deal is a bad one for St. Clair----are they stuck? Nope, the City gets it back!
• And being consistent with Canderel, we help pay for the renovations too.
• Oh let's not mention that the Cleary will still compete with the private sector for business: "The community will still have its banquet facility in the Cleary. The college's culinary arts students will continue to operate the hall, together with current staff."

Oh stop, I am not against the deal. Anything that makes the downtown as it was when I first came to Windsor makes sense. I won't ask why we didn't try and offer it to someone other than an educational institution to run it as part of the urban village concept or a new arena. (I bet you forgot that "The Jebb team, which includes respected arena, convention and theatre operators S.M.G. from Philadelphia and Olympia & York from Toronto, offered to take over management of the ailing Cleary in conjunction with the new arena operation").

For me, it has nothing to do with downtown. It is just another example as far as I am concerned of City Hall trying to fool us. It is unforgivable, no matter how good or bad the deal may ultimately be. It's all Alice in Wonderland anyway:

• 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
  
  'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
  
  'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'