You Are Dismissed

Thanks to the Windsor Municipal Shadow BLOG, I read a report over the weekend "Ontario Municipal CAO's Benchmarking Initiative Report for 2006." The Report is interesting since it compares municipalities in Ontario.

If you want to read the entire report, go to http://www.ombi.ca/docs/newsinfo.asp?track=vi&itemtype=1&itemid=159

If it was reported in the Star or on the CKLW headlines I must have missed it. Must be viewed as "bad news" and so not worthy of mention since you would just become depressed.

Now do not get mad at me and accuse me of naysaying. Don't shoot the messenger as Gord would say.

Unlike the Think Tank report or the CIBC report, this report must have included input from Windsor's CAO. I'm not sure therefore how the Mayor will be able to "dismiss" this report the way he dismisses anything it appears that doesn't agree with the message that he wants to deliver these days. Oh I forgot, there's the Standard and Poors AA rating defence. That's great if you're an investor, not so good if you're taxpayer.

I thought that what I would do would be to comment on a few of the graphs in the Report that I found of interest.

Want to know how the upgrade of E C Row will be justified, then take a look at this graph. Didn't the Mayor just say that the Expressway was at capacity? Isn't the population supposed to grow by about 50,000 people in the area? I'm still waiting for answers about the shape of the Expressway and whether there is a risk to users.

Never fear, we are getting an upgrade... the only question is when and in what order.

Thank goodness that we are able to pay down our debt to keep investors happy. That is at least a bright sign. However, if you are a driver, then you may not be so happy to see that your tax money is being used to help investors and not to help fix up roads. Remember the fiasco involving watermains where monies WUC was supposed to use for capital infrastructure improvements were used for operating costs instead.

These next numbers show the problem that Windsor is going to be in as the economy worsens. The numbers in 2006 were the second highest in the Province and will only get worse as unemployment numbers get worse. Thank goodness that we are spending money on an arena, around $50 million more so far than if we had gone with the Mayor's initial P3 approach. That is how one diverts people from "bread" issues to "circus" issues.


Even with the $65 million and counting East End arena, we are in pretty bad shape especially with respect to smaller community centres. One has to ask why we did not spend the $50 million on smaller centers if there was a need for more recreational facilities.


UGH.........This one is too horrible to comment on. I hope all those people who see the English Financial Times Report about what a great city this is to invest in don't see that this graph. Great place to invest but horrible place to live. Mind you, there is always the County! I am not sure if this amount includes the various levies as well. Given the number of levies that we have in Windsor, I wonder how much higher our number would go over the median.


And by the way, we are not too successful in collecting taxes either. But then again we don't want to be it seems because that is viewed as a revenue source with the overdue interest charge being a good source of revenue.


Even with the funky new bus terminal and with the St. Clair College students downtown, our transit ridership numbers are not very high in comparison with other cities. When you combine that with the poor road condition, it makes travelling in Windsor difficult. Increasing Transit Windsor fares won't help much either in drawing numbers to the service. Who knows, perhaps it is because the purchase of new buses was deferred that people are choosing not to use the service. Who wants to sit in an old and out of date vehicle. Don't they know that we need to maintain our AA rating so new buses can wait.

I do not understand this one. Why do we treat so much more wastewater than do other municipalities? Is there a savings that could take place here?

It's the same question with respect to water treatment.

The watermain break numbers are pretty scary as well in Windsor and can provide justification for the 86% increase. On the other hand, we know that WUC was aware of the problem many years ago but nevertheless diverted money from capital to operating. Investors may be happy if WUC's debt was paid down but I'm not so sure that taxpayers are happy today with the big increases. The whitewash Provincial audit won't give us any real answers either I am sure.

That is a snapshot taken that compares Windsor with other cities. I'm not sure how this will be dismissed but I'm certain that we will see some kind of spin. Or, will it all be ignored by City Hall and the cheerleading media since it is more bad news for Windsor.