Eddie's Way Or No Highway

You are going to have to read right to the end of the BLOG today to read the startling news. I decided to use the Windsor Star technique of writing stories but keeping the big news to the end. At least I am warning you. I do want you to read what a joke this Council has become so you should read the entire BLOG.

The subject title is just a play on words of the usual saying.

Take that County. You do it the way Eddie wants or you just don't get it done at all. It is as simple as that! If you wondered why the relationship between the City and the County is so bad, then all you had to do was watch and listen to the Council meeting last night.

Now tell me, considering that each Councillor gets about $45,000 a year in salary (including the fees received from the various Boards) and considering that the Council meeting took less than an hour last night, would you say that the Councillors deserved their thousand dollars an hour compensation for what happened?

Oh sure I'm being silly and not taking into account all of the long hours that the Councillor spend in all of the meetings they attend but I trust you get my point. If last night is going to be what Council meetings are going to be all about in 2008 then they are a waste of time. Dealing with pit bulls, feral cats and feeding pigeons would have been more interesting.

It appears now that we have three kinds of agenda items in Windsor. We have those that are in camera. We have those that are on the public agenda. And then we have Agenda item 6... whatever that is.

I didn't see it anywhere on the public agenda but it was dealt with last night. All I know is what Councillor Jones said about it when he sought to have it and the Son of the Infamous Agenda Item #5 deferred. What he wanted is that those two items be referred to outside counsel, Mr. Estrin. It was a submission request for additional border infrastructure funding.

What the funding is for, I haven't got the faintest idea. It wasn't publicized on the City's website. Now the way democracy works now in Windsor is that items are placed on the Agenda without telling anybody. That certainly does make it easier for the Mayor and Council to get what they want since there cannot be any delegations who speak to these items. How can they; they don't know about them.

It was a fascinating meeting last night. I suspect that Agenda Item 5 was deferred again since the City wants to stall off dealing with the road plan for the region. If the City hasn't approved the study, then clearly nothing can be done. Sure it's only been outstanding since 2005 and sure the County has not dealt with issues the City has raised but who cares. Since the City and County don't talk to each other over anything it seems, nothing is going to get done anyway. If ever the Province wanted a reason for amalgamation, this is it. This is stupidity at the expense of taxpayers of the City and the County.

Whew, thank goodness that Councillor Brister introduced his Motion to have meetings between the City and the County. All he forgot to do was to add the Governor's hubby in to facilitate everything. I'm sure that the Councillor's Motion will solve all of our problems. By the way, whatever happened to the Motion that the Councillor promised to introduce about setting out the terms of a Motion?

So many things to talk about in such a short meeting. Pecuniary interest, what pecuniary interest. In previous discussions about traffic on Wyandotte and on an issue about Dougall, the Mayor disclosed an interest and did not participate in the debate. But not last night. He told us about his house near Dougall and his wife's business in the Plaza on Dougall and he told us about his Father's property on Wyandotte but now they are not an issue.

I wonder what caused the change for him. According to the Mayor, he went out and got a legal opinion on the subject that said that he had no pecuniary interest in violation of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. I wonder who the Mayor's lawyer was who gave this opinion. I hope the Mayor tells us or perhaps some energetic member of the traditional media could find out. it could be a much bigger story too. Why did he all of a sudden go out and get this opinion? It is all very strange to me.

I wonder if the Mayor will now tell us as well what "the general nature thereof" he has with respect to the Duty Free Store at the Tunnel. He has told us that he has an interest but he has not gone any further than that. In fact, he declared an interest twice as revealed in the Tunnel Commission Minutes but did not tell us what it was all about. If he is so careful with respect to his wife's and father's interests, surely he can reveal his interest with respect to the Store. Again traditional media, go and do your job.

Those are 2 news tips for my friend the News Director at CKLW by the way. Gee, I wonder if one will be the news tip of the month.

I wish that Council or Administration was forced to answer questions of delegations. Al Nelman raised a very interesting point with respect to the Windsor Library System. He asked a very simple question: what other Department of the City has been asked to cut their budget by 10% and yet still maintain the services expected of them?

What he was really getting at is why is Council acting so vindictively towards the Library? It really needs some explanation. All that may happen is that the Library System will be totally destroyed by this Council.

I was quite amazed at Councillor Lewenza's outburst against Dwight and Sandra. Mind you, he told us the obvious. Greenlink is dead. If our two Cabinet Ministers won't sit down with the City to talk, then the message should be clear. My guess is that someone got very angry at Sandra's comments today at her luncheon speech and Junior took it upon himself to lash out. He was the front man wasn't he! I wonder if anyone will take the remarks seriously considering where they came from.

I was not at the luncheon but Sandra's assistant was good enough to give me copies of her speech notes. She stated with respect to the border:

• "Our border location has been our strength for decades
• With unforeseen events, we need the border upgrade, and it cannot be delayed
• Infrastructure today isn’t just about roads and bridges
• Route to border so far 10x the per kilometre cost of any road ever built.

If the DRIC road is that expensive, do you honestly believe that Dwight as Minister of Finance has the nerve to ask for $2.6 billion (Henderson's number) for Windsor and Eddie's Schwunnels! Don't be absurd. Obviously someone has told Sandra to get on board as well. After all, as you remember, the Premier liked the DRIC road.

Poor Eddie. His leverage is gone now that the Provincial election is over and he will not be Mayor after three more years. The Liberals can ignore him now. He is truly a lame-duck Mayor. I wonder if the Councillors have figured that out yet.

Just in passing, I wish someone would tell us the truth about the relationship between the City and the Province respecting the City's response to DRIC. I was told by the Province around Christmas time that no report had been received yet from the City with their answer to DRIC. Sandra claimed in an article in the Star that DRIC

• "received the city's proposal for a partially tunnelled bridge access route at the end of October or mid-November."

On the Windsor Star website, there's a video in which the Mayor talks about Greenlink:

• "The latest on Greenlink is that we have provided the Province of Ontario and their team with the technical information that they were requesting. One item that we have not provided them with, but we have deliberately held back on is the issue of costing.
  
  We’ve asked to see their costing; they have not completed their costing yet, so once they submit their costing, we’ll provide our own costing. But we’ve shared it with them in our meetings, but we just haven’t given them a hard copy."

I'm sorry I'm just so totally confused by all the stuff. What's the truth? All I see is absolute pettiness on the part of everybody at all political levels with nothing being accomplished for years while Windsor slowly dies.

Some more events at the meeting. Councillor Dilkens was able to get the Dougall matter put on the public agenda for January 21. Believe it or not, three Councillors voted against it. I wish I could tell you who those Councillors were but unfortunately Cogeco did not show the voting on camera.

The Agenda item on Manning Road was like two children pointing fingers at each other and trying to say that the other one was to blame for what is going on. The City and County agreed on something in 2005 with respect to Manning Road and now the bad old County is doing something unilaterally without telling the City. That would be terrible except the City has known what the County has been doing with respect to Manning Road so Windsor could hardly claim to be taken by surprise as Councillor Valentinis wanted us to believe last night.

There was the Eddie lawsuit threat over the issue. It was nice to have David Estrin in town. He could stand up and answer a couple of questions to justify bringing him here. Councillor Valentinis could then introduce a Motion on the whole issue with respect to Manning Road to have Mr. Estrin "provide the appropriate response in keeping with Council's position." Whatever that means but it sure sounded threatening to me. I expect that Mayor McNamara will be shaking in his boots when he hears about this.

How many lawsuits by the way is it that Eddie has threatened so far and done nothing about. Yup, Eddie wants to appear on the witness stand under oath! That would sell tickets and eliminate the Capitol's debt forever if the trial was moved there.

I almost forgot to mention... there is another lawyer involved from another big firm in Toronto to assist the City in property matters with respect to the DRIC road. Even more legal fees to spend. I don't remember anything about retaining him, do you?

As far as I was concerned however, the shocking news came at the end. We learned that our Mayor is not really against expanding the Expressway or upgrading Manning Road or Lauzon. No wonder Agenda Item 5 was deferred. It would have been absolutely clear what the City's position was if there had been a vote on it. Instead it was deferred again since we are told that the issue is not roadbuilding but rather timing and sequencing. In other words, everyone must do what Eddie wants and on his timetable.

But Eddie gave it away. Everything he has been doing is nothing more than a stall to accomplish whatever it is that he wants to accomplish but hasn't told us yet. The Ambassador Bridge Company is going to get what it wants. He cannot oppose them really but can merely delay them. Eddie talked in these terms in this sentence fragment:

• "Once the final border solution... a shovel is in the ground, ready to go, primary route for trucks from the 401 to the new border crossing and to the existing Ambassador Bridge."

A road to the Ambassador Bridge! Was it a Freudian slip? Perhaps. Or deliberate? Regardless, it was acknowledgment by the Mayor that there will be a new road to the Ambassador Bridge and not merely just to the DRIC bridge. From his comment, he cannot be opposed to it. Really how can he be because the Schwartz Greenlink solution is recognition that there is a way to connect communities while building a border road as the Ambassador Bridge suggested years ago.

I think it is more. I think it is recognition that the Ambassador Bridge has won the race. It is recognition that the Enhancement Project will be built first and there will have to be a road to the Bridge constructed whether anybody likes it or not. It is merely reflecting that there is no capacity issue with the truck volumes being down so low as they are. Even Minister Cannon in his recent P3 speech acknowledge the same thing when he stated:

• "The existing border crossings between Windsor and Detroit have performed admirably in moving commuters, travellers and goods from one country to the other for many years.
  
  There is no question they will continue to be an integral part of this strategic gateway. However, as business people on both sides of the border know well, we need to do more to keep Canada competitive and support continued economic growth.
  
  We have to increase capacity over the next few decades in order to maximize trade and strengthen our already strong partnership with US neighbours.
  
  And that is precisely what the Government of Canada intends to do."

Eddie can read the hand-writing on the wall after Sandra's comment re the cost of the DRIC road and given Councillor's Lewenza's strange outburst. I have this question: was that a trial balloon suggesting that Eddie wants to be friends with the Bridge Co. now since he has no one else. It may be that he needs them now. He won't be the one to approach them at first however but I can think of the person who would be his delegate. And I do NOT mean Councillor Lewenza.

All of that in under an hour. But then again, it was a strange day yesterday. Sixty degrees F. and a tornado watch last night. I can hardly wait for next week's Council meeting.