120 Days Of Active Inaction

Clearly the growth industry in Windsor and Essex County is the industry of growth.

I see that the Economic Development Council is certainly spending money like it is going out of style.

It has a new CEO, Matt Fischer. If that was not enough, a new Vice-President was appointed…Mike Burton. I am not sure if his position was advertised or not since not too much has been said about him. I don’t remember anyone saying he was needed either since the Commission seems to have a very active Chair too.

Mind you, someone has to spread the fertilizer around in the economic gardens of Windsor and another is needed to feed the gazelles.

It seems as well that “three other employees were let go Thursday and provided with severance packages” and that “Roman Dzus, the current acting director, has been offered a six-month position working directly for the commission.” Whew, that is a lot of $$$ and presumably new people had to be hired to replace them.

I wonder with this additional staff if it will be necessary for them to expand their offices space or perhaps move to new digs. Too bad that the Canderel space was taken up! That would have been a nice location. Oh well, if Chrysler Canada HQ moves out, then there will be a lot of room there.

I wonder if they will hire a Webmaster. Who am I to be a spoilsport but in checking on their website, the last big news was in December, 2006 “Remo Mancini elected chair of development commission board” and the Sutherland call centre jobs. And the last big win was in July, 2005! It also looks like Development Activity ceased in 2004.

I have to tell you that I am disappointed so far in what has been accomplished and I hope that more is achieved.

When Mr.Fischer was appointed, on February 16, it was said:

• “And while today is his first on the job, Fischer has already prepared a first draft of a report he'll deliver to the economic development commission Saturday, setting out a 120-day action plan and outlining his plans to restructure the office with a stronger focus on business attraction and retention.”

On the 17th it was said,

• “Fischer, who will deliver a report today to the development commission board outlining his 120-day action plan, said he wants to focus on business retention and expansion as well as small business development along with business attraction.”

I was surprised not to see that draft described in the Star. In the Star story of February 20, not a word was said about that 120 day action plan. In fact, it seemed that there must have been a horrible scheduling error. On the Saturday, he was meeting with “community leaders in Leamington” learning that “the greenhouse industry burns natural gas to create carbon dioxide to stimulate plant growth in summer. As a byproduct, they can generate electricity to sell to the grid to help offset demand from air conditioners” and talking about agri-business.

It was not until March 2 that the Star reported:

• “Reorganizing the development commission office, adding staff and conducting an inventory of "shovel-ready" industrial land are the top priorities for the new chief executive officer of the Windsor-Essex County Development Commission.
  
  Matthew Fischer, who has been on the job for two weeks, unveiled a 120-day action plan Thursday and said "this is housekeeping. What's really important is what we do after these 120 days, but this has to be a starting point…”
  
  Fischer unveiled his ambitious restructuring plans a day after sources in London said that city is poised to land two auto parts suppliers, creating as many as 600 new jobs within four months."

Whew, I am overwhelmed compared with what is going on in London. I can see the shovelling going on in Windsor already but I do not think it is land that is being shovelled.

Is this guy ever moving hard. More staff have to be hired. That interview process is really time-consuming. I wonder how much his budget will be increased this year alone. He certainly will have to lay-out the space too for all of these extra bodies. This will take a long time too for heaven’s sake and the packing and moving time cannot be done in a day.

However, he was about 2 weeks late with his action plan. Not a very good sign on his first major task. I wonder if Mr. Mancini was pleased or the rest of the Board members. Geeez, I thought this guy said that he wanted to put his theories into practice “in a real-life, fast-paced environment.” I guess he can wait a while after all.

Perhaps I could help out a teeny-weeny-bit about the industrial land to get him started. If he goes to the Choosewindsor.com website, there is a link that reads “Industrial sites/buildings.” Perhaps if the old staff had not been fired, then the new CEO might have known what was already done.

Mind you, he should know it all anyway since he had been “retained to carry out a review of the programs and services of the Windsor Essex County Development Commission” previously. And Mancini said “Fischer, who has prepared reports for the local commission in the past, clearly "knew the Windsor community better than any other candidate."

Now excuse me if I am confused. It now looks like real action won’t get started for another 120 days. He has to do all of this restructuring first.

Now this does not make sense to me. I don’t get it. The man knows the area but won’t start doing anything significant for 4 months. In other words, not anything significant until July. Now I know that Mr. Fischer is house-hunting and that takes time but he should have no trouble getting a good deal with all of the people downsizing their homes since the economy is so bad. I am sure that a guaranteed salary of $169,000 for three years will help out in obtaining a mortgage if he needs one.

If you will recall, in the Windsor–Essex County Regional Economic Development Strategy Report, it did not seem that jobs were all that important anyway:

• "Because of the nature of the region’s strategy, traditional performance measures such as the number of new plants attracted, or the number of jobs retained, albeit significant, should not be the primary indicators of success. These could actually be counterproductive by driving the wrong behaviour."

Jobs are counter-productive. Then why did we have to hire anyone? I just cannot keep thinking that there has to be a reason for all of this delay and seeming inaction.

Hmmmm. You don’t think….. naw it could not be that.

I know that there is an election campaign in October. Can you imagine the help it would give someone around that time if good news on the economic development front started to pour in and lots of jobs were created.

Forget that, I am just too damned cynical after all of this time. No one would dare play politics on this issue. I mean weren't we told about two and a half weeks ago on the same day of the Chrysler bloodletting by the big front-page Gord Henderson story that:

• "a key player in the information technology field will soon unveil plans for a downtown Windsor call centre with more than 500 jobs.
  
  Business sources say the announcement, to be made in the next two to three weeks if there are no last-minute hitches, would involve leased office space on Ouellette Avenue and, combined with the St. Clair College Cleary campus, would boost pedestrian traffic and have a significant economic impact downtown."

I hope someone makes that announcement soon. Those gazelles get hungry fast.