Voice of Council
I noticed in the coverage by the TV stations of the Walker Road ribbon cutting ceremony that there were no Windsor Councillors present. Or at least they weren’t visible in the video to me.
I wonder if they were invited to attend the ceremony. After all it was a multi-million dollar project that closed that road down for over a year. I am sure that a number of them took abuse for the road closing so one would have thought that they should get some credit when the road reopened.
In case you are interested, they were invited. Why weren’t they visible in the video? It may be because of scheduling difficulties. Many of them probably could not attend because they were only given notice of the 2 p.m. ceremony on Friday only a few hours before it took place.
It’s Ok though. I do not want people thinking that the Councillors boycotted the session. There was no snubbing of the Senior Levels. Eddie was there, front and centre. Didn’t you see him on TV being interviewed? We heard his Voice.
THE VOICE DEFINED
In going through my archives, I found a comment by the Mayor about what his interpretation is of him being the Voice of Council:
Here is something from a CKLW interview in May, 2007 where the Mayor explained what this meant. This was taken in the context of Councillor Halberstadt walking out of an in camera Council meeting where it was alleged he leaked confidential on his internet Blog. Just look at the funny comment at the end as well.
- “members of council by resolution have authorized myself to be the only person to be the lead spokesperson on the border as well as the lead negotiator on the border. And implied in that is that all members of city council through resolution will certainly allow myself to act in the best interests of the corporation and follow their instructions and their directions.
Each and every one of them would like to speak on the border, each and every one of them have different opinions on the border, but given the nature of these issues and the significance of these issues, each and every one of them has certainly through resolution put their confidence in the whole, the collective whole, the collective majority...
And the issue was if we all agree to a resolution, if we all agree to a course of action and you vote for that course of action, implied in that is that you are going to support that course of action…
And that is an issue that we deal with all the time, not just this council but any council. When a council passes a resolution you expect the councillors to abide by that resolution…
we are engaged in a very aggressive process right now where you have senior orders of government that want to impose a cheap solution on us. We have private interests that want to see their position is advanced and all those proposals compromise the city' s position.
And all of those proposals will saddle the city with a position that is unacceptable so members of city council are very astutely, very prudently wanting to make sure that we follow the best course of action and they we do not sell out the city and that we do not prejudice the city's interest…
the issue is that on one of his, on one of his writings he, Councillor Halberstadt indicated that the city was looking to compromise its position. I noticed that he has since then changed that but the issue is that some councillors have taken some serious, serious {inaudible} that the city is willing to compromise.
I can assure you, and anyone who knows the council and knows our position on this file is that we have been consistent and we are not prepared to compromise on anything and we want the best solution for the city.’
It seems that it is now possible for the “C-word” to be uttered in that the Mayor is prepared to compromise. Perhaps therefore it is time to revoke that Resolution since time has clearly changed dramatically.
COUNCILLOR POSTMA’S LAMENT
The poor Councillor. All these people in Ward 2 slamming her for the Interim Control By-law and the permanent anti-Demolition By-law. You remember those by-laws don’t you. They prevented that gentleman in Sandwich from tearing down his garage and building a new one and also prevented some derelict homes from being torn down for the longest time.
She is getting a lot of flak for that and she wants to change things around. You see, some people believe that the real purpose of those by-laws was to prevent the Ambassador Bridge Company from tearing down their homes on Indian Road and on a couple of other streets near their bridge.
We have seen recently both the Councillor and perhaps her Wardmate relax their position somewhat. She appeared to be ready to allow the Bridge Company to tear down their homes. Councillor Jones said:
- “I would like to see the bridge company come to city council and say here are our plans," Jones said. "They might be surprised at the help they would get from the people who represent this area.”
If I was the Owner of the Bridge Company, I would graciously decline the enticement by the Councillors. I do believe that the Bridge Company would be surprised but not in the way that they would have expected after the kind invitation to come to Council.
It is no wonder that Councillor bristling Brister is terrified to appear on John Fairley’s interview show. He was able to get from Councillor Postma what would happen if the Bridge Company came to Council.
The answer is: nothing.
The Councillor at least was honest in saying that she was not sure that her Wardmate, Councillor Jones was in favour, nor was she certain what a majority of Council would do. With respect to the Mayor, she said that his position was that the Bridge Company should bring a proposal to Council to have it discussed.
They have already tried to do that but no Councillor had the decency to extend their presentation period for more than 10 minutes and accordingly they were not able to show their plans prepared by the University’s Green Corridor Group. What makes anyone believe that anything would change?
It seems to me that this is just an attempt by the Councillor to placate her Ward residents by telling them that she is trying to do something. However, when the Majority of Council turns it down, she is off the hook. It did not appear from what she said on Face-to-Face that she had done any lobbying with the other Councillors to gain their support for what she wanted to do.
In any event, if it is so important for the area, then it is up to the Mayor to contact the Bridge Company. After all, my recollection is that the City Planner has said that Administration would turn down their request for a demolition permit until after the CIP was completed.
No disrespect intended to the Councillor but what she is offering to do is meaningless. After all, who is she to speak? It is the Mayor who is the Voice of Council!
One other note of interest with respect to Heritage. She is now convinced that there is no Heritage value whatsoever in those homes. She said twice in fact that the homes on Indian were similar to the vintage of her house and obviously from her comments she did not think that her home was of any Heritage value. On that basis as well, she is not opposed to tearing down the homes
WHERE IS COUNCIL'S VOICE NOW
There is a new calamity that may have to be faced by West Enders it seems. However, the silence is deafening. Why isn’t anyone speaking out on their behalf?
Here are three recent news headlines from CKLW.
I can understand Councillor Postma’s concern. After all of the millions of dollars spent by DRIC, one would have expected them to find out that the area where they want to put their Bridge and Plaza is not contaminated. Yet, the Province will not put their jail there because of pollution fears because of heavy industrialization.What is going on? Why isn’t the Voice of Council demanding immediate clarification? Why isn’t he demanding studies? How can he in all good conscience suggest that a jail or a bridge and Plaza be built in that area without knowing the full facts?
One needs to ask what our Mayor knows about that area with respect to pollution. After all, it is City property which was purchased by the City. I know that Eddie wants to sell the property owned by the City in that area to the Senior Levels. In fact, one of the reasons that I’ve heard that the jail did not go there was because the City wanted substantially more for the property than the Province thought it was worth.
That is beside the point. I cannot believe that Mayor would offer polluted property where people would have to reside if they were jailed or work whether it was at the jail or at the border crossing. On the other hand, perhaps the Mayor felt that this could be a good example of Brownfield redevelopment and this entire area would make a good test case. Of course if it was heavily polluted, the cost of cleanup could be horrific.
Now that the one hand of the Province has made such a serious allegation about the area, I expect that the other hand of the Province through DRIC will have to make a full investigation of the lands, probably including drilling more bore holes at a cost of millions of dollars, to ensure that this area is suitable. That should cause a major change in the the DRIC timetable, increasing the time for final resolution for many months.
Dwight will not be happy for that delay after giving his vow of the start date just the other day. Even for a Provincial Liberal Government Minister, that is breaking a promise very quickly!
If they choose not to investigate then isn’t the entire Environmental Assessment flawed such that the Minister of Environment will be forced to throw it out.
It seems to me that the Enhancement Project is looking better and better after one DRIC mess after another is discovered.
posted by JoeBlog at 12:01 a.m.
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