Interesting Thoughts

Just before the weekend, I had these thoughts that you might find interesting:

GRADING THE ACTING WORSHIPS

Who will be the big COGECO mayoral star after the next election? Council on Monday night is drama and theatre after all not substance. It is televised and watched by more people than one would think. One needs to have a TV personality these days too to be successful.

When the Mayor is away whether it is for a few minutes while he has a break or if he is away because his wife had a baby or he has to fly off somewhere to meet some very important person, the Mayor is replaced by an Acting Mayor.

My understanding is that there is a schedule that determines who will be the Acting Mayor at any given Council meeting.

Now since Eddie is not going to run for Mayor again, we have to start looking at Councillors as potential candidates for Mayor. One thing we should consider is how they run Council meetings and how they look on TV. So let me give you a short impression of several of the Councillors so far as they became: YOUR ACTING WORSHIP.

Councillor Halberstadt did not do very well for someone who has been on Council for so long. He seemed very disorganized as he worked his way through the agenda. Needs more practice so if Eddie stays away more, he should improve.

As for the former CBC TV Star, Councillor Hadfield, he seemed very relaxed in the Chair but then again he is used to reading scripts so he would have little trouble with what he was required to say. He ought to stop with his little jokes since after awhile they became tiresome.

The Dean of Council, Councillor Valentinis, came in somewhere between the other two. He almost lost control of his meeting but regained it during some of the hot and heavy questioning during the Junction debate. He also saved Brian Masse from some unflattering comments. Not as firm as he could have been but he is such a nice guy that it would be hard for him to be that tough.

Stay tuned for more Mayoral candidate reviews

STOP INTERIMING AND START BREATHING THE TUNNEL

Poor Mark Galvin. He got fingered and became the new Executive Director, Windsor Tunnel Commission on an interim basis. What a strange title.

I assume he got the job because he was involved in the Tunnel Plaza Improvement project. Whatever happened to that project by the way after notice of an open house was pulled in the last minute months ago under very strange circumstances.

He has been in the job for about a month. I have no idea what his job description is but for his sake I hope it does NOT include getting traffic back up.

For the upteenth month in a row since I started looking at numbers, Tunnel traffic numbers compared with last year are DOWN again.

Total traffic volumes are down over 400,000 vehicles, most of them cars obviously, or about 15% I have heard.

Commercial buses which I assume include tour buses are down compared with last June so the Casino must be sharing the pain of decreased tourism.

So Eddie wanted $US75M for a declining asset. No wonder the Feds backed off. Thank goodness that Mark is around and can take the blame if the Tunnel turns out not to be worth that amount now. It cannot be Eddie's fault can it!

USUALLY RELIABLE SOURCES

I wonder who Gord's inside source is. Not only did he/she make Gord's column, he/she made the Star Editorial pages as well:

• "According to informed sources who spoke to The Star's Gord Henderson,"

Now it is tough enough trying to scrounge information from inside moles but to have to compete with the Star for publicity is unfair tactics. I can only offer recognition in my BLOG...they get all of Windsor when they spill their guts with Gord.

BLOW TO ONTARIO AUTO INDUSTRY

An interesting story but a troubling one from the Financial Post:

• "But this year, whether intended or not, the discount programs may have another target: Attracting the attention of what appears to be a growing number of Canadians who believe they can get a better deal on a vehicle in the United States. A typical vehicle costs $5,842, or 17%, more in Canada than in the United States, according to an analysis done last year by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants. Ford's Escape Limited, a mainstay in the compact-SUV segment, costs 21% more here, DesRosiers found.
  
  "It's much cheaper to buy vehicles in the States than it is in Canada," said Alex Rosten, an analyst at auto research firm Edmunds.com...
  
  Sales and service agreements between dealers and automakers in North America prevent dealers from knowingly selling a vehicle for export purposes. However, third parties have stepped in as intermediaries to facilitate such transactions. Individuals are free to buy in the United States and drive the vehicle home, paying the appropriate Canadian taxes and duty. Mr. Nay said the procedure is easier than many people realize."

IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

Don't you just hate it when you come up with a great idea and then someone takes it, passes it off as their own and gets the credit for it.

Now you know how the Bridge Co. feels.

Years ago, they engineered the City's WALTS Road proposal at the request of then Transport Minister David Collenette at an amount of under $300M, co-incidentally the BIF amount. That proposal became the basis of both the Schwartz route and the DRIC Road but rarely does the Mayor mention that.

Dan Stamper admitted recently that they never should have gone into the road proposal mode since all it gave them was heart-ache. Whatever they proposed would make someone mad at them as DRIC and the City have found out. The Bridge Co. learned the hard way that it is GOVERNMENTS' job to design and build roads to their bridge and theirs to make the border crossing work. No wonder that Eddie stalls and demands the impossible. In this way he does not make a decision and forces the Senior Levels to impose one.

Accordingly, it is NOT Eddie's fault if someone gets mad and he cannot be criticized by anyone. His tactic is to deliberately force the Senior Levels to walk away from Windsor and take their cash with them or to decide what to do. He can then mouth off with no responsibility. That's called Francis-style leadership, or rather lack thereof.

Of course, we can see how much Governments have accomplished on building the BIF road....5 years of nothing so that the $300M BIF funds program is almost over and the money is gone along with the thousands of jobs.

Now enough time has gone by that either DRIC “thinks” that a Parkway and an enhanced one to boot were their ideas or that everyone will forget who suggested it in the first place.

No credit for the Bridge Co. that they were RIGHT.

SIBLEY'S LAW

Let's see, Windsor has its regular police force. Then we have health enforcement officers who go after purveyors of possibly contaminated egg salad sandwiches and the smoking police who ensure that outdoor patios comply with the no smoking rules.

It looks like we also have now teen dance by-law enforcement officers who now work overtime on Friday nights scaring off teens who might want to go to the Junction:

• "Sibley said bylaw enforcement officials visited the site last Friday, and she was surprised to learn of tonight's event.
  
  "It means we'll probably need to go back out there and see what's going on."
  
  Sibley said potential penalties for The Junction's owners include fines up to $5,000."

Now considering that the majority of Council is sympathetic to George's plight since the Entertainment Lounge by-law is flawed, don't you think that Ms Sibley could send her troops elsewhere while the situation is worked out or is this how the City plans to get more money in its coffers by collecting fines?

Heck, we have homeowners we can charge if they do not clean up other people's trash in their alleys!