Flip-Flop On The Toldo-Rosati Arena

Now don't tell me that the E-machine is in control or knows what it is doing after reading the Gord Henderson column yesterday morning. It is damage control big time!

They just cannot do anything right it seems. Lucky Bill Marra. If this keeps up, he won't have to do anything when he runs for mayor. The failures of the E-machine itself will point out the flaws and weaknesses of the Mayor as CEO of Windsor in a way that no one could ever express. He cannot even ensure that his campaign team knows what it is doing.

I do not think I have ever seen Gord Henderson change positions so quickly. Well actually I have. And it had to do with the arena too. It occurred when Gord totally undercut his Councillor buddy, Alan Halberstadt, on refurbishing the Barn:

On February 9, 2006, Henderson wrote:

• "... I can't see the city going down that road again. Minus an urban village, it would be up to city taxpayers to fund a new arena. Trouble is, we tried going-it-alone in 2002 with Mike Hurst as mayor, discovered the cost would be an unsupportable $49 million and ended up with a bill for $3.5 million.
  
  Windsorites would go nuts, and rightly so, if any politician were to suggest duplicating that process. But there is another avenue. Councillor Alan Halberstadt, my old canoe mate, is pushing for an expansion and retrofit of Windsor Arena to create a respectable home for our Junior A hockey franchise.
  
  Halberstadt argues, and he has drawings from an astute city planner to back this up, that the 80-year-old barn, considered a priceless heirloom by true hockey nuts like Don Cherry, is rock solid and could be transformed into a 5,000-seat arena with all the toys for a fraction of the cost of a new rink."
  
  

Then on February, 18, 2006 Henderson wrote:

• "And now that the city has financial wiggle room, Francis appears set to invest some of that freed-up capital, not to mention his accumulated political capital, in fulfilling a city dream. At a strategic planning session tentatively set for next Saturday at Willistead Manor, Francis will make a pitch for the city to get behind building a new ice rink for the Spitfires.
  
  In an interview this week, the mayor all but rejected Coun. Alan Halberstadt's proposal to upgrade Windsor Arena and made it clear he'll be seeking council backing for one final push to replace the 80-year-old Barn.
  
  "My position is quite clear. I want to get one done. This city has demonstrated not only that it wants it, but that it needs it," said Francis...
  
  He wouldn't put it in those words. But the message I took from his comments is that the city... might have the means to move well beyond the $15 million already budgeted for a new arena, without increasing the load on city taxpayers....
  
  Now or never. And if it's now, what a coup that would be for city politicians in an election year. "

Henderson, unfortunately for Eddie, spilled the beans. He called the Mayor a "a legal technocrat who is obsessed with detail, due process and getting all the T's crossed no matter how infuriatingly long it takes."

Exactly. He is a bloody bureaucrat not a leader. He dithers and wastes time and money studying issues to death. He seems almost paralysed, afraid to decide anything in case he is wrong (Gee Eddie, after going to the baseball game the other night, you should learn that you can be a multi-millionaire super star by getting a hit, on average, just over 3 times out of 10 trips at bat!). The border, the urban village, economic development, even the Youth Council, to name a few, are examples of "pretend" action for almost three long years under the Francis administration. The arena, frankly, is the best example of a Mayor who is incapable of making a decision and acting on it.

I said it before "That is our Mayor: all talk and no action on anything. He is a true bureaucrat, process oriented not action oriented. He studies but never executes."

The Toldo-Rosati families should throw in the towel now. Henderson has just set out in detail what is wrong with their project. Some of the problems he set out were new ones to me but will prove fatal to the deal in the end and act as justification for approving Eddie's East End arena.

From what I heard through my contacts, the reason the families went public was out of sheer exasperation! Do you really think that a Tony Toldo would have to use the pages of the Windsor Star to negotiate a deal. The fact that he went public speaks volumes about this Mayor.

There was the warning again---keep your mouth shut before the election if you want to get anywhere in this City :

• "The last few days turned into a finger-pointing exercise that advanced no one's interests. Far better for the proponents to focus on nailing down the Spits, laying other concerns to rest and winning over individual councillors. There are times when quiet diplomacy beats banging the drums and this is one of them.

As for me, I think that this deal just cost Eddie the election. You just don't cross Tony Toldo twice. How many recall the first time?