Where's Perry Mason

It's time for a quiz.

I have been giving you lessons in Windsor Star journalism for some time now. I have tried to teach you that when something suddenly appears in the Star, especially if it is City related, and more particularly Ambassador Bridge related, we are being subliminally set up. Usually what happens is that there are a series of pre-event stories designed to get us to think a certain way before the event.

Let's take Friday's Star.....what page and what story is a perfect example and what will be the event that triggered this pre-event story.

QUESTION 1

If you said: out of the blue and for no apparent reason we see this big story on the top of Page 2 of Friday's Star with the big bold font headline "West end heritage protection touted" then you get a gold star!

The story continues:

• "Future demolitions and developments in Sandwich Town will require on-site archeologists if Coun. Ron Jones has his way.
  
  "We have discovered lots of artifacts in that area," Jones said Thursday. "Artifacts of the First Nations people. Artifacts of the Underground Railroad. So we're concerned about the whole area..."

Those borders include land owned by the Ambassador Bridge, which has proposed building a new six-lane span just west of the existing link.

• "When we have been doing construction on our properties, we've had an archeologist on site," said Dan Stamper, president of the Detroit International Bridge Company. "We've been doing that for months now."

QUESTION 2

Ok now what is the event: that could be tougher but why don't we say the demolition of vacant houses that the Ambassdor Bridge owns that would be used in their enhancement project. After all, there were complaints about these homes at the Public Open House sessions that the Bridge Co. ran and the Bridge Co. must be applying to Council under the demolition by-law to take them down (Actually the Bridge Co. does not have to do so but are probably doing it out of courtesy to the Council as a good corporate citizen and taxpayer.)

Don't you think that the timing of "a draft report called the Sandwich Heritage Conservation District Study, discussed at a Windsor Heritage Committee meeting Wednesday night" is very co-incidental. I would not be surprised if the City already knew what the Bridge Co. wanted to do and so ensured that they had a nice report in their hands to fall back on before they allowed the Bridge Co. to appear in front of them!

I would think that the matter will be heard shortly given the Star article, perhaps as early as May 22 (It's not on the agenda yet.)

You know that this is all childishness. It is an irritant. Brian Masse's efforts in Ottawa on Bill C-3 ironically undercut the City's position as far as I am concerned. The Heritage designation was designed to come into play right after the 2-year Interim Control by-law expires.

In my opinion, this can be viewed as the City trying to use its municipal powers to hurt its competitor on border crossing (The City being a competitor was one of the big revelations to many people that came out of the John Fairley interview I was told ie the City was a competitor with the Tunnel)

But it is more than that. For four years now, this Mayor and two Councils have not dealt with the border issue to arrive at a long-term solution. Oh they played with the Schwartz Report but it was merely a stall document while Eddie worked on his big Tunnel deal.

What has the result been:

• no proper relationship with the Senior Levels so that Councillor Valentinis can keep asking why Windsor is being ignored


• $300M in BIF funds wasted since the time-period has almost expired on the program and no road is proposed yet to be built


• 10,000 plus high-paying construction construction and spin-off jobs for road building and bridge building lost


• an anti-business attitude on the part of Council (forget about the union fears...at least they are trying to appear reasonable some times)


• a message being given out that Windsor does not function so why would anyone want to talk to the Gazelle feeders.

Let's see what happens about the demolition of the houses at Council. Although I do not wish to jinx the application, I almost hope that the Bridge Co. does not get permission. Obviously that would trigger a lawsuit between the City and the Bridge Co., its "enemy!" That was a term that the Bridge Co. people found most offensive.

Remember the news story about cameras in Ontario court rooms? Wouldn't this trial be a doozie! Can you imagine Councillors Jones and Postma on the stand being asked questions. That would be interesting to watch.

However, the big TV ratings would come when Eddie Francis took the stand. I can almost see the smile on Dan Stamper's face, when his Perry Mason asks Eddie the first of many questions!