Circling Round The Undevelopment Commission

No, no, no. You thought I was talking about circling the wagons. I'm talking about the vultures circling overhead because they know what is about to happen with this Commission.

It’s been a good week for Grace Macaluso of the Star. Two Page A3 columns for her.

I really chuckled at the last line of her first Column about the breast-feeding episode with respect to Facebook:

• “Facebook execs should rethink rules that could only be conceived by a bunch of boobs.”

Then she did the column about the Windsor Essex Undevelopment Commission and the fees charged to WEUC by the Chair. She missed a perfect opportunity for a punchline:

• “the Development Commission is bust-ed!”

Have you ever seen such a farce in your life about the group that is supposed to convince outsiders to come to this area? Here are a number of points that I want to raise for you to consider:

1) It would appear that a 10 month CEO search is “horrible” according to the Professor from the Business School who was quoted in the Star article. While Mr. Mancini as the Chair would deserve a good part of the blame for that, unfortunately he ought not to receive all of it. He has made the point several times that other members of the Board are members of the search committee as well

• “But anyone taking issue with his role on the search committee or his salary should remember there are four other strong voices on the search committee and several others among the 12-member board, Mancini said.”

Nice, spread the blame around. Just like someone else would do if the finger was pointed directly at him!

It seems to me therefore that there may well be the need to replace the entire Board of Directors of the Commission if they all participated in this horrible transaction.

2) I wonder who chose Patrick Persichilli as the new Vice President of the Undevelopment Commission. That search seemed to be carried out very quickly and without much fuss or muss. I wonder if the Vancouver headhunter was involved in this process as well. If he was not involved, then why aren't we using the same process to try to find a CEO.

Was there a Board search committee involved, was it done by the Chair himself or by another member of the Board. I do not remember reading how that process worked.

Congratulations to Patrick in his new position. Perhaps!

I did notice an omission from his background history as outlined in the Commission press release. It failed to mention as I saw on his Blogsite:

• "He is also the President of the Windsor-West Provincial Liberal riding association."

I am certain that he and Sandra can work together very closely.

And you thought that there was a real fight between the City and Province over Greenlink/DRIC Road. Don't be silly. That is just drama for the masses.

3) The Undevelopment Commission has failed us more than anyone knows. The Mayor stated

• “There are four or five economic opportunities or investors in the wings where “a negative attack on the commission would be hurtful to attract those prospects,” he said.”

Yet in their advertisement the Undevelopment Commission said:

• “the WEDC has close to 20 projects in the pipeline”

Clearly, in a matter of a few weeks, this farce involving the Undevelopment Commission has cost us 15 or 16 possible new business ventures in this City. How many more can we afford to lose? If this is true, and how can I disbelieve our Mayor, why would anyone want to have an Undevelopment Commission like this around at all.

4) Mayor McNamara of Tecumseh must be furious. He had difficulty getting any information about who was on the CEO search committee and yet our Mayor knows exactly how many economic opportunities there are in the wings. Did our Mayor sign a confidentiality agreement? Does he know who these investors are? If he knows, then why doesn’t Mayor McNamara know everything as well?

By the way, aren’t you sick and tired of the “confidentiality” defence being used every time someone on Council does not want citizens to know something.

5) There is the negativity word being used again. Thank goodness Bloggers and naysayers are not responsible this time:

• “we cannot afford negative perceptions or publicity.”
  
• “a negative attack on the commission would be hurtful to attract those prospects,”

The Mayor must live in a bubble away from the real world. The Commission has created this mess, no one else. If the Mayor does not believe that the Economic Development Commissions of our competitors have not put these negative stories in their scrapbooks already to show potential investors then he has no concept of how will the real world works.

Circle the wagons. Pretend that this mess has not happened. Keep on wasting taxpayer and Credit Union money.

6) I wonder if someone is going to ask for an audit of the books of the Undevelopment Commission to see how they spent their money. After how many trips to Europe and other locations, expenses for legal fees and severance payments, cost for the creation of the prize-winning website and creation of the brochure plus their mammoth $350,000 promotional and advertising campaign, I wonder how much money there was actually left to do development work.

7) The guy with the best timing of all is clearly Councillor Marra. I am sure that you saw this small story in the Star a few days ago and wondered what will it was all about:

• “Councillor urges forum on economic development
  
  Coun. Bill Marra asked city administration Monday to work out the details of a public economic development forum within the next month or so that would gather leaders from the region's various sectors.
  
  While short on details, Marra said he feels the session would be a good first step in developing long-term plans to get the community on the right economic path.”

I am not clear about his purpose but it seems much broader than what the Undevelopment Commission has been doing so far. I suspect that the Councillor is really reflecting the concerns of the business community expressed to him about the lack of action. It is probably a good venting session at the least to demonstrate discontent! Who knows however, may come out of it!

I wonder if our Mayor will consider this an attack on the Undevelopment Commission and will try to kill it. For our sake and for the economic well-being of our region, the Councillor cannot allow that to happen.

8) I do not know the gentleman at all because I do not really follow County news closely but poor Warden Santos. I am surprised at his strong defence of an Undevelopment Commission that seems to be going nowhere. He has been made to look very foolish by events.

9) Don’t you just love the comment of Councillor Halberstadt:

• “It's becoming an autocratic situation.”

I can hardly wait for the Mayor’s counteroffensive. It certainly will be.

10) The best line of all in the Battagello story has to be this one that came from the Chair:

• “the board and commission are striving to move away from “a CEO-centric organization,” he said.”

I agree. We are trying a new model in Windsor… no CEO at all. How many CEOs have we lost in the last few years either through resignation or termination. I have lost count.