It's Official: Tunnel Deal Sucks For Windsor

Given everything that is going on in Detroit these days, one has to say, if the Detroit News is to be believed, that Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins is a very brave person. According to the paper,

• "Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins told her colleagues hours after the vote that she planned to move that they revote today."

I wonder what their Procedural Bylaw says about Reconsideration votes.

Can you imagine what would happen if a Councillor in Detroit changed his/her vote. That would be a pretty risky business these days with all the headlines in that city.

You have to hand it to our Mayor.

No matter how bad this deal is for the City of Windsor, he just won't give up. He has to do this deal regardless. After all, we've sunk in well over $1 million so far in taxpayer money for fees so how can he walk away from it and look silly. That would not look good on the resume of an entrepreneur!

Poor Mr. Sutts. Never mind just him. Take pity on his law partners. After all Mr. Sutts has said in the past:

• "I've said all along from square one I will not recommend a deal to the city of Windsor that did not make business sense," he said. "My intention has not changed.
  
  "In all of these negotiations everything I've done is with that in mind."
  
  
• "We will be extraordinarily cautious so costs of the acquisition will be self-supporting of the project itself. That there will be no need to go to the well of the city to support this transaction."
  
  
• "But Sutts and Francis said Tuesday they are being careful not to complete any tunnel deal that could prove costly in the years to come."

Mr. Sutts, and his partners, may regret what Mr. Sutts said in his CKLW comment above. There is startling new information which I am about to reveal that will require him, I would have thought, to tell the Mayor to stop this foolishness.

According to the Detroit News, the key financial analyst on the Detroit side has made the following comments:

• "Council members spent considerable time debating the tunnel authority proposal that would have set a 120-day timetable to negotiate a deal with Windsor, which was waiting to see whether Detroit would secure a deal before seeking its own financing from Ontario.
  
  Adams and other administration officials emphasized that a tunnel deal wasn't guaranteed if the authority was created because a supermajority of the mayor and council's seven appointees would have to support such a move.
  
  Some council members even disregarded their own fiscal analyst Irv Corley's more favorable opinion of exploring the sale of the tunnel, in which he concurs that the level of toll traffic will diminish in the future.
  
  Corley said he believed the administration's independent analysis that the loan would be paid off sooner than first expected and surmised that this "could be a good time to take advantage" and maximize profits."

In other words, it is a great deal for Detroit since

• "the level of toll traffic will diminish in the future"

Moreover, this is a great time for Detroit

• "to take advantage and maximize profits"

If traffic goes down, who is at risk... Windsor. Who gets the maximum profits...Detroit. Who is at a financial disadvantage... Windsor. Who now has all of the risks... you got it, this side of the river.

You will have to excuse me but I still don't get it on the Detroit side. Why would they continually talk about a loan with Windsor which they have to pay back when it appears that Alinda would give them $70 million and 20% of net revenues.

So many questions. So few answers. And don't worry, we will never learn the complete story without another Municipal Freedom of Information application. According to Mr. Sutts:

• "Sutts pointed to a confidentiality agreement surrounding the negotiations which restricts his comments on the $75-million figure."

Based on what Mr. Sutts said in the past, and what has now been finally disclosed in Detroit, is it time that he and the Mayor stopped trying!

One more thought in all of this. Why wouldn't Detroit and Windsor try and INCREASE the value of the Tunnel first before doing a deal! Why treat it as a declining asset?

Or is there a hidden agenda? Is Windsor outsmarting Detroit and taking advantage of its financial weakness? Is it really Windsor's plan to try and sucker Detroit and then increase traffic and the Tunnel value? Maybe then the Tunnel Plaza Improvement project will move forward.

What boggles my mind, and what distinguishes politicians from real business people, is that the Mayors and Councils on both sides of the river have not yet figured out that the problem is not who owns the Tunnel but the problem is not having Tunnel business. Their objective should be ensuring that traffic flows properly across the border so that tourists and business people are encouraged to use the Tunnel.

Instead of this foolish competition with the Bridge Company for a vehicle, the objective of the border crossing operators should be to fight Governments to ensure that the border users are not delayed so that there is no impression that people will be stuck in traffic for hours.

Their objective ought to be increasing the number of people who want across the border thereby increasing the traffic and then they can fight as to who gets which vehicle. They need to get the traffic volumes back up to where they were about a decade ago. Then they ought to talk deals.

Until the politicians can figure that out, our border crossings, including the Ambassador Bridge, are doomed to a continued reduction in traffic and a reduction in the value of the Tunnel as an asset. More importantly, unless this is a Win-Win for both sides, regional co-operation is dead.