More Short Stories Of Interest

I thought you might be interested in these short stories:

1) Today's Trucking Online: Truck ferry enhancement plan stalled

• "Parts of the ferry project are being done by the MTO, funded by the provincial and federal governments’ $300-million Windsor Border Initiatives Implementation Group that aims to improve the city’s border facilities. The provincial Ministry has offered to finance Windsor’s purchase of this small piece of road from Morterm but so far the city has not acted and a deal has not been struck. The MTO’s offer includes bringing the road up to city standards.
  
  Some observers fear that if this relatively simple challenge cannot be successfully met by local, provincial, and federal officials, it does not bode well for the proposed joint construction of a second bridge a mile south of the Ambassador by provincial, state, and U.S. and Canadian federal authorities. Mired in politics and controversy, that project is infinitely more complex than the ferry operation’s enhancement plans."

2) The throngs of people downtown for the Red Bull air races only seemed to underline the huge mistake of building the arena in an area other than downtown. Can you imagine the crowds walking in the area between the Western Super anchor and the Casino after a hockey game or a concert at the 5,000 seat Casino arena and the 6,500 seat City arena especially if they were held on the same day with a matinee and evening performance at each.

Clearly, Windsorites could not fill two arenas with our population so imagine the tourists who would be coming here and staying overnight to fill up our hotel rooms and eat in our restaurants.

I don't think the Mayor really took the Red Bull races all that seriously no matter what he said. Was it perhaps because Roger Penske was not involved.

• "This is a world-class event," Mayor Eddie Francis said Monday during a news conference at the Coleman A. Young International Airport, formerly Detroit City Airport. "An event that is so large I don't believe people in Windsor or Detroit have yet grasped how significant it is."
  
  "What a unique opportunity this time around to bring a million people back and show them the time of their lives."

How else to explain that Detroit immediately sold out its tickets but Windsor only sold eventually about 70% of the tickets available on this side---35,000 out of 50,000. I wonder if Windsor's seeming lack of support is also responsible for the numbers drop by 250,000.

I wonder in fact how many tickets were actually sold over here because the Detroit media kept telling people that tickets were still available in Windsor rather than action by locals to do so.

In fact, I do not think that all of the business people in the downtown were properly prepared either:

• "Some bars and restaurants did so well thanks to the energized Red Bull Air Race crowd in downtown Windsor over the weekend that they ran out of food and booze.
  
  "Some establishments were cleaned out," Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association president Larry Horwitz said Sunday. "Food and alcohol just disappeared. The business exploded Saturday night."

These type of functions clearly have the same kind of hype around them as Super Bowl: 750,000 spectators, "Red Bull officials have estimated the race will have a $64 million economic impact on the area."

However, the truth about numbers I believe is for "show," to try to convince other cities to bid on the race. What is important for us is that people actually came downtown to enjoy. Now we have to figure out how to capitalize and build on this.

One negative that may explain why our tourist numbers are down and has to be dealt with by ensuring that all of the US Customs booths are fully staffed and operating efficiently comes through loud and clear in this comment I saw on the Internet:

• "I made it all the way to Windsor via the Ambassador bridge Saturday, only to get searched by customs. Finally, I made my way to the Air Race only to find out it was canceled. Then it took 1.5 hrs to get back downtown via the tunnel. I was very disappointed!!!

3) Is Windsor a friendly place for the small business person? Or do we have a City trying to compete with private enterprise? I don't know but perhaps one could ask the family who do the plant watering what they think. Or ask Alexander Neil who wrote me the following:

• Hi Ed!
  
  Great blog - just came across it to-day!
  
  I was interested in this "city’s service delivery review committee" for which we're paying $700,000. My question is how do we learn what services are being examined.
  
  I'm an officiant - licensed by The Ontario Registrar-General's Office for perform legal marriage ceremonies, my concern lies with the City getting back into the marrying business. Prior to 2004, couples could no longer get married at City Hall (there were no facilities nor registered personnel to perform ceremonies) - they'd all been discontinued years earlier due to provincial/municipal "cost-cutting" measures.
  
  As an officiant licensed in the name of The Humanist Association of Canada, when the Supreme Court ruling of June 2003 came down enabling same-gender marriages, well, we immediately saw the potential for our city, given Windsor's geographical location - as a "humanist" (i.e. non-religious association) we'd often be approached by same-gender couples, since we do have a totally accepting attitude.
  
  We'd approached the city for support in marketing the City as a tourist destination at the time of the ruling, putting together a great little package - yet received no response from the City. One year after our submission, (to the day! - does that mean something legally for them??), the City announced that they'd finally received permission from the province to start marketing "marriage ceremonies" through City Hall services, and specifically echoed the same facts we'd included in our proposal to them a year earlier, specifically regarding the same-gender demographic and Windsor's geography, etc. - yet essentially "setting up shop" in direct conflict with us long-standing officiants!
  
  Further hurtful was yet another advantage for them - since engaged couples need to obtain their marriage licences from City Hall, and it's at the same desk, where they obtain their marriage licences before they can get married that there's now signs at that desk promoting their services, deflecting clients from we Windsor business people. I see this almost like as if the City were to open up their own taxi business in direct competition with existing cab companies (who also buy licences and pay taxes!) - yet even worse in this marriage case, because the City has "first dibs" on potential couples right at their marriage licence office with their signs and info pamphlets, etc. as the couples are waiting for their marriage licences to be processed.
  
  I'll admit that I felt angered by the initial "ignoring" at our initiative to promote the area - but felt better later when I saw the City was actually going to work the tourist potential of this demographic, yet when two weeks later, and I read that the City was going to be performing the marriage ceremonies, deflecting clients from us (and collecting additional fees for them ) - I was pissed!
  
  The City remains doing so to-day - lasso-ing potential couples looking for non-religious or chapel-type ceremonies, taking potential clients away from long-standing Windsor-based (and Windsor promoting!) businesses. In all fairness, the City has listed us business people on their website, available to those couples who take the time to search us out, once they've left the marriage licensing bureau and have left the banners advertising the City's new "marrying business" across the window of the clerk processing their marriage licence.
  
  I'm writing to ask if you can point me in the right direction to find out if this area is going to be investigated in this latest review, since this Windsorite would like to provide some input.

4) I wonder when the Mayor's Report on his idea about Windsorites commuting out West will ever come out. How many months has it been so far? It looks like one Westerner got tired of waiting for our action-oriented Mayor:

• "Stewart trying to lure Ontarians
  Angela Hall, Leader-Post, Saturday, May 31, 2008
  
  The province that prides itself on offering workers short commute times might one day see southern Ontarians travelling all the way to Saskatchewan to fill jobs.
  
  Enterprise and Innovation Minister Lyle Stewart departs Sunday for Windsor, Ont., a city whose mayor earlier this spring pitched the idea of sending workers to Saskatchewan during the work week, and returning them to their Ontario homes for their days off.
  
  Stewart said he considers it a "fine idea" worthy of more discussion as the demand for workers grows in Saskatchewan.
  
  "It may be a way to fill some of our jobs and to acquaint Ontario people with the Saskatchewan lifestyle," said Stewart, who plans to meet Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis and also talk to industry associations during the three-day trip. "I think it's a great way to open the door."
  
  Stewart acknowledged that the provincial government's ultimate goal is to have more people permanently residing in the province, but said having people come here just for the work would help, too.
  
  "We don't want (Windsor's mayor) to think of this as a raiding party or anything like that. But we think there are problems in the Ontario economy right now and there are certainly opportunities for people here. We'd love to get some people from southern Ontario at least working in the province," Stewart said.
  
  Francis was unavailable for comment Friday, but his office confirmed a meeting with Stewart is to take place Tuesday. During his state of the city address in March, Francis suggested workers from Windsor, hurt by layoffs in the manufacturing sector, could travel to prairie cities to work for five days and return home on weekends."

5) I thought this letter from a pesky environmentalist published in the Windsor Star was worthing repeating:

• "Re: Sliced and Diced, May 29, Gord Henderson column.
  
  Mr. Henderson says "Nobody wants to see this in a courtroom."
  
  Actually, I believe lawyer David Estrin would like nothing more. It is Mr Estrin who has hired the consultants who have spent $5 million of taxpayers' money and achieved nothing.
  
  I'm sure he can deliver more of those results at 10 times the price.
  
  If you think $600 an hour adds up when you are scripting the "brilliant interrogations" of DRIC by Mayor Eddie Francis and Fulvio Valentinis, wait until you get the province of Ontario in court.
  
  Unlike council, they will be in an actual courtroom, under oath with expert testimony.
  
  But have no fear. Taxpayer funding of both sides of long legal battles is a situation with which Mr. Estrin has experience.
  
  I think Mr. Henderson was also wrong about DRIC representatives looking like "cornered rabbits" by the end of the evening.
  
  They looked to me like weary grownups do after a long night of dealing with rude, spoiled children.
  
  I recall Mr. Henderson rhapsodizing about the Schwartz report in 2005, as I recall Mayor Francis threatening to take legal action against the province if that plan was not adopted. Now, the DRIC Parkway is announced, a clear improvement on the plan the city was insisting on then. But according to city leaders, the most expensive roadway per kilometer ever proposed in Ontario is a "sellout" and "cheap solution."
  
  Mr. Henderson is doing an excellent job of assisting the mayor, Mr. Estrin and council chase 12,000 jobs and $1.6 billion from our region.
  
  Mr. Henderson says this is council's "finest hour."
  
  That's quite a legacy. I hope people consider its full implications carefully."

6) I just renewed my annual subsciption to Skype for "unlimited" North American local and long distance phone calls via the Internet: $23.60