News Of Interest

Some news stories for you to consider

COULD ALINDA KILL EDDIE'S HOPES

Someone has to pay Alinda to get rid of their Tunnel operating agreement or they are staying around until 2020. And I expect that the price will not be low considering that Alinda just made a deal.

Can you imagine....Windsor pays out US$75M upfront and can get no revenue until 2020 from the US side......Wow the tolls will really have to be high to cover the interest costs alone (unless of course taxpayers get hit with the bill).

Here is what is happening to the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan's possible takeover of a port terminal in NYC as reported in TTNews Express. Alinda could play hardball too depending on what they paid for the right to operate the Tunnel.

Perhaps this is DCTC's revenge on Eddie now.

• "Group May Pull Out of N.Y. Port Deal
  
  The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan may abandon a proposed takeover of a big New York port terminal because of a fee dispute with the port authority, the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper reported Monday.
  
  The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wants a $45.7 million payment from Orient Overseas Ltd. before it transfers the lease on a Staten Island container terminal to the Toronto-based pension fund, the paper reported.
  
  The pension fund agreed last year to pay $2.4 billion to acquire four terminals from Orient Overseas, including two in Vancouver, British Columbia, and one in New Jersey.
  
  The group has received approval for three of the properties, but the New York component of the deal, valued at $470 million, appears in jeopardy, the newspaper reported.
  
  On Friday, Orient Overseas attempted to salvage the transaction by promising to pay a $5 million fee and as much as $17 million for future improvements, but that offer that was rejected by the port officials, the paper said.
  
  Teachers and Orient Overseas plan to send a letter to the Port Authority today offering further improvements to try to complete the deal, the Globe and Mail reported."

GRAD HOUSE

I see a legal challenge was being considered to stop its demolition.

I had spoken to a couple of grad students recently about what could be done and mentioned that the Law School had a "pro bono" group that could help out.

Moreover, it would be interesting to challenge the City on the decision not to give the building "heritage" status. A certain Councillor should learn to be careful what he says!

Anyway...it's too late since the University tore the house down. What will the "heritage" defender, Councillor Jones, say of this action. Oh I forgot, the building was not in Sandwich but in another part of his Ward. He's too busy still trying to find a bank and a drug store for Sandwich.

LONDON, ENGLAND IN MAY

It's a very nice time of the year there.

I expect that our Gazelle keepers will have to fly there to accept the Financial Times award on behalf of Windsor. If they play their cards right and have a good travel agent, they can schedule a tour over most of Europe at no extra cost on plane fare to shout out the advantages of Windsor.

It's a much nicer trip than going with Minister Pupatello out west in winter to get jobs!

But what is the point of going anyway to convince someone to come here. I thought that only 1 new job out of 100 created would come from an outside investor.

Here is the funny part about the award: are the people who did the work to convince the Magazine to award the prize to Windsor still working at the Commission any more or have some or all of them been let go? Weird eh!

Imagine the increased size of the wrongful dismissal awards too by their success if they were terminated and have a lawyer involved. Ouch!

VON PROGRAM TO END

I saw this on CKLW's website:

• "The local Victorian Order of Nurses is ending the postpartum and infant parenting program. It's due to a lack of funding. Since it began in 2003, the postpartum and infant parenting program has helped more than 16-hundred people."

It's a real shame.

I am not sure exactly what the VON program is here. When my kids were born, we used the VON service in Toronto to come around for a few weeks just to make sure everything was OK. I remember that the nurse saw that my son had a virus that the hospital missed when he was checked out so that we were able to deal with it right away.

It felt good and comforting for both of us that we had a professional come to our home so we could ask questions and get answers right after the babies were born.

BURGERS AND BEER

A reader sent this note to me:

• "You mention again the possibility of Burger King at Goyeau relocating as part of the proposed Tunnel Plaza 'improvements'. I would note that the Beer Stores throughout the city have been renovated to a new self serve style with a notable exception at Windsor Ave. Could this be a coincidence that the money comes lately to this location or, are the Brewer's Retail folks not wanting to waste money on renovations that will be hit with a wrecking ball in the near future?"

It looks like it will be knocked down IF the project moves forward. I just looked at the proposed plans that the City presented at their last open house

BEWARE OF COLUMNISTS BERING TUNNEL GIFTS

From a City newspaper that should know about tunnels, the Boston Herald:

• "From 1802 on, visionaries in Britain and France agitated for a tunnel under the English Channel, 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. A tunnel was finally opened in 1994. It is used every year by 8.2 million rail passengers, 2 million cars, 1.3 million trucks, 77,000 buses and shippers of 1.8 million tons of freight.
  
  Despite operating in one of the most prosperous and heavily populated areas in the world, the Channel Tunnel loses money every year. Its $20 billion cost was 80 percent over budget; its passenger traffic has been only 38 percent of the initial forecast (and freight use 24 percent).
  
  The Bering Strait, face it, connects nothing with nothing in one of the world’s nastiest climates. There is no reason to think these promoters of a 3,700-mile link are any better forecasters than the folks who put a tunnel on the 213-mile route between London and Paris, and every reason to conclude that the cost of big infrastructure projects is always low-balled - Boston’s Big Dig a notorious case in point. The Bering tunnel money could be put to much more productive use elsewhere."