Plan, Pretend, Divert and Execute

“Mayor threatens lawsuit”

It’s all BS. You know it, I know it and Windsorites know it. But it is more than just mere election posturing to help the incumbents get re-elected. David Estrin will be happy for the new legal fees while poor Gridlock Sam better find another engineer or he might not be part of this to tell us to THINK BIG again.

It’s all part of “Plan, Pretend, Divert and Execute.” I threw in an extra word. Plan, since Eddie is the “legal technocrat” who thinks ahead.

A friend of mine met a Senior Councillor the other day and the Councillor said that he was surprised that there has been an absence of public outcry against the use of the TalbotRoad/Huron Church corridor and not more support for tunnelling. Isn’t that the City position that he was talking about? In other words, he was saying, NO ONE CARES.

It is a surprise isn’t it that NO ONE CARES?

How can Eddie dare say “most don't know proposed bridge routes all include widened Huron Church.” I hear insiders at City Hall call Eddie the Great Communicator. His Eminence Grise is a master political manipulator having had years of experience. They know how to get the story across and they have. The reality is that NO ONE CARES.

Come on now, if the citizens do not know what is going on along the corridor by now, they never will. The City has been involved in a direct and public campaign of scare-mongering. Remember the letters to residents along the corridor, the confusing session at the South Windsor arena, the Tecumseh meeting with Sam’s “Zone of Mass Destruction” drawings covering the area beside the “DRIC roadway” like the fallout from a nuclear blast! How many times have we heard about “quality of life,” tunnels, and “we deserve the best.”

Of course the public is not totally stupid as City Hall thinks. People bought their homes near where trucks have travelled for years, especially in the new subdivisions, and have lived with those impacts for years. They made a conscious decision to buy a home there. Oh yes, the scare-mongering worked until the DRIC meeting where home-owners found out that their places were not going to be expropriated or be negatively impacted and so theywent back to enjoying the summer. NO ONE CARES

Why else was the tunnelling protest so anti-climactic with so few turning out in spite of the vast coverage begging them to attend? Why else would Masse and Comartin have conceded the route in their press conference of last week? No wonder Eddie had to come out guns ablazing—sort of. Oh he will send a tough letter, ---“ The city will write a letter to the provincial and federal governments, asking their positions”--- but he won’t sue. [Actually, he might now to prove me wrong ] NO ONE CARES

Eddie is pretending that he is interested in the corridor. He isn’t right now. He has the Tunnel on his mind and the hundreds of millions of dollars he is going to collect as he fools the Senior Levels into building his Tunnel Plaza Improvements at their cost and then does his financing deal.

There was a Freudian slip in the Star story by the way and that inherent conflict of interest of the Mayor as Mayor and as Chair of the Windsor Tunnel Commission:

• "Our No. 1 priority is to defend and protect the interests of the city of Windsor and the residents of the city of Windsor."

The #1 priority for Eddie is NOT people but the City’s interest ie the investment opportunity at the Tunnel. A La his comment respecting the strikers when they turned down the first Casino contract!

He has planned this for a long time, culminating in the Phase 1 Agreement on the border over 2 years ago.

He is continuing to divert attention AWAY from the Tunnel (Do you remember seeing huge ads to attend the Tunnel Plaza meetings). The Schwartz Report was nothing more than the Grand Diversion designed as a political document to make everyone come onside to support it or fight against it, it did not matter to Eddie.

When Schwartz finally fell apart after buying time for over a year, we had the new, “old” strategy that will fall apart again but it accomplishes the objective. As you must know by now, buying time is the Eddie strategy as we have seen with interim control by-laws and giving the Raceway all the time in the world to hang themselves as the new Casino gets built and the East End arena is justified.

The new, “old” strategy, as has been done in the past, is to focus on Talbot Road/Huron Church. Bring up the ghost of Reports past, Sam Schwartz, and get the tree-huggers into a frenzy again:

• “Francis said the city has been pushing DRIC to consider an environmental assessment that would examine "all options" including tunnelling. He said the Schwartz proposal, which was commissioned by the city and completed by New York traffic expert Sam Schwartz, moves the traffic off city streets and creates a tunnel under the Ojibway natural area. "They've not even looked at that alternative," Francis said.”

Are we that dumb to fall for this again? I will talk about its significance shortly.

No wonder we had that strange Star story on August 28 that popped up out of nowhere talking about the Bridge Co., the Detroit Mayor and the Tunnel. [Moroun tunnel bid 'in works': Detroit mayor plans to pursue takeover deal, official says]. Scare-mongering Detroit Council I guess to stop the Bridge Co.’s project so his can go forward. Pressuring the Feds along with the Province to stop the Bridge Co. so his can go forward.

Trouble is for Eddie, and he is just starting to recognize it because it was not part of his intellectually-conceived Business Model, is that Eddie has probably seen the vast majority of the Tunnel worth vanish as the Tunnel miseries have been disclosed over the past few weeks. Eddie’s major problem is that he cannot execute. He is afraid to do so because he might be wrong and then the failure sticks to him. That cannot be allowed.

But let’s be generous, and assume that Eddie will get his Tunnel dream. Of course the threatened lawsuit is to get the Senior Levels on-side. You help me out on the Tunnel eg buy off DCTC. As I mentioned in a recent BLOG, someone has to because DCTC have 14 years left on their contract and have paid out lots of money. Then the City won’t sue and muck up the border.

After that is wrapped up, Eddie can focus on getting his way on the new “public” bridge. The answer has already been given in the Star. You just need to be able to recognize it in advance. The Feds are already going to do it so it is NO big gamble on Eddie’s part. If I know it, so does Eddie! It is not as Eddie said,

• “Francis said the issue could be resolved quickly if they agreed to tunnel the entire route.
  
  "They can step in and say, 'We're going to take care of it and protect the community.”

That is not going to happen because of cost and because technology will virtually eliminate dangerous particulates. That is known already.

Take the extreme position and then back-off. That is how a litigation lawyer Perry Mason negotiates isn’t it? You never start at your real position. The answer after some trade-offs will be a variation of “One of the options along the Huron Church Road route includes tunnelling for 65 per cent of the route” provided the City’s Brighton Beach property is also used and the Bridge Co. is stopped.

But how will Eddie get the bridge and plaza he wants and what will be the justification. I was dumb as a reader wrote. I missed it. As my reader said:

• “You neglected to mention how the new arena will fit into the joint 2020 Windsor-Detroit Olympic bid! And they need that land out by the Racetrack for the Olympic Village! It'll be so conveniently located being so close to the scenic Zug Island bridge. [The City has been working on the project since February he told me]

So I tried to fit the Olympics into the mix and it worked quite well too. Remember at Super Bowl time the story for a CFL franchise and the stadium---that will be part of the “pretend” grand over-all scheme too. Get the Senior Levels to buy into that too. They build Olympic stadia don’t they and arenas?

How else can one explain the nonsensical Star story that ran on September 02, 2006? Remember that Eddie starts his planning a year or so before anyone has figured out what his real intentions are. I am just pointing it out to you, dear reader, so you can say “I told you so” at cocktail party small talk time :

• “Olympics a Super Bowl followup?
  Dave Battagello
  
  On the heels of Super Bowl XL in Detroit, rumours keep spreading the city will soon form a committee to explore pursuing the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
  
  And Windsor would be front and centre of any potential bid thanks to the idea that a two-nation Olympics may appeal to the selection committee. Many reports have cited Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick as initiating the Olympic effort and that he plans to form a committee to explore the possibility.”

The story goes on:

• “But the idea Detroit could host the 2020 Olympics is considered far too rich for a city on the verge of being unable to pay its monthly bills, said a spokesman for Kilpatrick this week.
  
  "The mayor said it would cost $1 billion to put on an Olympics and we don't have those type of revenues," said Matt Allen, Kilpatrick's press secretary. "So there is no discussion on this coming from our office.
  
  "Some entity has been out there starting this, but it's not us.”

Here is how the Olympics will be used for the bridge pitch. The Senior Levels will roar in laughter at first but once they think about it, it can be used to give the people “circuses” and can provide justification. Trust me, we will be caught up in the grips of Olympic fever right after the election…just like Super Bowl fever {yawn}

We need the bridge NOW to be built by 2013. How else can we realistically make a proposal to the Olympic Committee if the border does not work. We need the hotels and facilities on both sides of the border as was shown during Super Bowl and we need a proper and redundant bridge and infrastructure because of the security concerns. And do not forget Dwight Duncan’s $500 million Gong Show money which will be available after 2010, after Dwight is re-elected on the public bridge/Olympics ticket!

Who cares if it is all make-believe. It can work.

My head hurts now thinking about all of the permutations and combinations. Eddie has had several years to think about it; I have only had a morning.

But what if Eddie fails to execute, again. What if he really sues to show he is the MAN, and a tough guy to boot! Who loses out?

Obviously, Windsor does. Who the hell is going to invest in a Community where the border does not work and will not for years while the case goes slowly through the legal process? No wonder Eddie has no interest in doing anything with an Economic Development Commission at this time. They would be laughed out of any Company’s office if they tried to pitch Windsor at this time!

More importantly, and this will ultimately be the end of our Mayor’s ambitions, Michigan and Detroit will care. Do you really think that they will sit idly by and see their State and City be devastated by the actions of some small town Ontario Mayor with grand ambitions? The Governor, the Legislature and the Detroit Mayor and Council will not let this happen. Neither will the President.

In the end finally, and we can only pray, neither will the Government of Canada!

For Windsor's sake, SOMEONE HAD BETTER CARE.