More Letters
Oh the emails I received are quite strong about issues like the Capitol and the border. Watch out that you don't get burned reading these notes.
1) In simple terms, the City pays the non-profit, which it will control, $220k a year for 5 years. The non-profit will, in turn, pay the City to lease the property, probably an equivalent sum. The bottom line is that the City gains the property without being out of pocket anything other than the initial $310k that is required to pay the creditors. The losers here are the other non-profit arts groups that would have received benefit had the trustee sold the assets to a third party.
This whole mess could have been avoided had the City merely abided by Council Resolutions. The board was agreeable to transitioning the theatre to the City in an orderly manner. The City wanted a bankruptcy in order to relieve themselves of the reponsibility of severing the employees. There were only a handful of employees who weren't under contract (the contracts had expired for those who were) and the cost of severing them would not have been great since all of them were not well paid and most had been employed by the theatre for relatively short periods of time. In the final analysis, severance costs would have been much lower than the fees paid to the trustee. In addition, the City will have the McTague legal bill and costs associated with the reopening. The bottom line is that the tax payors are the losers.
2) As I am sure you've already asked yourself - what was the point in calling for a tunnel? Wasn't it to shield residents from the health risks of diesel fumes? If so, how does having parks overtop of a truck highway route achieve this? So the idea is to bring kids closer even still to the route by building baseball diamonds on top?
The most frustrating element to this is that there was a time and a place for these ideas - last year or earlier even. When DRIC was in the midst of an EA and if Council wanted to influence the recommendations and design they should have submitted their position to the DRIC then. Now at 11:59 on the doomsday clock they trot out Sam again with more conceptual plans (are they costed out by the way? are there any engineering drawings to accompany them? how would they affect the construction times? can traffic be maintained along the corridor any better building these elements? how do these improve air quality? etc.)
The question this begs is "what is the problem?" to the City of Windsor. What do they see as the problem that they are trying to solve and feel the DRIC is solving cheaply or inadequately? Is it health? Is it impacts to residents? Is it mitigating the separation of west from east? Is it all three or none? How do these new solutions solve the City of Windsor's perceived problem?
Eddie's always in a "fighting mood" isn't he?
3) The whole (Capitol Theatre) process boggles my mind since there was a simple, less costly orderly transition proposed and accepted by Council in January.
4) Problem is, $220K won't be enough. The city will need that much to meet the demands of those in the arts community. It will take several months to get it back in shape to open, not the least of which is to program and staff it. Without at least $200K in bingo revenue the taxpayer will be subsidizing the theatre more than what is spelled out in this agreement and they are back in the theatre business again. Something they decided to get rid of when they sold the Cleary to St. Clair. Take a look at the Chrysler Theatre website, St. Clair College is into programming big time. They took over the Capitols very successful Classic Albums Live Series and are programming well known artists, not just community group and school programming. It is also a rumour around that the new management of the Chrysler is not as "accommodating" to their larger tenants, the Sympathy...(ooops I mean the Symphony), Theatre Alive and Windsor Light.
Additionally, when the Casino venue opens it pushes the Capitol back even further into difficulty in programming professional artists and acts because of the seating limitations. Don't forget that the Casino venue is capable of configuring to any size and type of theatre space, from 200 seats to the 5000. That leaves smaller rentals to community and other groups. $220K won't be enough. The building is too old and needs too much upgrading now that the city owns it. They will have to replace the roof that never was done right and is patched up several times each year. Because of the damp that has settled into that building, as well as many others downtown, every year, the interior needs painting.
If the city keeps it, it will be another McKenzie Hall (with less history) and a much larger operating budget. Makes me wish I could move to the county now, but I need a job first.
1) In simple terms, the City pays the non-profit, which it will control, $220k a year for 5 years. The non-profit will, in turn, pay the City to lease the property, probably an equivalent sum. The bottom line is that the City gains the property without being out of pocket anything other than the initial $310k that is required to pay the creditors. The losers here are the other non-profit arts groups that would have received benefit had the trustee sold the assets to a third party.
This whole mess could have been avoided had the City merely abided by Council Resolutions. The board was agreeable to transitioning the theatre to the City in an orderly manner. The City wanted a bankruptcy in order to relieve themselves of the reponsibility of severing the employees. There were only a handful of employees who weren't under contract (the contracts had expired for those who were) and the cost of severing them would not have been great since all of them were not well paid and most had been employed by the theatre for relatively short periods of time. In the final analysis, severance costs would have been much lower than the fees paid to the trustee. In addition, the City will have the McTague legal bill and costs associated with the reopening. The bottom line is that the tax payors are the losers.
2) As I am sure you've already asked yourself - what was the point in calling for a tunnel? Wasn't it to shield residents from the health risks of diesel fumes? If so, how does having parks overtop of a truck highway route achieve this? So the idea is to bring kids closer even still to the route by building baseball diamonds on top?
The most frustrating element to this is that there was a time and a place for these ideas - last year or earlier even. When DRIC was in the midst of an EA and if Council wanted to influence the recommendations and design they should have submitted their position to the DRIC then. Now at 11:59 on the doomsday clock they trot out Sam again with more conceptual plans (are they costed out by the way? are there any engineering drawings to accompany them? how would they affect the construction times? can traffic be maintained along the corridor any better building these elements? how do these improve air quality? etc.)
The question this begs is "what is the problem?" to the City of Windsor. What do they see as the problem that they are trying to solve and feel the DRIC is solving cheaply or inadequately? Is it health? Is it impacts to residents? Is it mitigating the separation of west from east? Is it all three or none? How do these new solutions solve the City of Windsor's perceived problem?
Eddie's always in a "fighting mood" isn't he?
3) The whole (Capitol Theatre) process boggles my mind since there was a simple, less costly orderly transition proposed and accepted by Council in January.
4) Problem is, $220K won't be enough. The city will need that much to meet the demands of those in the arts community. It will take several months to get it back in shape to open, not the least of which is to program and staff it. Without at least $200K in bingo revenue the taxpayer will be subsidizing the theatre more than what is spelled out in this agreement and they are back in the theatre business again. Something they decided to get rid of when they sold the Cleary to St. Clair. Take a look at the Chrysler Theatre website, St. Clair College is into programming big time. They took over the Capitols very successful Classic Albums Live Series and are programming well known artists, not just community group and school programming. It is also a rumour around that the new management of the Chrysler is not as "accommodating" to their larger tenants, the Sympathy...(ooops I mean the Symphony), Theatre Alive and Windsor Light.
Additionally, when the Casino venue opens it pushes the Capitol back even further into difficulty in programming professional artists and acts because of the seating limitations. Don't forget that the Casino venue is capable of configuring to any size and type of theatre space, from 200 seats to the 5000. That leaves smaller rentals to community and other groups. $220K won't be enough. The building is too old and needs too much upgrading now that the city owns it. They will have to replace the roof that never was done right and is patched up several times each year. Because of the damp that has settled into that building, as well as many others downtown, every year, the interior needs painting.
If the city keeps it, it will be another McKenzie Hall (with less history) and a much larger operating budget. Makes me wish I could move to the county now, but I need a job first.
5) Down here (in the US) where I live any gathering of a majority of the Council falls under the open meetings law. It doesn't require that you designate it as a meeting. It is considered a chance for meaningful discussion of the public's business. You fellows have perfected this by being able to name your get-togethers as a meeting, or not. "A word means exactly what I intend to to mean, nothing more and nothing less." Eh?
6) Ed, my read on this [border file] is that there are very few large projects in Ontario right now, the simple servants see this as a way to continue their employment, in fact they have hired a few people recently to work on this project. The more people a simple servant has working for him, the more important he is. Bears no resemblance to reality !
posted by JoeBlog at 6:15 a.m.
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