Is It Finally Time To Leave Town (Part I)

Fortunately, it is snowing outside and I can spend the time Blogging because I have a lot to rant about. I trust that you may have some time to read as well with all of this bad weather. I am going to break down what I say into two parts, one for each of Saturday and Sunday.

I normally do not write a BLOG on the weekend. I write enough during the week such that I need some time off to relax a bit and get the juices flowing again. Moreover, from my readership statistics, I know that my readership numbers go down dramatically since many of you I believe read my BLOGs at work or stay off the Internet on the weekend to do your “household” chores.

Every so often, and today is one of those days, I get so infuriated that I have to do a BLOG. I am so angry.

Today however it is beyond anger. It is disgust. I moved here 20 years ago from Toronto and always believed that Windsor was an undiscovered part of Ontario that had tremendous potential.

I wanted to be part of it. Until today.

For the first time, I am seriously thinking whether it is time for me and my family to move out of this Region. This area is being run by people whom I consider to be so amateurish in leadership and so extravagant with my tax money that I cannot stomach it any more.

It is all talk. It is all dreams. It is all visions. What we see in reality is our businesses closing, our downtown desolate, the highest unemployment rate in Canada and growing, our major industry dying in front of our eyes, foreclosures, declining house values, rental and retail vacancies and our infrastructure crumbling. Top it off with high taxies and levies.

Those are the old problems that are boring and probably cannot be solved anyway. They take too much work and effort. Who really is interested in making sure that the potholes are patched or that we don’t have watermain breaks? It much more fun to do a Tunnel deal or help build a new border crossing or develop an airport or rail rationalization or build a transportation hub or a new arena or a new downtown in the East End. I can hardly wait for Brownfields redevelopment or developing a new waterfront or hundreds of acres of new parkland as legacy projects.

I honestly do not believe that this Region can prosper unless something very dramatic happens and very quickly. I am not even sure that this Region can survive. Instead of the debate about what we should be doing to make this region prosper, we are fretting over a $1,200 per day consulting fee and seeing a front-page story of our newest THINK BIG DREAM.

I believe you will be as angry as I. To be very direct about it, I am not sure what we can do unless there is someone who finally will say that he/she has had enough and around whom we as citizens can rally. We can moan, we can write on the Star Forums or even do a BLOG but we truly need a Leader whom we can support and whom we can trust to have our interests at heart.

Let me tell you why I am angry and disgusted. You need to read all of these items in the Star. I will also tell you about one that you saw a few days ago, one you did not see in the newspaper and one that you will see shortly. I regret that I seem to be ignoring the other media in town but the reality is that most of the people in this Area get their information from the only major newspaper in town.

Here are the ones from Saturday’s Star:

•  Cargo central: Mayor to sign Lufthansa deal for freight hub study--'Developing a new economy'
  
•  New airport board named---Mayor Eddie Francis and two members of city council join a group of six industry experts named Friday to the Windsor Airport board of directors
  
•  Development CEO keeps job --Despite resigning from board, Mancini stays in paid post
  
•  The Greenlink ad

Here is the story from the past

•  No more free lunch for city politicians

The one that you did not see

•  Area MPPs launch “Alternative Manufacturing Opportunities Summit” to save local manufacturing industry

The one that you will see soon

•  Cooke/Francis announce that canal vision is feasible—THINK BIG effort will revitalize downtown.

Count the number of items in the Lufthansa story that ought to infuriate you:

• 1. Is there no North American location that is comparable. Did they really have to rub it into our faces and fly to Europe for the day.
  2. The Mayor is supposed to sign the deal today even though it is not on the Council Agenda until Monday for approval. Who said that Council is not a rubber stamp and irrelevant.
  3. Did the Mayor snub all of the area MPPs by not attending at the Press Conference for a huge development opportunity
  4. the Front-page story upstaged what the MITI Minister was trying to do for this area
  5. does anyone seriously think that this area can compete with Aerotropolis in Detroit when there is hardly any business at our existing airport
  6. How many members of Council does it take to sign an agreement: three, one to hold the pen and two to move the paper so that a signature can be written
  7. So much for Ken Lewenza Jr. and his “Buy Canadian” rhetoric when the contract is signed with a foreign company, sole sourced as well so that no Canadian company can bid on it.
  8. No worries for Councillor Dilkens. Who cares if his International Relations Committee budget is slashed, he can still fly off to Europe at taxpayer expense.
  9. Nice shot at the Minister who is the one who is responsible in the end for bringing us jobs, even call centre ones, by showing how cheaply our Council Members can fly compared with her airplane ticket cost.
  10. Did they fly out of YQG, Your Quick Getaway? Nope, they flew out of Detroit’s DTW--- Detroit’s The Way if you want to fly overseas!
  11. How many times did Francis “travel to meetings and tours in Frankfurt” and who went with him and what did it cost?
  12. Another foreign consultant to do another Vision Report at a cost of about a quarter of $1 million “If the study says there is no market potential, then that’s it – the end of it.”
  13. The two Councilors are going on the trip so that they can hardly vote against it when it comes in front of Council on Monday.
  14. Good to know that our Mayor is now an airport expert to go along with his other expertise “But I know this can work based on what I have seen.”
  15. Who needs a Development Commission with the Mayor on the job
  16. The Story did not say if Ms. Nazzani, the airport General Manager, went too. If not, is that a vote of non-confidence in her? If she did go, why wasn’t that mentioned in the Story.

The Airport Board story is interesting.

• 1. One of the members of the Board is Robert Payne, manager of international press and the public relations at Fraport PG, owner and manager of the Frankfurt airport. I will let a Corporate Governance expert determine whether that is a conflict of interest if he was just appointed and three Directors also just went to Germany to his Airport. Did he declare a pecuniary interest in this matter? Why are we opening up an issue potentially of conflict of interest after we have gone through the WEDC mess and there is the outstanding Estrin lawsuit?
  2. Who is in another member of the Board? Renato Discenza, senior vice-president of Infrastructure Ontario. Talk about a huge fee for the Corporate Governance expert. Isn’t the City seeking money from them for the Tunnel Deal? Is there a potential conflict? What about the DRIC road… they are going to be the ones helping to finance it. Is that a conflict with the City with respect to Greenlink? These are some very difficult questions for our expert consultant to opine about at a cost of many thousands of dollars. Heck, Infrastructure Ontario may have to hire one too.

How about the newest saga of the Undevelopment Commission story:

• 1. I must admit that I do not really understand why the Chair resigned from the Board supposedly because of political interference. I wonder if he really means it but felt that he needed to be part of the group and not let his buddies down. After all, when this issue first arose, he said: “Mancini was not opposed to adding the two local political leaders to the board, but did not elaborate. "I try to stay away from commenting on the political issues of the day and commenting on the needs of elected officials," he said. "They are in better position to decide that."
  2. It looks like we still have an CEO with an income of $1,200 a day and he is still on the search committee
  3. There is a real problem that he must be having with his telephone because he does not return calls. It would seem, for the third time, that the Star can only get e-mail responses from him. Why do they quote him at all then when in other cases, they state that the person did not return a call.
  4. Why would the County Warden want to talk to the Board about whether he should remain as CEO if they have said that they want to resign. Frankly, who cares about what they think!
  5. It is too bad that the Leamington Mayor did not know about Sandra’s initiative because that is how industry is being enticed here
  6. I truly cannot believe at all what Windsor’s CAO, John Skorobohacz said “The minute you introduce a politician it changes the dynamics…. The Board wasn’t about pitting Lakeshore against Tecumseh. It’s about what’s in the best interest of the region. Let’s be realistic, when elected officials come to the table, they represent certain interests that don’t transcend municipal boundaries.” He has just insulted the people to whom he reports. Realistically, how can he remain in the job working for people that he thinks so little about.
  7. What is funny though is that the CAO could be correct about politicians but for the wrong reason. The Agenda Item keeps the name of the consultant confidential because “confidential issues are involved.” What does that mean? We should not have told people the names of Sam Schwartz or Parsons Brinckerhoff. This is absurd. Nevertheless, someone shot off their mouth because the Star reported that the job is going to a subsidiary of Lufthansa, the German airline.
  8. Now the County Warden is a headhunter too and believes that he should be on the search committee since he is reviewing files of unacceptable shortlisted candidates whom the Board committee has already rejected.
  9. John Millson may as well not waste his time. As a friend of Mike Hurst, he has no chance

The Greenlink ad. Why, it is another of the taxpayer paid advertisements to encourage people to write to stall off the construction of the road to the Ambassador Bridge, errrr, to the border and to hinder the development of thousands of new jobs for this area at a time when they are badly needed. We are doing so well here with minimum wage jobs replacing the high-paying auto industry work.

Here is the past “free lunches” story:

• 1. “Council's decision triggered an angry response from Mayor Eddie Francis, who said he was frustrated that politicians are dwelling on small cuts when the city faces major challenges with its proposed $406-million operating budget.” After all, what’s a few thousand dollars for a one-day trip to Frankfurt in such a big budget.
  2. The move to cut council's free meals will save $20,000 annually.
  3. In the early stages of council's budget deliberations, ratepayers face a 0.63 per cent tax hike for 2009.

Let me tell you about the story that you did not see in the Star.

In a nutshell, the four Provincial Government members in the Region are bringing in experts from around the world in the area of renewable energy… wind, solar, battery-powered, and nuclear… to speak to our local manufacturing companies. They are suffering because of the slowdown in the automobile industry. There is the need to help them diversify into one of the most rapidly growing areas of manufacturing in the world. The MPPs believe that our local manufacturers can sell into this market and be successful. Here is the address for the PowerPoint presentation so that you can see it for yourself http://www.scribd.com/doc/12715804/Alternative-Manufacturing

Considering that the Mayor was going to Germany on the same day that the MPPs were doing their presentation, he now has a built-in excuse why he was not there and why the City is not one of the sponsors. Oh yes, I understand that he will point to the Undevelopment Commission and say that this is how the City was involved.

Wait a minute, I think I understand. Didn’t our Mayor snub Dwight Duncan in a pre-budget meeting when he went to Germany? Now he is using the same precedent on Sandra Pupatello who was the main speaker. I really think that the Mayor is afraid of Dwight who was supposed to be there. Eddie attended the Red Bull cash meeting when Dwight was out of town. He did not attend this one because he may have thought Dwight was going to be there but unfortunately he remained in Toronto to prepare the Provincial Budget. Eddie did not have to take his two friends and go to Europe to avoid meeting Dwight again after all.

Finally the Canal future story. It is coming up shortly remember, towards the end of the month. There will be some version of a canal whatever it is that will be put forward as the most exciting thing ever to happen to Windsor’s downtown since the Keg Restaurant and the Bus Terminal. I’m sure you can see how prosperous our downtown is especially after the influx of St. Clair College students as well.

Can you understand yet why I am so frustrated, why I am so upset. Why I am considering leaving Windsor. We are in desperate shape and it is not cyclical as in the past but structural. I will tell you more tomorrow.