Hardly Mayoral Material

There is an absolute need to audit the East End Arena project immediately due to the startling revelation in the just released Arena Agreement between the City and the Spitfires. More about that below.

It should be fascinating to watch if the Star's main Columnist still tries to save the career of Councillor Mahatma Brister or whether he drops him like a hot samosa.

You remember him don't you. He is the Councillor that thinks people will take to the streets in the DRIC/Greenlink battle. Literally. Contrast how the two Councillors who may be running for mayor reacted after the DRIC announcement as quoted on the CKLW website:

• "Ward One's Dave Brister says there ARE people willing to lay down on Huron Church Road to draw attention to the "Greenlink" plan and protest the DRIC border access route. But Ward 4's Bill Marra thinks that members of council need to keep their emotions in check."

I guess this is Mahatma Brister's nonviolent tactic to get the Governments to change their minds. I wonder if Mahatma will be down and dirty too. Is he going to be one of those people who are willing to risk being arrested for the cause or is he just going to supervise people on the road. I imagine he will get them to form a giant "W" on the roadway as well so that if the media is taking a shot from a helicopter it will be a nice photo op.

I'm not sure if this is the most irresponsible statement that the Councillor has ever made. It is almost as foolish as him saying

• "David Brister said the city could be forced to sue the government and tie up the border plan in the courts if route concerns are not addressed. "

The Star at least recognizes foolishness now:

• "Coun. Dave Brister's ludicrous threat to lay down in protest on Huron Church Road."

What the heck, Mahatma, this City doesn't need 12,000 jobs.

It looks like when the going gets tough, the Councillor formerly known as Councillor Budget runs. I note that he has resigned from the Library Board. I guess he did not want to be there when Branches were closed down because it might impact negatively his mayoral campaign.

It is so much easier for him now to join the ranks to take shots at Councillor Halberstadt who is the only remaining Councillor on the Board. In this way he has no responsibility when he makes ridiculous suggestions about the Library.

I'm sure that the Library people are quite thrilled that he is no longer there. After all, his idea of cutting reserves is hardly the way to balance a Budget. It's a shame that they did not take up his other idea "cutting back on purchasing materials ." After all, if there are no new materials, people will stop going to the Library and the entire system can be closed down.

But at least the Councillor is consistent. He wanted the Art Gallery to sell paintings that were not in public view to balance their budget. Who needs to look at paintings after all in an art gallery.

Finally, as I have said several times before, the Councillor foolishly took on the position as Chair of the East End Arena committee. He will take the fall rather than the Mayor when it goes over budget. I'm sure that you remember back in 2005 Brister had said

• "But city council's money guy, Dave Brister, thinks it would be a huge mistake to pour tax dollars into an arena at this time...
  
  Brister doesn't buy the argument that the city has already budgeted $15 million for an arena and therefore the expenditure is a non-issue.
  
  "That logic that it's already budgeted escapes me," said the financial analyst. Compared with real needs like deficient sewers and pothole pandemics, he said an arena would be far down on his list of priorities. "Not even my 10th or 20th choice."
  
  He fears the city is getting involved in a project that will cost taxpayers far more than anticipated.
  
  "Do I believe it's going to be limited to $15 million? No way. And if we enter into a partnership with somebody, who generally ends up entertaining the risk? We do."

Brister was set up and he's going to have to eat those words as he takes the fall that will cause his political career to suffer. It is going to cost him dearly because of his bravado expressed in Henderson's column:

• "I knew it when I took this on," said Brister as he stood on the second floor of the sprawling complex and watched a giant crane gently lift into place one of the 25,000-kilogram precast concrete columns that form the ribs of the main bowl.
  
  On schedule. And on budget. Brister's eyes glitter as he delivers those words. Combative by nature, he's clearly driven by determination to deliver the goods and silence the critics, as in shove it down their whiny throats.
  
  "My credibility is on the line. That fact is not lost on me," said Brister. "We're watching this from every angle conceivable. To say this is under a microscope would be an understatement. And it should be, because I don't want any surprises down the road. We have 209,000 armchair quarterbacks and I've heard from a lot of them, and that's OK because it's everybody's arena." His mantra with project officials? "Tell me anything I need to know that I don't know now."

Let me give you a very small example that has now become clear after looking at the City/Spitfires contract. There is no doubt now in my mind that a major audit needs to be done on how this arena is being financed. Nevermind this nonsense on doing several audits on the Library or on the Windsor Crime Prevention Committee. We need to know the facts on where the money is going on the arena. I wrote previously a question I needed answered. Councillor Brister has never responded nor Don Sadler. You know the Don and Dave duo:

• "I just read the Budget for the arena on the Council Communications Package. I have a challenge for the Councillor to answer some question about the arena. Let's see if he has the guts to answer them. Oh, and here is another news tip for the media:
  
  We know that the arena will have 31 private boxes. Did the Port Huron arena have provision for so many private boxes? If it did not, who is paying to have those boxes constructed in our arena and how much is it costing? Private boxes have to be fitted up... who is paying for those costs and how much are they? Where are all of these costs set out in the budget for the arena? Alternatively, are these costs in fact being charged to the City and if so to which Department? Where are those costs in the budget of that Department? Are those costs going to be considered to be part of the $64.9 million cost of the arena? Or has the arena cost just sky-rocketed?"

The answer as I now know is that the City is paying upfront for the fitouts at least of these Suite costs as part of the arena. The Arena agreement provides:

• "The Team shall apply its gross revenue share from the first year's license of any suite, irrespective of when the suite is licensed, as a one time payment toward the gross cost of the suite fit-outs. The Team is not responsible for any further costs related to the suite fit-outs."

No wonder the Spits received 50% of the gross revenues of the leases of the suites. They have to help pay for the construction cost for this project. Unbelievable.

The question though is how is the City paying for these upfront costs. If it is not in the Budget for the arena, then where is the money? Shall we make the assumption that it is in the Parks and Recreation Department budget? After all, the dynamic duo are tied at the hip and the Councillor must know where the money is because after all he was a financial analyst in his former life.

If in fact I am correct and the money for the fit-outs is not in the Arena budget but has been placed somewhere else, then the question arises what other funds have been handled in a similar manner. In my opinion the City's Audit Committee must intervene immediately and have a full-fledged forensic audit take place on this project. We should demand no less.

PS. OK, OK...one more Bristerism for good measure:

• "We can't compete when we are that high," said Coun. Dave Brister, who favours an industrial rate reduction.
  
  But he suggested that should happen through a new jobs development fund planned by Mayor Eddie Francis and not at the expense of residential taxpayers...
  
  As a result of mayor's job initiative, perhaps some of the dollars from that can be allocated to reducing the industrial tax rate. What that does is enable us to keep up with other communities in attracting jobs."
  
  
  The mayor has proposed creating a fund of up to $100 million to provide financial support to companies willing to locate in Windsor. He wants the city to contribute $30 million to the fund with other levels of government contributing the rest."

Yes, absolutely. The County and the Senior Levels are going to contribute a total of $70M to help pay down our industrial taxes.

No wonder the E-machine is trying to convince Dave Cooke to run for Mayor. Eddie needs a credible candidate to be the third person in the race to split the vote with Bill Marra so he can be re-elected for a third term. Clearly, they have written off Brister!