Eddie's Summit: D-I-Y BLOG Creation

So you think it is easy to write one of these BLOGS do you? Well let's see how good you are. I am NOT going to write a BLOG on Eddie's Mayors' Summit but will let you do it. If you wish, you can submit your effort for posting.

I know you are reading this Blog with your morning Timmie's or during your coffee break and that you do not have a lot of time to do research. I'll do all of that for you. Just take what I set out below and create something that you want thousands of people across North America (my BLOG circulation) to read and to keep their interest so they will come back another day! Here goes:

CATCHY BLOG TITLE IDEAS:

• A Summit That Did Not Get Off The Ground
• Eddie's Summit 'Peaks' Little Interest
• Guess Who Really Came To Dinner
• Baseball And Passports
• Passports And Windsor Elections

BACKGROUND

• this is the second attempt at a meeting
• first proposed conference flopped because Eddie's staff forgot about a US holiday
• hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of invitations sent out with follow-ups
• Prime Minister Harper and President Bush dealt with this subject only a few weeks before
• few mayors initially responded positively so how to get the numbers up
• Detroit Consul-General uses taxpayer money to sponsor a baseball game

FACTS

• 76 people actually are listed as attendees on the City's website but those numbers are greatly inflated since they include people like speakers, staff members of Eddie, the Consulate and Dwight Duncan, minor government civil servants
• 29 Mayors attended (being generous by including deputies and others who appear to be reps of mayors) or a tiny fraction of those mayors actually invited and a small percentage of the numbers the Windsor Star hyped
• Cities from which Mayors came: Aylmer, Brantford, Buffalo, Chatham Kent, Chicago, Collingwood, Cornwall, Detroit, Essex, Fort Erie, Fort Frances, Guelph/Eramosa, Kingsville, Lakeshore, LaSalle, Leamington, Lewiston, London, Niagara Falls NY, Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-lake, Pelee Island, Petrolia, Sault Ste. Marie, Stratford, Tecumseh, Tillsonburg, Toronto, Welland.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

• Numbers were grossly exaggerated to pretend the Summit was a success
• Hardly a number of mayoral attendees or representatives that will make the PM or President quake in their boots when they see their Resolutions
• Few "powerhouse" mayors attended
• Another E-machine re-election gimmick
• I wonder how much this cost and who is paying for it
• Why was a representative of the Buffalo Fort Erie Bridge Authority invited to attend but not a member of the Ambassador Bridge
• Can't the Windsor Star count? Wasn't their "local update" number over 100 attendees
• Why didn't the media cover the baseball game and report who attended
• Will I ever get an answer from the Consul-General in Detroit or will I have to do another FOI application
• If publicity was the reason for the Summit, it was a failure. Doing a news story word search on "Eddie Francis" showed slightly over 100 media stories on this event, with few of the major US media picking up on the story (The press release said to assignment editors relating to Opening statements "This is open to news media for pictures and sound, no questions." The Agenda said "(10:25 – 10:30) BREAK (to allow media to clear the room) )
• What cross border scheme has Eddie hatched for which the Summit was mere pretence
• Given the reality of the Summit being a huge disappointment, how can the Star Editorial say "Border mayors up the ID ante"
• At what point did Eddie become a foreign policy guru?- when he failed at domestic development? -when he realized there was nothing he had done in Windsor to merit reelection? -when he realized the Prime Minister & President had already addressed the issue and Eddie could protray relevance
• You can call Eddie's office to deal with WHTI even though it is not city business and the President and PM are involved BUT when it involves helping Windsorites with family in Lebanon, Eddie says:"his office is not dealing with requests for help from residents with trapped family members, noting that the Lebanon crisis is not a city issue. Because of the coverage in the media, most people know to consult their members of Parliament."

OK....now that I have done the work, get going and write a BLOG!