Time For The Real Voice Of Council To Speak
I told you that no Naysayer can ruin Windsor's image the way politicians can!
It is time for the Windsor’s Voice of Council to start talking and to say the right thing that makes sense now. If he does not do so immediately, then Windsor Council has no alternative but to rescind the Resolution giving him such designation and Council better start talking to us and for us.
The first thing that must be said is that the Tunnel deal with Detroit is dead at this time. Mr. Sutts must be immediately instructed to close his file and stop incurring any more fees on this file including face-to-face meetings or otherwise.
No disrespect is intended by me to the People of the City of Detroit, to its Mayor or to its Council members. However, with the mess in Detroit and undoubtedly with more to come, no one in their right mind would do a deal with that City at this time, especially a $75 million one over an important border crossing, the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel. Do you really think the Feds on either side would approve a deal!
Obviously, Windsor on its own cannot finance this transaction. That is why the City applied for a loan from Infrastructure Ontario, which loan application is now “on hold.” To be direct, the Voice of Council must tell us exactly why the application was put on hold.
I cannot believe that the Province would continue on with the transaction even if it was not on hold with the situation as it exists in Detroit right now. In my opinion, it would be the height of irresponsibility for the Province to continue on with this transaction considering that it is probably doubtful if the Province should have considered it in the first place. The monies in the Infrastructure fund are for Ontario purposes and not to fix the budget situation in Detroit.
Who would want to take the responsibility of undertaking due diligence on this file? Which law firm would take the responsibility for giving a clean opinion letter allowing this transaction to go forward.
Until the Detroit situation is cleared up so that one can absolutely be certain what is going on over there, it would be the height of irresponsibility for Windsor Council to spend one cent more on this deal.
But not our Mayor. He cannot give it up! Why not? Here is how he was quoted in the Detroit News:
- "Francis said Windsor is still willing to continue negotiations with Detroit, but they need a unified position from the city.
"We will continue to discuss and negotiate as long as the other side will do the same," Francis said.
Here is something else very interesting. Our Mayor today modestly claims that he does not know something in the law it appears. He said in the Detroit News:
- "Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis said today that he never considered that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick could have been violating his bond restrictions by meeting with him last month to negotiate details on the proposed $75 million sale of Detroit's share of the tunnel.
"This didn't even cross our minds," Francis said. "It's not even an issue for us to consider."
Was this the Royal "we" or was he speaking on behalf of others as well?
Yet a week before in the Brian Bell matter, Eddie said in relation to that file:
But there is more. There is a conflict it would appear as to who called whom. When the call was made would be an interesting fact to learn as well.
Check out the newspaper articles that I have quoted below. We need to hear from the Voice of Council immediately what his position is. Does the statement of the Mayor of Detroit mean that our Mayor asked him to come or is this an incorrect interpretation of what he actually said? Or was it the Detroit Mayor who made the phone call? We need immediate clarification.
If our Mayor made the call then he needs to explain why he did so given Mr. Sutts’ earlier statement with respect to the position of Windsor Council.
We need a timeline of phone calls about who called whom and when. Remember I wrote that Anthony Adams had said:
- "how could the negotiations be lapsed if it is still on the table and if Anthony Adams claimed "William Phillips, who has represented Detroit in the negotiations, spoke with Sutts as recently as Thursday night, and Sutts asked for Phillips to provide him Detroit documents" and if "Sutts said he still has authority to continue speaking with Detroit officials"
I also Blogged that:
- "Sutts said he still has authority to continue speaking with Detroit officials and negotiations would resume if Detroit council members state their support for finalizing the sale. In fact, he spoke today with Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams and attorney William Phillips, who has represented the City of Detroit in negotiations."
This situation is a mess and another fiasco that our Mayor is dragging us through. In this case the silence of the Voice of Council is not golden. Either he speaks now or Windsor Council better do so.
Excerpts from Free Press 08-07-2008:
"I’ve also been trying to be a good mayor at the same time, even with incredible odds and incredible scrutiny. In the City of Detroit we have been working on for 18 months a deal between two countries, Canada and the United States, the Provincial Government of Ontario, the state of Michigan, two cities — Windsor and Detroit and with all of the requisite agencies — Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and those same agencies on the other side of the water. Because of the politics that were involved in the City Council on our side, there was a rush vote which got the Windsor City Council, the Windsor mayor and the lawyers who have been working on this work for 18 months in flux (??). That is the last part of a $300 million deficit that the city has been carrying since before I was mayor. If I don’t close, if we, the City of Detroit don’t close that deficit, 2,000 jobs are going to be lost in the City of Detroit. There is no way I can have recreation programs, there is no way I can cut grass, clean streets. I will have to lay off about 700 police officers and about 251 firefighters.
Facing that reality, what I’ve been doing for six months is digging in and trying to get that deal done. I don’t believe that that is more important than this court proceeding. I don’t believe that I would ever disrespect these proceedings at all. I wake up every single day, Your Honor, and look at my 12-year old sons who are facing enormous pressure every day as they go to camp, they go to school. I respect this process more than I’ve respected any process in my life. And I’m sorry. I did violate the conditions of the bond because I got a phone call that the Windsor City Council that everything was going off the rail and they were going to back off the deal and the mayor and an attorney over there called me.
It’s been presented that I went over there for a couple of hours. The office that I went to, and I know this is not important, is about 50 to 100 feet from the tunnel. I ran in, I made a presentation, I took Anthony Adams and also Kandia Milton who were there as well, and I ran back. And we got the deal back on track. We are now moving forward to close that final deficit."
Excerpt from Windsor Star 07-24-2008
"Scandal-plagued Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick came to Windsor for a secret meeting Wednesday to reassure city officials he wants to move forward with a controversial tunnel agreement.
A 90-minute meeting which included Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis was held in the downtown office of lawyer Cliff Sutts, Windsor's lead negotiator for the tunnel talks...
Sutts indicated the Wednesday meeting, called by Kilpatrick, focused on the Detroit officials -- which also included Kilpatrick's chief of staff and two lawyers negotiating the deal for Detroit -- "explaining the recent events in Detroit.
Kilpatrick told the Canadians that "the deal is not dead, despite what we may have heard," Sutts said.
"I suppose he could have picked up the phone, but he realized by coming over it makes an impression he really wants the deal. Going to the trouble of coming over makes you believe they are serious."
Windsor Star 07-10-2008
"The distractions of Detroit's council have left the situation so uncertain. Windsor's council does not want to proceed and incur further (legal) expense unless Detroit clarifies it's position," local lawyer Cliff Sutts, lead negotiator for Windsor, said after a two-hour special council meeting on Thursday.
"We could proceed with negotiations, reach completed documents and (Detroit's council) could reject it for reasons totally unrelated to the documents themselves.
Windsor's council has decided they don't want to incur expenses on a speculative basis."
"We are throwing the ball into the City of Detroit's court and let them respond."
"I’ve also been trying to be a good mayor at the same time, even with incredible odds and incredible scrutiny. In the City of Detroit we have been working on for 18 months a deal between two countries, Canada and the United States, the Provincial Government of Ontario, the state of Michigan, two cities — Windsor and Detroit and with all of the requisite agencies — Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and those same agencies on the other side of the water. Because of the politics that were involved in the City Council on our side, there was a rush vote which got the Windsor City Council, the Windsor mayor and the lawyers who have been working on this work for 18 months in flux (??). That is the last part of a $300 million deficit that the city has been carrying since before I was mayor. If I don’t close, if we, the City of Detroit don’t close that deficit, 2,000 jobs are going to be lost in the City of Detroit. There is no way I can have recreation programs, there is no way I can cut grass, clean streets. I will have to lay off about 700 police officers and about 251 firefighters.
Facing that reality, what I’ve been doing for six months is digging in and trying to get that deal done. I don’t believe that that is more important than this court proceeding. I don’t believe that I would ever disrespect these proceedings at all. I wake up every single day, Your Honor, and look at my 12-year old sons who are facing enormous pressure every day as they go to camp, they go to school. I respect this process more than I’ve respected any process in my life. And I’m sorry. I did violate the conditions of the bond because I got a phone call that the Windsor City Council that everything was going off the rail and they were going to back off the deal and the mayor and an attorney over there called me.
It’s been presented that I went over there for a couple of hours. The office that I went to, and I know this is not important, is about 50 to 100 feet from the tunnel. I ran in, I made a presentation, I took Anthony Adams and also Kandia Milton who were there as well, and I ran back. And we got the deal back on track. We are now moving forward to close that final deficit."
Excerpt from Windsor Star 07-24-2008
"Scandal-plagued Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick came to Windsor for a secret meeting Wednesday to reassure city officials he wants to move forward with a controversial tunnel agreement.
A 90-minute meeting which included Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis was held in the downtown office of lawyer Cliff Sutts, Windsor's lead negotiator for the tunnel talks...
Sutts indicated the Wednesday meeting, called by Kilpatrick, focused on the Detroit officials -- which also included Kilpatrick's chief of staff and two lawyers negotiating the deal for Detroit -- "explaining the recent events in Detroit.
Kilpatrick told the Canadians that "the deal is not dead, despite what we may have heard," Sutts said.
"I suppose he could have picked up the phone, but he realized by coming over it makes an impression he really wants the deal. Going to the trouble of coming over makes you believe they are serious."
Windsor Star 07-10-2008
"The distractions of Detroit's council have left the situation so uncertain. Windsor's council does not want to proceed and incur further (legal) expense unless Detroit clarifies it's position," local lawyer Cliff Sutts, lead negotiator for Windsor, said after a two-hour special council meeting on Thursday.
"We could proceed with negotiations, reach completed documents and (Detroit's council) could reject it for reasons totally unrelated to the documents themselves.
Windsor's council has decided they don't want to incur expenses on a speculative basis."
"We are throwing the ball into the City of Detroit's court and let them respond."
posted by JoeBlog at 12:01 a.m.
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