So Many More

You will not believe it. More stories for your information

WHY WAS COUNCILLOR DILKENS THERE

I thought I read in the Star:

• "City officials will also boycott the open houses."

Then today I read:

• "Hundreds drawn to DRIC open house...Citizens tell Dilkens to push GreenLink"

Now I remember that Drew had to leave Council early on Monday. Perhaps his Wardmate, Councillor Brister, forgot to give him the Memo.

Or perhaps unlike some of his colleagues, Councillor Dilkens actually wants to know what residents think. What a strange concept for this Council.

I hope that he is not confronted with swear words and an Integrity Commissioner threat at the next in camera Council meeting.

WHAT WILL THE GREENLINK EXCUSE BE

All that Parkland that needs to be looked after. If it is not done, then which of the following excuses will be used:

• "According to Councillor Valentinis, the reason why "Grass cutting at city parks [is] falling short" is "with global warming, grass appears to be growing earlier and faster every spring"
• we are waiting for the University students to join the Parks Department before the grass would be cut
• it a nature preserve so that the grass never needs cutting
• a mild May followed by lots of rain and warm weather has sent vegetation growth at city parks out of control and staff are having trouble keeping up with it
• we are waiting for Dave Wake to get an answer from the Premier with respect to funding
• let the County pay for it if they have the majority of the roadway
• all of the above

HIS HOUSE HAS BEEN SOLD

A famous Windsor celebrity just sold his house.

I am concerned since he lives in the DRTP corridor area and given his connections at City Hall perhaps he knows something and is getting out now while the getting is good.

I expect that he may be retiring since he hinted at it before.

Is he downsizing his house or moving into a condo or merely just moving? Or perish the thought, will he be moving out West to get a new, higher-paying job to take advantage of the Eddie Francis personnel agency recruitment relationship with Western mayors. Perhaps he is going to Oakville to be near a relative.

DAVE WHO?

Even though the Star's Dave Battagello stopped writing BLOGs, his old ones used to be available on the Star online. Not any more:

"Not Found: Forum Not Found
The forum you requested does not exist."

ILLOGIC 101

Someone should be looking at the Blue Water Bridge plaza project and the DRIC project together and not let the Governments treat them as unrelated projects.

Here's why:

• If the DRIC project will take away a good chunk of the BWB business since it has to cannibalize their traffic to make their bridge pay, then why spend $400M+ for a plaza and destroy a good part of Port Huron
• If they spend money to fix up the plaza in Port Huron so traffic is attracted there, then who needs the DRIC bridge.

See what I mean about Government logic!

UNION LEADERSHIP CANNOT CONTROL THEIR MEMBERS

Does the Customs officers union think that this comment will excuse their responsibility:

• "Our members are discontented enough to start a slowdown," Coupal said. "We have no control -- that's the problem. They may take some of these things into their own hands."

Nothing like preparing an excuse and a defence to a possible lawsuit in advance:

• "My estimation is that it's going to get very ugly," Leibel said. "I think you're going to see small pockets of rebellion from our members, not instructed by the union, but taking it upon themselves. Several people will maybe muster together the troops and say, 'Let's do something about this'."

Rebellion, mustering the troops. Are they declaring war? Oh my goodness, they carry guns now too and they may take things into their own hands. Scary thought!

Wow, nothing like signalling to your members what they might be able to do but saying that the union is not involved.

I wonder if the almost daily drug seizure stories are a mere co-incidence to demonstrate how well the Customs officers are performing.

In passing, one has to wonder why we have such backups at the border so many times given these stats:

• "Since 1999, when Windsor and Essex County saw a peak of 7.9 million visits from the U.S., the numbers have tumbled to 3.3 million in 2005, the latest figures available from the convention and visitors bureau."

CHANGING THE ROAD

It seems that not only the conversation will be changed in Windsor but the roads as well. Here is a note I received from a reader about the reduction in width of Huron Church Road to two lanes as shown in the Schwartz diagram:

• "I had an in-depth discussion with one of Schwartz's traffic engineers after closely inspecting their proposal at Willistead last year... I was told that under Greenlink, Huron Church would become a 2-lane secondary road (think Jefferson Ave. between Tecumseh Rd. & Wyandotte) barely wide enough for a truck to travel on."

If true, this has to be an agreed to plan by all three levels of Government to squeeze away business from the Bridge Co. if all else fails in order to allow the new bridge to prosper. Clearly, that is also why the Schwartz/Greenlink road never went past E C Row. Eddie does not want to be part of a lawsuit on his own for destroying the Bridge Co. business.

FOR PROFIT

I saw a comment recently about the Ambassador Bridge:

• "the busiest international border in North America is owned by a private for-profit-company. Currently, the Ambassador Bridge is the busiest commercial border crossing in all of North America, handling 20 percent more trucks than its closest competitor and almost double the commercial traffic of the next busiest crossing on the Canadian border. In all, almost 30 percent of all U.S./Canada trade and over 25 percent of the truck traffic between the U.S. and Canada passes through the Detroit-Windsor gateway. This U.S.-Canadian trade directly supports 7.1 million U.S. jobs, 221,500 Michigan jobs, and one in three Canadian jobs. More than $1 billon in trade crosses the bridge everyday.

What a coincidence that a private operator is the number one border operator in North America. Or is it?

Don't you find it fascinating that the prosperity the economies of the United States and Canada is partly due to the fact that private money has been used to make the Windsor/Detroit crossing so successful.

Now the Governments want to take away the business created by the private enterprise party from that private enterprise party. The funny part is the Governments are then going to turn around and give the private enterprise business developed by the private enterprise party to another private enterprise party.

Only the same Governments that treat the Blue Water Bridge project and the DRIC project as unrelated could have this logic!

THE DRIC ROAD WILL BE BUILT

You think so do you.

$1.6 billion, 10 times the amount of any other road project in Ontario, the Province paying itself for the costs of expropriation with the Federal Government only paying 50% of the "eligible capital costs" whatever that means.

Naturally, the road will be built because DRIC is out there right now buying up properties. Oh ye of little faith. There will be work done on Huron Church Road but it won't be the DRIC Road or the even more costly Greenlink THINK BIG stall road.

And what about the properties then? They will do what MDOT did in the Port Huron area:

• "MDOT plans to sell homes
  
  The Michigan Department of Transportation has acquired property it no longer needs for the expansion of the Blue Water Bridge Plaza.
  
  Matt Webb, who is handling the project for MDOT, said 26 parcels, mostly residential, have been bought in advance of the project. Of those, a search of county property shows two homes no longer are needed since MDOT announced plans Thursday to reduce the size of the project.
  
  The project has been scaled back by 8 acres, from 65 to 57, and will spare 21 homes and four businesses initially slated for demolition.
  
  When the 26 parcels were bought, MDOT was "looking at making protective purchases," Webb said. "Since that's changed, those (two houses) will be put back on the market at fair market value."
  
  The two homes were "hardship cases," Webb said without elaborating on the specifics."

Who knows, DRIC might even make a profit on the sale too to help pay for their fees!

PAYING CANADIANS TO RETURN HOME

The high-rollers get Billy Joel. The peasants get a free toll!

I read in Crains Detroit that, to draw gamblers to Windsor:

• "[Caesars Windsor] will pay for tolls in the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel from 3 p.m-8 p.m. on Sunday... The gaming company did impose a cap on the generosity: 4,000 cars. At $3.75 U.S. per trip, the afternoon will cost $15,000. Don’t expect the same treatment on the way home — the promotion is only one-way."

If they are targetting US residents, then my question...isn't that the time when most Canadians come home after shopping in the US? Aren't Americans returning home then too so they get no advantage?

I guess the theory must be that Canadians have saved so much money by shopping in the US that we may try our luck at the Casino too.

One question: how many American high-rollers will be stopped by US Customs when exiting the US because they did not declare all of the cash they are carrying so they can make $50K bets at the Casino!

• "Failure to provide all or any part of the requested information may subject the currency or monetary instruments to seizure and forfeiture, as well as subject the individual to civil and criminal liabilities."