Capitol Theatre Follies

Hahahahahahaha...the dénouement of the drama at the Capitol is about to take place. And I was absolutely correct in my prediction. No wonder no one called me to help solve the Capitol mess. It had been solved for a long time already except someone forgot to tell us.

If Councillors are not absolutely furious at how they were played, especially after the recent Eddie scoldings, then they are truly nothing more than wusses! They were made to look like fools again while the Mayor was conveniently absent from the Council meeting dealing with the Capitol, changing diapers.

After all...anything that works for Eddie.

You remember what happened with the strange deal put forward in the Memo of the City's outside solicitor. Now you know why a solicitor-client memo that is normally kept secret was revealed. It was disclosed to work up Councillors into a frenzy so that when Eddie puts forward the real deal, it will be accepted as a great victory.

Why Councillors were so shocked and disgusted: absurd, a sham, "it gets even more ridiculous," "People who suggested this should be rather embarrassed," "The city would be obliged to run the theatre for that period [five years] and essentially be responsible for any operating losses."

As I pointed out at the time, Henderson in his column gave away the ending:

• "The disturbing thing is that those who spawned it surely understood it was a political non-starter and would be rejected out of hand."

Exactly! That was the whole point of the exercise.

It was all a set-up and we are the fools. Eddie's baby was not the only human born at the time: 200,000 Windsorite suckers were born also if you believe what happened. That Eminence Grise is good though but becoming too obvious.

Here is what is going to happen as "leaked" by that Leakor par excellence, Councillor Halberstadt, who put an Ed Agnew letter on his BLOG outlining the deal:

• ---"The Capitol Theatre Board of Directors would accept payment from the City equal to the creditors that have put us into bankruptcy, which approximates $310,000, including trustees fees.
  ---All of the debtors would be paid.
  ---The trustee would now be out of the equation.
  ---The Capitol Theatre transfers the ownership of the assets to the City of Windsor.
  ---The City of Windsor appoints its own Board of Directors, still retaining the entity Capitol Theatre & Arts Centre Inc.
  ---The Capitol Theatre & Arts Centre Inc. is now entitled, once again, to the anonymous bequest which now amounts to approximately $240,000.
  ---At this point, the City of Windsor owns the Capitol Theatre and all its assets outright, has an appointed Board under its control and the entity is still entitled as an arts organization, to the bequest. At this point the net cost to the city taxpayers is approximately $70,000. ($310,000 less $240,000)
  
  In addition, there may or may not be an obligation to I believe, three employees, that were permanent full-time employees at the time of bankruptcy. Their wages were paid in full up to the point of bankruptcy; however, they may be entitled to severance pay. I would say the maximum amount that would be paid out would be less than $50,000. So at this point the City would have an additional investment in the facility of $120,000. ($70,000 plus $50,000)
  
  The next step would be to have discussions with St. Clair College. I have had correspondence with the President John Strasser and he is of the opinion that the Capitol Theatre & Arts Centre can be operated at substantially less cost than before because of the synergies created as a result of their operating the Chrysler Theatre. There would be no need for an additional General Manager, an additional bookkeeper, an additional marketing person, an additional box office individual, the technical requirements would be reduced substantially, the maintenance of the building would basically fall under the maintenance of all of the education facilities owned by St. Clair College. Therefore, the general thought is that if the City were prepared to pay the operating cost for a period of two years, which in my opinion would be a maximum of $500,000, St. Clair College would operate it for those two years and then it would be part of the educational system. There would be no further responsibility of the municipal taxpayer."

Gee, Ed Agnew's letter was dated June 28, the day of Henderson's column and 3 days after the great Council debate. Amazingly as well, the Star reported on June 26 that Agnew "has stepped down as the city's grants commissioner -- but don't take it as a sign he will be slowing down."

Strangely, his letter was not revealed by the Great Leakor until almost 3 weeks after it was received, after the big meeting of arts group in Windsor who were all so upset about the Capitol dying and the sad story that the Film festival was in jeopardy. Poor Trustee Funtig--was the so-called desire to remove him as Trustee all part of the drama too? Please do not tell me that Councillor Dilkens was in on the drama too as the designated actor for Council given his sterling performance at the Capitol meeting. I would be so disappointed in him. Check him out at http://artwindsor.org/?cat=8

Do you see how Windsorites are being played as suckers. I can just hear it at the next Council meeting:

• We cannot let the Capitol die can we and look how much it would cost us otherwise if the City ran it. Imagine the synergies, the reviyalization of downtown, the use of the bus terminal if all of those arts students joined the Cleary students.

Someone at City Hall will merely have to plagiarize the Cleary justification language in order to get Councillors onside to save their political scalps!

As for me being right, check out my BLOG of July 04, 2007 "Suckered Once Again," where I predicted what would happen and that it would involve St. Clair. (Oh, I mentioned the University just to throw people off track to protect my inside moles who fed me the information.)

I hope by now, dear reader, you have learned never to trust anything that comes out of City Hall. Never take anything said at face-value. Isn't that why you really read the BLOGs in town!

And the Capitol Follies---it was all about how to give taxpayer money to St. Clair and get a standing ovation for doing so!