More For Your Information

I want to help out in this BLOG and solve a few problems. I hope that you will agree that I have done so.

EDDIE’S NEW THEME SONG

I beg of you, please help. The folks on the Morning show on CKLW… the ones who pitch lobs to the Mayor so that he can hit a home run every Tuesday, the people who work for the Radio Station with the strap on “W” mentality, need our assistance.

Apparently, the Mayor is tired of the Theme Music that they use at the beginning of the segment. He would like something new and different but obviously something appropriate.

It is not an easy taskto find a song that fits.

I thought I would help with a few suggestions which I will list below. But I assume that you, dear reader, will have other ideas. Please send them to me as soon as possible so that the good folks at the Radio Station will have some interesting suggestions to ponder before the next Tuesday show. I will post them for everyone's consideration. Here are my ideas:

• > Lost Highway: Greenlink or the DRIC with 15,000 jobs
• >Another one bites the Dust: one of Eddie's vision
• > All I need is a miracle: what Eddie and Council need right now
• > Another Day in Paradise: living in Windsor
• > Cult of Personality: how Council meetings are run
• > Don't come around here no more: what investors say about Windsor
• > Don't Worry Be Happy: how the strap on "W" folks want you to act
• > Windsorite in New York: Eddie visiting Sam and Parsons Brinckerhoff
• > Every Time You Go Away: for the commuters going out West
• > Every rose has its thorn: the WOW-FACTOR Gardens
• > Fame (I'm gonna live forever): Eddie's legacy
• > Free Fallin': what Windsor's economy and house prices are doing
• > Get up and go: what our best and brightest are told to do
• > Heaven knows I'm miserable now: Windsor taxpayers' lament
• > Holding out for a hero: what we had hoped for
• > I know there's something going on: the BLOGGERS' state of mind
• > I Think We're Alone Now: Will the last person in Windsor turn off the lights
• > Is There Something I Should Know: BLOGGERS, see above
• > It's The End of the World as We Know it: Windsor's auto industry
• > Let's hear it for the boy: Gord Orr at Eddie's State of the City speech
• > Manic Monday: Council meetings
• > Money for Nothing: consultant and legal fees
• > No More Words: walk the talk already
• > Nothing at all: what this Mayor and Council have achieved
• > Oblivious: what Eddie is about citizen concerns
• > Out of touch: ditto
• > Promised you a miracle: THINK BIG, GO BIG OR GO HOME
• > Promises, Promises: what Windsorites have received
• > Road to nowhere: right back where we started from (see top of the list)

Now it is your turn

311

I know how to solve the problem about 311 and it won't cost a penny. If we do it properly, the number of calls will be drastically reduced and we might not need all of the staff and space that Administration has told us that are required.

INTRODUCE CITISTAT

I still cannot understand why Eddie is so reluctant to bring in the program that made him Mayor in the first place. It was supposed to save us millions of dollars every year in tax reductions because the City would be organized in a much more efficient manner. Problems would be quickly identified and solved so that "service" phone calls to 311 would not be necessary. The problems would not arise in the first place if Citistat was operating properly.

It's time Eddie for you to fulfill what made you Mayor and for us to reap all of the savings promised. We have already lost millions because you have not acted.

MORE ON 311

Wait a minute. What was the reason for freaking out over spending more money for the 311 service. There is probably no need to do anything.

It is claimed that

• "The service has become a victim of its own success as huge volumes of calls at certain time periods have overwhelmed city staff on duty and added greatly to response times...
  
  When the city first launched its 311 service in 2005, it was expecting around 100,000 calls annually.
  
  But in the first seven months this year, 128,000 calls were made. Almost 23,000 of those callers hung up because they couldn't get through."

Why is this happening? Is it really such a success or is the service being misused? Let me give you two examples:

1. Mayor Seeks Information About Windsorites Travelling West. People are told to call 311


2. Bring Your Shovel and Help Green the WFCU Centre. For more information, call 311

Are 311 operators supposed to be serving the needs of the public in dealing with City Hall or are they to waste time by dealing with people on survey questions? No wonder people were hanging up.

In the same fashion, one has to ask why one could not have a tape service to answer most of the calls about the East End Arena rather than tying up an operator.

I have not of course talked about the biggest waste of 311 operator time and probably the reason for most of the phone calls and the disconnections: Greenlink.

How many thousands of phone calls came in from people to support Greenlink? There is no doubt, if we believe the numbers that the Mayor and now Councillor Valentinis told John Fairley on Face-to-Face, that we can explain the large number of people who probably overloaded the system and the large number of disconnects. So many thousands called after the City wasted so much money on their ad blitz. Why it was almost our patriotic duty to phone in or to get a postcard to mail in.

Since Greenlink is dead, if City Hall would use 311 for the purposes for which was set up and if some innovative ways are used to deal with people phoning in on standard and repetitive matters then we would not have to waste taxpayer money on this matter.

Press 1 for Greenlink, 2 for WFCU, 3 to register as a delegation, 4 for commuter information and so on.

CUBA SI

Thanks to a reader for this information.

Go to this Star article "City invests $100K in Believe W.E. Can" http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=df72bb8d-17e0-4be6-be40-e6e0fa5db19f

Then go down the left side of the page and click on the icon "Believe WE CAN" and see what happens.

My reader claims that the slogon might read instead ""WE believe WE CAN get the hell out of here!!"

And you thought I was bad!

PENSON PLAN STOCK LOSSES

The Star reported that

• "Market decline wiped $80B off pension plans
  
  The fall in stock markets over the past half year has wiped $80 billion off the value Canadian workers' pension funds and RRSPs, a labour economist estimated Tuesday in the wake of the worst single-day of losses ever on Bay and Wall Streets."

Look then for pension fund managers to run like sheep to "safe" investments like illiquid infrastructure assets to protect against the ups and downs of the stock market.

Perhaps they can take their lead from OMERS' investment in DRTP as their model! How much money have pensioners made on that investment?