Saturday In The Park

I went with my daughter to Jackson Park for a walk this weekend. In 20 years in Windsor, I had never gone there. I just had never got around to it.

It is absolutely beautiful. A wonderful oasis. It reminded me of Edwards Gardens in Toronto where I used to go quite often when I lived there. I asked my daughter if she remembered that park but of course she did not. She was too young when we lived there. I told her it was very similar to the one in Windsor only much, much bigger.

And then I figured it out. I knew who the true naysayers are in Windsor. They are not Bloggers or writers to the Windsor Star Forums or to the Letters to the Editor or those who appear at City Council as delegations. We are passionate about our City and that is why we are so harsh in our criticism when we see things going awry and why we try to suggest improvements and alternatives.

Rather, it is the political leadership in town who must hate this City.

Why else do they want to make Windsor something that it's not. Why can't they be happy with who we are and be pleased with what we already have accomplished so that they can build on it for our better future.

Jackson Park was a symbol to me of what we already have.

We already have achieved with it. It is our real "WOW FACTOR," not some planters on Dougall to impress tourists or a few concept drawings of canals prepared by an out-of-towner. We already have a beautiful park that we should be promoting more. We already have achieved and can do more with it but that is not good enough for them.

Oh no, we have to be world-class in everything. Our Mayor has to run to London England over the holiday weekend so that we can have the Red Bull race here so that the world will know Windsor. As if we are on anyone's radar after the Super Bowl or the All Star game or the WWE or the Grand Prix race, all of which have taken place in Detroit. We are just coat-tail riders with those events and not good ones either.

Huron Church Road has to be a Champs-Élysées. Greenlink has to be like the connection between Mercer Island to Seattle. We need full tunnels similar to the ones in New Zealand, Norway or Japan. Our proposed canals have to be like Venice or San Antonio.

If Chicago buys hybrid buses, why then so do we. If Mayor Daley leases out a toll road, then the least that we can do is lease half a Tunnel from Detroit and then flip it.

We have to THINK BIG or GO BIG OR GO HOME.

Do you see what I mean? This desire to be something we are not. How does a City of 200,000 people plus hope to emulate the achievements of true world-class locations. We cannot and there is no point trying.

Like it or not, we are Sin City as we found out at Super Bowl time! The Windsor Ballet will always be better known than our Symphony as we spend more money on a feasibility study about building a world-class $40M concert hall at the Armouries so we can be Boston's Symphony Hall or Vienna's Musikverein. And yes, I know this is not City-sponsored but you see, the "world-class" disease is catching.

All that will happen is what we now have in Windsor: absolute stagnation with nothing being achieved other than spending money on non-Windsor experts who receive millions for creating these plans. Can you imagine the latest... $10,000 for a few artists renditions. More dreams, more stalling, more inaction, more nightmares.

We need new leadership in Windsor that understands what we are, what we are capable of doing given the talent that we have in the City and will lead us to what can be realistically achieved. They need to understand what we already have.

Can you believe that we are still fighting over a road with 15,000 jobs at stake that could be the transition we need while we develop our future. Probably the worst thing that ever happened to us is winning the Financial Times "the best small city in North America to do business." Our Development Commission can fly over to London for a trade show but ignore what could have been achieved after the big "Windsor/Essex-themed party in the centre of Toronto's financial district!"

Unfortunately, we don't have an election for a new Mayor and Council for a number of years.

After all this time, I have no hope that Eddie is capable of understanding anything I'm writing in this BLOG. He believes that our future is onions through a startup in Germany.

Where are our Councillors and mayoral hopefuls? Why aren't they stepping up and filling this leadership vacuum? What are they afraid of? What are they waiting for? Why hasn't our business community spoken up more?

As the song goes:

• "Listen children all is not lost
  All is not lost...
  If we want it, really want it...
  And I've been waiting such a long time
  For the day?

I guess I'll just have to wait a little bit more.