Eddie's Border File Gridlock
It has to be Eddie's worst nightmare! An Insider speaks out.
Whether he is foolish or courageous, I am not sure. I think it is a bit of both. He is certainly frustrated and, like most of us, disappointed in the stalling, delay and inaction regardless what position one takes. It is the most serious attack on the Mayor's failure to perform on the border file that I can imagine since it gives us a glimpse of what really happened behind closed doors for years.
The comments prove what we have all suspected but was hidden from us. City Hall under this Mayor's lack of leadership is in complete disarray on the border file. Action has been replaced by posturing. Can you think of any file where the City has spent so many taxpayer millions on lawyers and consultants and has accomplished so little.
Here is the multi-billion dollar question:
- Do Gord Henderson's Three Blind Mice--Councillors Drew Dilkens, Al Halberstadt and Bill Marra--have any guts?
If Eddie did the proper thing in the City's best interest, he would take the honourable action and resign as the City's main negotiator on the border file.
After the Marko Paranosic bombshell on Saturday's front page article in the Star, does Eddie have a choice? But of course, he will not do so. His ego would get in the way. Eddie cannot admit that he has failed and is continuing to do so.
Will the Three Blind Mice and at least three others on Council finally fulfill their Municipal Act statutory duty and act as Councillors! Will they do what the Council under Mike Hurst did: have the guts to remove the Mayor effectively as the lead. Will they do more---will they appoint the Three Blind Mice as the City negotiators so the border issue can be resolved using common sense and acting in Windsor's best interest as the criteria?
Of course, Marko will be vilified over the next few days. He will be attacked viciously. We know it is going to happen. That is what takes place in this City when one dares speak out and take a position contrary to that of City Hall.
Welcome to the "enemies" club, Marko. Heck, I have personal experience as it happened to me. Ask Councillor Halberstadt how he felt when he was threatened with an "Integrity Commissioner" for writing a BLOG or a fellow Blogger in town when he was physically threatened. Ask the Three Blind Mice. Talk to Sandra about how she liked Henderson's morning column being used by the NDP at Queen's Park in the afternoon Question Period. Now you can feel like the owner of the Bridge Co.
The only question is how. Will it be some news stories by outraged Councillors who do Eddie's dirty work while he is "invisible" changing diapers, a Henderson column attacking Marko more in sorrow than in anger, an Editorial or a cartoon or all of them? I expect that Sam will have to be "unmuzzled" too in order to refute everything his former employee had to say.
Let there be no doubt about it. He had the guts to say that Eddie and Council are responsible for the border mess we are in. And since Eddie arranged for himself to be the Voice of Council by Council Resolution, there is only one person to whom the finger of blame can be pointed:
After the Marko Paranosic bombshell on Saturday's front page article in the Star, does Eddie have a choice? But of course, he will not do so. His ego would get in the way. Eddie cannot admit that he has failed and is continuing to do so.
Will the Three Blind Mice and at least three others on Council finally fulfill their Municipal Act statutory duty and act as Councillors! Will they do what the Council under Mike Hurst did: have the guts to remove the Mayor effectively as the lead. Will they do more---will they appoint the Three Blind Mice as the City negotiators so the border issue can be resolved using common sense and acting in Windsor's best interest as the criteria?
Of course, Marko will be vilified over the next few days. He will be attacked viciously. We know it is going to happen. That is what takes place in this City when one dares speak out and take a position contrary to that of City Hall.
Welcome to the "enemies" club, Marko. Heck, I have personal experience as it happened to me. Ask Councillor Halberstadt how he felt when he was threatened with an "Integrity Commissioner" for writing a BLOG or a fellow Blogger in town when he was physically threatened. Ask the Three Blind Mice. Talk to Sandra about how she liked Henderson's morning column being used by the NDP at Queen's Park in the afternoon Question Period. Now you can feel like the owner of the Bridge Co.
The only question is how. Will it be some news stories by outraged Councillors who do Eddie's dirty work while he is "invisible" changing diapers, a Henderson column attacking Marko more in sorrow than in anger, an Editorial or a cartoon or all of them? I expect that Sam will have to be "unmuzzled" too in order to refute everything his former employee had to say.
Let there be no doubt about it. He had the guts to say that Eddie and Council are responsible for the border mess we are in. And since Eddie arranged for himself to be the Voice of Council by Council Resolution, there is only one person to whom the finger of blame can be pointed:
MAYOR EDDIE FRANCIS
Our Mayor is the one responsible for the lack of action, the failure to perform, the inability to achieve results. He has not carried out the most important task for which he was elected.
- "A former top aide for Sam Schwartz, Windsor's flamboyant hired gun on border traffic, blames municipal officials, city council and Mayor Eddie Francis for a lack of action on resolving the city's truck dilemma.
"Part of the reason why I left (was) because to me there wasn't going to be any action on this," he said in an interview.
City leaders repeatedly displayed a lack of urgency on getting the ball rolling on many of the Schwartz recommendations..."
The Schwartz team sent four or five proposals to the city suggesting things to work on, he said.
"Everything went into a black hole. The lack of followup was the most frustrating thing."
Marko's big advantage is that he no longer lives in Windsor. There are many others in Windsor, successful leaders in our City, who know that he is telling the truth but are afraid to stand up for Windsor. You don't cross the Mayor and Council in a small town if you want to do business here. Of course, they are all dying anyway in this City but for the fact that most are doing their work out of town. There are few jobs here and high unemployment but they are keeping their mouths shut! What are they waiting for, the next municipal election for heaven's sake? Their businesses may not survive 3 more years of this!
Isn't it time for this fear of retribution to stop! Isn't it time for our leaders to show that they have the nerve to care about our City! BLOGGERS cannot do it alone.
Remember how it was an eternity ago when Eddie first took office. STOPDRTP had given the City the power. Mike Hurst was chased from office. Eddie became Mayor because of his consistency of his border position. The Prime Minister and Premier were eating out of our hands while the US Ambassador even promised to help pay for the solution. Council had been elected to develop a long-term solution to our border woes. It could not have been any better for Windsorites.
Then Eddie squandered everything. Snubbing Senior Levels became the norm. Schwartz 1 turned into a rallying call for a billion dollar short-term solution which was rejected almost immediately by everyone. Eddie's focus was not on the truck road but how to lever the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel to do whatever it is he wanted to do with the money he thought he could make on the project. As our economy faltered, instead of supporting the $400M Ambassador Bridge Enhancement Project and the multi-hundred million dollar access road fixes under the soon-to-be-expired BIF funds, he harrassed the Bridge Co. and threatened, or rather bluffed, lawsuits if he did not get his way. Thousands of high-paying direct and spin-off jobs are waiting for the Mayor to allow them to start as he dithers.
Oh we know the game by now....Schwartz 1 was a stall, the tunnel road to the border was a stall, Schwartz 2 is a stall. They are nothing more than bargaining chips, starting points. The destruction of Windsor goes on around us as this Mayor and a compliant Council spend time titillating us with hours of public Council debate on meaningless matters.
As I have said before, Eddie is a bureaucrat not a businessman. Henderson called him admiringly a "legal technocrat." I agree. He is not an experienced lawyer. His failure is that he is afraid to "close the deal." He would rather Plan and talk than do. If all that happens is that we are fed dreams for his two terms (seven years) as Mayor, then he cannot be blamed for anything going wrong. It was not his fault that nothing happened while he was standing up for Windsor's quality of life, it was theirs. He cannot handle criticism whatsoever---the vicious "cross-examination" attack on Alan McKinnon is proof of that.
Compare Eddie with Matty Moroun. Part of this exercise in my opinion is ego-driven. Eddie (and his Eminence Grise) thinks he can be the first one to beat him! If you want to see a small example of why Eddie cannot, then check out Saturday's Star.
Look at the back of the Canadian Flag insert sponsored by the Bridge Co. They don't talk about their dreams; they carry out their plans. While Eddie is playing border czar for the last four years as Mayor, they have ended the back-ups on Huron Church Road, quadrupled bridge capacity, come up with a workable border plan AND competitively have taken traffic away from his Tunnel where is the Chair. A-channel News stated that "Traffic volumes at the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel have plummeted sixteen percent in the past year alone."
Remember how it was an eternity ago when Eddie first took office. STOPDRTP had given the City the power. Mike Hurst was chased from office. Eddie became Mayor because of his consistency of his border position. The Prime Minister and Premier were eating out of our hands while the US Ambassador even promised to help pay for the solution. Council had been elected to develop a long-term solution to our border woes. It could not have been any better for Windsorites.
Then Eddie squandered everything. Snubbing Senior Levels became the norm. Schwartz 1 turned into a rallying call for a billion dollar short-term solution which was rejected almost immediately by everyone. Eddie's focus was not on the truck road but how to lever the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel to do whatever it is he wanted to do with the money he thought he could make on the project. As our economy faltered, instead of supporting the $400M Ambassador Bridge Enhancement Project and the multi-hundred million dollar access road fixes under the soon-to-be-expired BIF funds, he harrassed the Bridge Co. and threatened, or rather bluffed, lawsuits if he did not get his way. Thousands of high-paying direct and spin-off jobs are waiting for the Mayor to allow them to start as he dithers.
Oh we know the game by now....Schwartz 1 was a stall, the tunnel road to the border was a stall, Schwartz 2 is a stall. They are nothing more than bargaining chips, starting points. The destruction of Windsor goes on around us as this Mayor and a compliant Council spend time titillating us with hours of public Council debate on meaningless matters.
As I have said before, Eddie is a bureaucrat not a businessman. Henderson called him admiringly a "legal technocrat." I agree. He is not an experienced lawyer. His failure is that he is afraid to "close the deal." He would rather Plan and talk than do. If all that happens is that we are fed dreams for his two terms (seven years) as Mayor, then he cannot be blamed for anything going wrong. It was not his fault that nothing happened while he was standing up for Windsor's quality of life, it was theirs. He cannot handle criticism whatsoever---the vicious "cross-examination" attack on Alan McKinnon is proof of that.
Compare Eddie with Matty Moroun. Part of this exercise in my opinion is ego-driven. Eddie (and his Eminence Grise) thinks he can be the first one to beat him! If you want to see a small example of why Eddie cannot, then check out Saturday's Star.
Look at the back of the Canadian Flag insert sponsored by the Bridge Co. They don't talk about their dreams; they carry out their plans. While Eddie is playing border czar for the last four years as Mayor, they have ended the back-ups on Huron Church Road, quadrupled bridge capacity, come up with a workable border plan AND competitively have taken traffic away from his Tunnel where is the Chair. A-channel News stated that "Traffic volumes at the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel have plummeted sixteen percent in the past year alone."
The Bridge Co. did all of this with their private money and at a fraction of what Eddie would have spent. Now the Bridge Co. is ready to start their Enhancement Project to continue to make the region successful. Eddie supports gazelle feeders, consultants and lawyers at taxpayer expense while the Bridge Co. wants to spend hundreds of millions of private dollars and to create economic prosperity.
I have speculated in the past and still believe that the three levels of Government--Federal, Provincial and Municipal--are working together to stop the Bridge Co. While they may fight amongst themselves since they have differing objectives, their target against which they have united is the Ambassador Bridge Co.
I have speculated in the past and still believe that the three levels of Government--Federal, Provincial and Municipal--are working together to stop the Bridge Co. While they may fight amongst themselves since they have differing objectives, their target against which they have united is the Ambassador Bridge Co.
Don't let, as an example, snubbing--whether it is by Eddie snubbing the Senior Levels or Transport Minister Cannon not visiting with Eddie when he was recently here--or threats of lawsuits fool you. It is merely the three governments jockeying for positon after the border war ends when supposedly they have defeated the "enemy."
I lost any respect for Eddie that I had left the Sunday after Schwartz made his public presentation at the Cleary in January, 2005. On that day on Detroit television, our Mayor, Windsor's champion, in an interview conceded that the Bi-national was the final decision-maker.
He did not get my vote nor was he elected by me and others nor did I work so hard to make him Mayor for him to make a major concession like that. He was to fight for us for the long-term solution. He gave that away. He backed off. Why he did that, I still do not understand nor can I forgive! Everything he says now rings hollow to me. There is little that he says on the border file that I can believe.
It hit me like a flash that he was not working for us, for Windsorites, but was associating with the Senior Levels. I could not believe it. If his reward was to be the Tunnel and the Plaza improvements, then now he must know what it feels like to be played.
They allowed him to make the Bridge Co. the "enemy." They allowed him to stall and delay the border road. They will let him be front and centre on the EA appeals on both sides of the border. They applaud his interim control by-law and heritage designation irritants. It works for them as Eddie gets the blame and paints Eddie further into the corner. He cannot back out without losing face. And that would be a torture for our Mayor.
In the end, we are getting the Enhancement Project and the new road will lead to the Ambassador Bridge. The DRIC process is a sham....it was designed to pressure the Bridge Co. to sell out but it did not work. Ambassador Wilson was brought in before this matter turned into a Canada-US battle. He signalled at Mackinac with his speech that the Canadian Government wanted to talk with the Bridge Co. Don't forget, he was with the Government when the FIRA matter was settled with the Bridge Co. years ago so he has a history of dealing with them.
There is only question that really remains now. All the rest was foreplay: will the 80 year alliance between the Bridge Co. and Canada be allowed to remain in place to continue to make the Detroit/Windsor corridor the #1 crossing in North America or will a very large cheque be written, probably by a P3 partner of the Government, to buy out the Bridge Co.
Eddie has served his purpose and, as Marko disclosed, is irrelevant.
I lost any respect for Eddie that I had left the Sunday after Schwartz made his public presentation at the Cleary in January, 2005. On that day on Detroit television, our Mayor, Windsor's champion, in an interview conceded that the Bi-national was the final decision-maker.
He did not get my vote nor was he elected by me and others nor did I work so hard to make him Mayor for him to make a major concession like that. He was to fight for us for the long-term solution. He gave that away. He backed off. Why he did that, I still do not understand nor can I forgive! Everything he says now rings hollow to me. There is little that he says on the border file that I can believe.
It hit me like a flash that he was not working for us, for Windsorites, but was associating with the Senior Levels. I could not believe it. If his reward was to be the Tunnel and the Plaza improvements, then now he must know what it feels like to be played.
They allowed him to make the Bridge Co. the "enemy." They allowed him to stall and delay the border road. They will let him be front and centre on the EA appeals on both sides of the border. They applaud his interim control by-law and heritage designation irritants. It works for them as Eddie gets the blame and paints Eddie further into the corner. He cannot back out without losing face. And that would be a torture for our Mayor.
In the end, we are getting the Enhancement Project and the new road will lead to the Ambassador Bridge. The DRIC process is a sham....it was designed to pressure the Bridge Co. to sell out but it did not work. Ambassador Wilson was brought in before this matter turned into a Canada-US battle. He signalled at Mackinac with his speech that the Canadian Government wanted to talk with the Bridge Co. Don't forget, he was with the Government when the FIRA matter was settled with the Bridge Co. years ago so he has a history of dealing with them.
There is only question that really remains now. All the rest was foreplay: will the 80 year alliance between the Bridge Co. and Canada be allowed to remain in place to continue to make the Detroit/Windsor corridor the #1 crossing in North America or will a very large cheque be written, probably by a P3 partner of the Government, to buy out the Bridge Co.
Eddie has served his purpose and, as Marko disclosed, is irrelevant.
It is up to Ambassador Wilson to make the next move so we can bring this matter to a conclusion! The trouble is, I am not sure yet that he knows what to do.
posted by JoeBlog at 12:05 p.m.
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