How Better To Spend $5B DRIC Road Money

You probably wondered why I did not do a BLOG about the Star story last week involving David Estrin. Frankly, I just couldn’t be bothered because I had no idea what the story was all about.

You see everything was behind closed doors again. I am tired of being manipulated by a Mayor who had to come in front of Council last night to justify his stalling. I guess the heat was getting too much for him about 12,000 jobs potentially being lost so he had to point the finger of blame at DRIC.

Was the City going to litigate? Was it not going to litigate? After Eddie’s Council presentation, frankly who cares.

One thing in my litigation practice that I learned early on was never to threaten. I would never write a "legal letter" on behalf of a client threatening to do something such as go to court unless I had absolute assurance from my client that it was going to follow through.

There was no way that I was going to lose my reputation as a lawyer for a client. You can only bluff so many times before the word gets out about you and you lose your credibility.

To be blunt, that is how I feel about our Mayor and the latest Star story:

• "City readies to fight over green space
  
  Windsor council says it could take its battle to court if the province fails to provide more green space and environmental protection in the final blueprint of the planned $1.6-billion border feeder highway."

Sure it "could." But then again, it also "could not."

I am glad that the City brought its big weapon to town, David Estrin. I assume he was providing them with the report on strategies that the Mayor said would be completed sometime last June after the Mayor called him and told him to prepare it as soon as possible.

The one thing I do know is that the vote was not unanimous to do whatever it is they decided to do or else the Mayor would have told us so. How many Councillors voted against him is buried behind closed doors.

Just in case no one saw the story with all of the East End Arena material, it was nice to see the big picture of David Estrin so that we will remember who he is when we get the next quarterly report about legal fees spent by the City. We won’t have to ask what he did to earn those fees.

I bet "the enemies" were shaking in their boots knowing that David was back in town. The Star is getting really good at propaganda efforts. After all, his picture was probably worth a thousand words of newsstory inches.

I was most interested in the Saturday Star story in which we were given a hint about what Estrin wrote in his 84 page report:

• “Environmental lawyer David Estrin and the Gowling Lafleur Henderson law firm mount a blistering attack on the Detroit River International Crossing team's proposed $1.5 billion Windsor-Essex Parkway as failing to protect the health of city and county residents along the nine-kilometre link from Highway 401.
  
  "The (DRIC) Parkway will result in the unacceptable exposure of Windsor and LaSalle residents living, working or going to school near the Parkway, as well as those who would use the Parkway's green space, to hazardous levels of air contaminants," say the city's experts.”

That submission must have cost taxpayers quite a few dollars and frankly, may be already out of date. That is why I am typing this Blog rather than watching Estrin on Cogeco.

Here’s a story that is much more interesting to me and much more practical. Note that the cost is about the equivalent of what the DRIC project would cost and would be of benefit to every person across Canada, and many in the United States, not just in the Windsor area if our Governments followed suit. I am told that our regulations with respect to Truck emissions are being tightened up as well.

I can hardly wait. Eddie should become a cheerleader for this too. Along with hybrid buses, Eddie can become the greenest Mayor in Canada.

I know that I and my fellow taxpayers are losing green. And he is turning me green and I do not mean within envy:

• “California rules will slash highway truck emissions
  December 12, 2008
  
  The California Air Resources Board is expected to approve new fleet rules designed to slash harmful emissions from over-the-road trucks operating in the state.
  
  The rules would apply to out-of-state trucks operating in California as well as those registered in the state.
  
  The rules will require the installation of diesel particulate traps beginning in 2010. The program will be phased in over the ensuing four years. The filters, which cost as much as $20,000, will reduce diesel emissions by an estimated 85 percent…
  
  The fleet truck rules that the CARB board will vote on Friday cover over-the-road trucks, and will be the most restrictive in the nation…
  
  California trucking interests are concerned that the fleet rules are being phased in too quickly, especially given the downturn in the freight transportation industry. They say the industry, financially, may not be able to retrofit trucks as quickly as CARB wants.
  
  CARB estimates that the rules will cost the industry $5.5 billion.