Putting Students First

It looks like the President of the University of Windsor is singing from a different songbook today. Notwithstanding his impassioned plea, the University Board Members overwhelmingly rejected the idea of constructing the new Engineering Complex downtown.

Finally, a Public Authority in this area has done the right thing. There is no doubt that Board Members recognized that they owed a duty to their students first. It was their duty as well to act in the best interest of the University. They made their choice by understanding what their legal obligation was. They rejected the notion that it was their "duty to help renew downtown." They also rejected being bullied by a Mayor who stated that he would only provide them with money if they did what he told them.

By my reckoning, in the end, I would suspect that there were very few Board Members who voted in favor of moving the Complex downtown. I would be surprised if the votes to go downtown exceeded the number of fingers of one hand.

Given what was called an "overwhelming" rejection, a number of different factions on the Board must have voted together. It would seem that the academics, the student representatives and the business and community representatives all voted together to oppose moving the Complex away from the campus. Clearly this action also must have weighed on the minds of Board members and such perfect timing too:

• "The U of W faculty association informed board members prior to the meeting that faculty opposed a downtown campus."

Of course, the big loser in this matter was the Mayor. He just cannot pull off a deal! Third time still unlucky with respect to the lands downtown: the arena, the urban village, and now the Engineering Complex.

Did you find it amusing that the Mayor was not available for comment to the media after the Board meeting. However he had the time to craft a press release stating that "the University has missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Yes, the opportunity to save his neck! Of course, blame it on someone else, the University, for being so stupid.

I wonder what would have happened if the University had decided to move downtown. Can you spell P-H-O-T-O-O-P and a big speech instead of press release. With a press release, the Mayor avoids interrogation by the media about why he failed.

For something so important to him, he demonstrated again that he does not know how to close the deal. When you look at it, all that he did was mess up what the University wanted to do in the first place. He cost them a year of time and probably extra millions of dollars of construction costs because of the delay. Not only that, my understanding is that the project would have started in the fall of 2007. How many jobs were deferred because the project had not started and will not start for some time.

There is some interesting scuttlebutt around about whether there was an offer or not by the City to induce the University to move downtown. What I heard was that the University was told that Council had made a commitment. On the other hand, I was told that Council had not done so. The best that they were able to achieve in an in camera meeting was to agree to have a business case prepared. I wonder what the truth is.

My understanding is that big numbers were bandied about in the in camera meeting. Apparently a number of Councillors gagged when they heard the number of millions being thrown around. Council was told that the University would have some very significant increased costs if they were to move downtown. In the Star story, the President stated

• "We would have had to build 10 more classrooms downtown because even here (on campus) students have classes in other buildings," Paul said. The city would have been expected to pick up the cost difference between what would have been needed downtown and the on-campus design."

I had heard that the cost differential was in the range of $30-$50 million. Does anyone honestly believe that the Councillors would have agreed to spend that kind of money in this economic climate? That was the deal-breaker right from the beginning.

Why it took so long to figure that out is beyond me. Why wasn't this presented to the University Board a long time ago so that they could have obtained a firm commitment from the Mayor to move forward if this is what he was prepared to do. My recollection is that the Mayor had discussed various ways of providing money or money's worth up to only $15 million. If no firm commitment could have been obtained, then the University could have gone on its merry way without this huge delay. I don't understand the reason for the stalling.

Don't you like the comment of the President that there was no "specific offer" from the City but that there was "an understanding of the type of things that would be done." I just cannot believe that the President would make a pitch for a downtown campus after he got burned once by this Mayor with respect to the Hurst letter. Would it make sense to move forward on $100 million project without an absolute commitment from the City to contribute money. Astounding.

However, if you think matters were so "iffy," then you have another think coming. Again the scuttlebutt says that the City made an offer to pay the difference to bring the Complex downtown. Except here's the hilarious part. No monies would come from this Council but rather the monies would start flowing in 2011. I also heard that the full amount of money would not be paid up front but over a period of a considerable number of years.

If in fact such an offer was made, it is so ludicrous that no one in their right mind would accept it. I truly hope that the President did not put this forward to the Board. It would be an offer not worth the paper it might have been written on.

Can you imagine if the University had started work based on such an offer and the next Council decided that they were not interested in pursuing it as they have a legal right to do. What would the University have done then? They would be in a huge financial hole! Can you imagine someone from the City actually trying to bind the next Council and the next several generations of Council to an offer such as this. Incredible.

I was quite interested in this comment by the President

• "Paul didn't rule out prospects of another program moving downtown."

I'm surprised that the President did not have a Motion in his back-pocket to pull out in case he lost the vote so that he could have the Board vote on moving, say the Law faculty or the Music faculty, to the downtown or least to start talking about it immediately to save face for everyone. To be realistic, I don't think that even he would have dared do something so foolish such as that even if he wanted to help the Mayor.

It is also typical of other projects in the City: stall off a development, increased costs, create the giant dream, talk it to death, build a media campaign to slap down anyone who dares oppose, take in camera action, talk big dollars and fail. Sound familiar... the County Mayors and our MPPs might think so on Saturday when they look at the history of the border file.

I have an idea. Since the President will have so much time now until his term is over perhaps I might suggest that he write another song based on Gilbert and Sullivan. He might want to have some fun and play with the lyrics of "The First Lord's Song" from HMS Pinafore. I can hardly wait until the next Symphony concert.