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ARE YOU A VIP IN WINDSOR

Probably not, sorry.

I hear that there are lots of angry people in the City these days. The reason why... they did not receive an invitation to go to Toronto on Sandra's choo-choo train to meet the Toronto bigwigs.

Imagine explaining to your friends in town that you did not make the top 100 list of movers and shakers in Windsor. Sure you may have been #101 but that doesn't help you does it. You are a NOBODY! Hang your head in shame.

Poor Sandra and Dwight. Can you imagine them knocking on the door of #101 and asking for a donation to help them out in the next Provincial election. I can just imagine the kind of reception that they would receive.

I know, I know... you are wondering if the Blogmeister received an invitation to go on the train given that I am such a powerful media presence in this City and was originally born in Toronto and worked in key organizations there so I have many well-connected friends.

I will keep you guessing. Will you or will you not see a BLOG from me tomorrow. That will answer your question.

WHICH WINDSOR ROAD TOOK THE LONGEST TO COMPLETE

Of course you said the E C Row Expressway. But of course you are wrong. That dubious honour will now apply to the Downtown. As Pam Anderson's best buddy said in his DWBIA Annual General Meeting speech:

• "During the course of the past year, the DWBIA and the City of Windsor partnered to complete three blocks of Streetscaping. The next four blocks on Ouellette, Pelissier, and Maiden Lane are scheduled for completion in the next five to six years in line with the City of Windsor's budgeting schedule."

Four blocks in 6 years. Incredible. Is he kidding????

That world record may not actually happen, Gord Henderson told us that $1.6M will be spent:

• "If council gives the go-ahead, parks department boss Don Sadler is ready to roll with more than 700 self-watering planters and hanging baskets for the city's commercial districts and head-turning new looks by mid-summer for the grubby Dougall and Howard corridors."

It's an old re-hashed story that is being brought out again as something new. I wrote in March, 2006:

• "Here is what Councillor Halberstadt had to say in Saturday's Star after attending a forum that involved brainstorming ideas to improve the look of the designated civic streets like Howard and Dougall:
  
  "The issue of money was not addressed at the design forum, but several councillors attended the session to get a sense of what people wanted. Some of them said they're willing to start loosening the purse strings because the beautification of the two roadways is a priority.
  
  "I think we're going to have to find the money somewhere," said Coun. Alan Halberstadt. "But it's difficult. There's just so many bucks out there."

Remember this BLOG even earlier [Friday, October 07, 2005 "$150,000 For A Report Card Check Mark"]:

• "It is almost time for the Mayor's annual report to start being prepared. I wonder if panic set in.
  
  One of the few items left undone in the Mayor's last report was streetscaping, especially at the entrance-ways to the City. Well the project is really five years off and will cost lots of money.
  
  Mere facts and lack of money never deterred a creative bureaucracy. Someone must have come up with the brilliant idea of calling the interim measure of planting 64 trees on Dougall and Howard PHASE 1 of the program.
  
  Perfect! Check mark added"

GM CLOSING BUZZ

There was a federal money available I will bet for the Ford deal.

We can probably guess now that the reason that the Federal Government and Ford did not do a deal with the Windsor plant is because Ford would not agree to some of the terms that the Government wanted inserted before any monies would be paid over. My understanding is that there were some conditions put into the GM project Beacon deal that Ford could not live with.

The Federal Government put in

• "a contribution of $200 million toward the innovative Beacon Project being undertaken by General Motors of Canada"

I saw this cryptic note as well:

• "The Government of Canada contribution, which is conditionally repayable"

One of my automotive insiders tells me that GM put out a backgrounder about the closing of the Windsor plant. He claims that when you cut through all of the PR nonsense the reason that the plant is closing is because the CAW rates are the highest in the world... something like a $27 an hour difference between Canada and the United States.

Obviously, the Union disputed that amount saying that Canadian workers are much more productive so that the difference per hour should be reduced. Whether that is right or wrong really doesn't matter. It is what GM thinks that matters and now we know what they think.

COSMETIC UPGRADES

When I saw the headline in the Star, it made my stomach turn since it happened when the GM plant is going to close putting all those people out of work.

I would have preferred this headline to be honest... "Tarting Up Windsor" because that is all it is.

So we're going to get an expensive Botox treatment or plastic surgery to make us look better while everything is decaying underneath. I think that someone at City Hall has been watching too many "staging" programs on how to sell your house. You know, slap on a couple of coats of paint to make it look better.

I am sorry but I had this weird thought as I read the Star story. We have all of these people out of work who would like to do something and what are we putting in "self-watering planters and hanging baskets in several BIA areas across the city."

LEON PAROIAN

What a mean-spirited initial story that the Star published online about Leon. Such poor taste given his career. I'm glad to see that someone changed it to reflect properly his life's work.

I met him several times over the past few years. I'll tell you one thing... I would have hated to have been one of his opponents when he was in his prime. It would have been a real challenge to confront him in a courtroom. He was one of those old-time litigators who had a presence that would have been unbeatable in front of a judge!

I note that the Mayor said in a scrum that he would not be going to Toronto on the train but rather would be attending Leon's funeral on Wednesday. That is quite an honour for Leon's important role in the City's history.

LEWENZA APOLOGY REQUIRED

Junior should be required to apologize to his fellow Councillor Bill Marra whether Bill wants it or not. Junior's behaviour is inexcusable and would not be tolerated at Queen's Park or in Parliament. He would have been escorted out of the Chamber if he dared speak that way.

It is the Mayor's function to control meetings. It seems that he is incapable of doing so or maybe he likes to let other people to do his dirty work for him.

No matter. Lewenza should not be allowed to participate again in a Council meeting until he formally apologizes.

TORONTO STAR STORY

Watch for one coming in the next few days about Windsor. A perfect time for the story to be run would be on Wednesday just as the VIA train arrives in Toronto.

BORDER MEETING

I wonder how much time was spent on the weekend meeting between the Mayor and the Ministers dealing with Eddie's failing Tunnel deal with Detroit. How much pressure did he put on the Ministers to ensure that the Province was going to provide $75 million to Detroit, errrr I mean to Windsor.

PLANTING FLOWERS WHILE WINDSOR BURNS

I'm sorry, I just cannot believe this Mayor and Council. Worrying about plants and trees and ignoring infrastructure and what it can do for this devastated City economy.

Here are some excerpts from a Globe and Mail story on a bridge infrastructure project. Can you imagine the impact that the Enhancement Project along with building the DRIC Road would achieve for the City. I have given up on the Mayor achieving anything except if it serves his own personal agenda but what disgusts me the most is the sheep-like mentality of our Councillors:

• A new bridge can never go too far
  
  Infrastructure investment not only fixes a local headache but affects development, as a Kelowna project shows
  
  Indeed, long before the hoopla planned for May 25, anticipation of the new bridge's impact on the Kelowna region has spurred residential and commercial real estate development, said Mr. Fine, who is executive director of central Okanagan region's Economic Development Commission (EDC) when he's not singing in his band.
  
  The Bennett bridge is an example of how investing in infrastructure not only can ease an acute, local issue, but can influence development patterns and expectations. And infrastructure is expected to become a front-burner issue in the coming years as governments consider what to do about aging or outdated roads, bridges, sewers and the like across the country...
  
  As the official opening draw nears, the bridge is a tangible example of the competitive advantages of transportation infrastructure renewal in Canada – the theme of a conference this evening in Toronto organized by the Urban Land Institute.
  
  “Infrastructure fuels economies and enables prosperity,” according to a recent report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and Ernst & Young. “In fact, only countries that manage to invest heavily in infrastructure have attained and can sustain global leadership.”
  
  The report characterizes the economies of Canada, the U.S. and Australia as “coasting on prosperity” when it comes to investing in infrastructure. It adds that, in Canada, road systems built in the 1960s and 1970s, are now showing signs of wear and that, over all, $240-billion will be needed for maintenance and upgrades to infrastructure to meet expected population growth.
  
  In Ontario, infrastructure improvement is a key in the government's five-point plan to deal with the challenges posed by a weakening economy, said David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal.
  
  “We've been sprawling across a great land mass in the province of Ontario, but we if use our investments in transit much more strategically and effectively we can channel the growth to the places where we can handle it a lot better,” he said in an interview last week.
  
  Some current areas of focus include helping the City of Ottawa with systems to handle its growth and development, better transit to aid with the urban revitalization in the Region of Waterloo, and addressing congestion in the Golden Horseshoe area.
  
  The “wonderful, twofold benefits” to investing in transportation, Mr. Caplan said, is that it gets people working right away, while laying the foundation for moving goods and people over the long term. Ontario is focused on improving other types of infrastructure, including health care and water systems, he said.
  
  One of the biggest stumbling blocks to undertaking such projects is the time it takes to get everything in place, including land acquisitions, consultations and environmental assessments, said Mr. Caplan, who will speak at the ULI conference this evening. For this reason, the government has capped environmental assessments for transportation projects at six months, which he said is enough time to get the work done."

And that by the way is how E C Row is going to be upgraded...starting after a 6 month EA that is going to be rammed down our throats saving the Senior Levels hundreds of millions of dollars by not building the full DRIC road! Oh, and the fully completed road to the border is going right to the foot of the Enhancement Project bridge too as we all know.