There Is A New Sheriff In Town

One Sheriff goes; another one comes to take his place! I'll tell you all about the Grandson of Greenlink as well.

Take it from me, the competition amongst the Star reporters to take over from Gord Henderson is finished. A winner has been chosen but has not yet been announced.

Yes, yes I know the suspense is killing you, dear reader, but you will just have to read through the rest of the BLOG before you get that answer. It all fits in together. Trust me!

The most arrogant move of the year so far comes in this letter. Is it any wonder that the Premier’s Office was so mad at the Mayor over Red Bull?

They invited him to attend. How nice. I can just imagine Junior cross-examining him. Or the Councillor formerly known as Councillor Budget bristling as the Premier spoke. No doubt Councillor Black Letter Law would ask some tough legal questions about the Environmental Assessment process. Well, you get my drift.

The Premier neatly but politely told the City to buzz off. Perhaps if our Mayor had attended his function, the Premier might have reciprocated.

What is interesting is that the letter to the Premier was signed by the City’s Deputy Clerk while the Premier signed his letter back (or more probably, the letter was signed using the latest technology to make it appear as if the Premier signed the letter).

Then, to confirm that Windsor must be deserving of our 27th Place ranking out of 27 cities in Canada as far as literacy goes, I received a note from Mr. Tunnel, Al Teshuba, about a Residents’ OPEN HOUSE Assembly & Workshop regarding the Proposed Border Access Route.

You see, the Mayor and Council have no respect for the Citizens of Windsor. They think we are stupid. In their last Greenlink ad, they had to show us the four easy steps so that we could write a letter supporting Greenlink. Apparently, they did not think that we had the intelligence to write a letter on our own.

Of course, in their In camera meeting, someone may have said that Windsorites probably cannot count to four either so we need help. Lo and behold, Mr. Teshuba and some of his colleagues happened to approach the City about an idea that they had to speak with DRIC about their concerns.

My understanding is that the DRIC people had been invited to meet with some citizens but by the time these people finished putting conditions on how the meeting was going to take place, DRIC decided that it was not worth their effort.

I don't know all the gory details but I understand that the residents wanted the City to help advertise their session in a Greenlink ad but that was viewed as unacceptable by the City because it could taint what the City was doing.

The long and the short of it is that a letter writing session will be held. At the least, the Mayor will be pleased because there will be a few letters sent out by citizens to justify his $60,000 advertising blitz.

Now Citizens can come to the Teshuba meeting and learn how to write a letter. It would be so much easier if City Hall just wrote the letters in advance and people could come there and sign them with their "X" and then just go home.

I do have to warn the City’s Communications group, whoever they are, to make sure that they put in a lot of misspellings and grammatical errors. We want the Province to believe that these letters were written by “Citizens.” If everything was perfectly written, then the Province would know that they were phony.

Finally, the Windsor Star and Gord's replacement.

Take a look at the Don McArthur A3 column on Monday. He has to be the winner of the replace Henderson contest.

I was quite surprised at what he wrote to be honest because it seemed to me to be a flip-flop from some of the strong BLOGs he has written against the Mayor over the last few months.

That was a strong indication that he had won the contest before it really started.

I was going to quote some of his comments but when I went to the Star’s BLOG page there was no link to his BLOGsite. In fact, his name and BLOG had been removed as if it never existed! Get real, one could not have the new Columnist of the Star having his nasty words about the Mayor thrown back in his face when he seemingly was so supportive.

But, that is not what gave it all away. Don is smart and wants everyone to think he is an E-Team Player!

Of course, there was the exhortation to write letters that fits in with the Greenlink ad campaign and the Teshuba session.

• “I'm going to pen a letter to the province decrying the Windsor-Essex Parkway…
  
  I'm going to fire off a sharply worded missive to Toronto because a stamp costs less than a lawyer. If you want any sort of return on all the tax dollars you've invested in the city's GreenLink campaign, I'd encourage you to do the same…
  
  Stand up for your interests by sitting down and writing a letter.”

Wow, from saving our children’s lives, the new Greenlink approach is not to spend any more money on lawyers. Brilliant, that should get us writing. A Pocket-book issue!

• “Francis has staked his legacy on GreenLink. He's likely to open the vault and let loose the hounds if a compromise isn't reached, which means we'll keep on paying through the nose while the lawyers keep getting rich.”

That is a unique approach that will certainly win kudos for him from his Editors. Moreover, it supposedly helps Eddie because clearly very few letters have been sent until now.

Naturally, of course, Don sets out the Windsor arrogance as set out in the Deputy Clerk letter and our entitlement mentality. Eddie, the small-town Mayor, does not bow down to the Premier:

• “unless the province is pressured to make improvements to its deficient Parkway plan...
  
  I understand why Dwight Duncan and Sandra Pupatello don't want to build a road that will serve as a monument to Eddie Francis…
  
  Even if you don't like Francis and even if you think GreenLink has been a wasteful folly, it's in your best interest to lobby hard for a compromise…
  
  Francis has staked his legacy on GreenLink…
  
  A compromise solution incorporating more elements of GreenLink”

The compromise is giving in to Eddie not the other way around.

Of course, I’m sure that you saw the scoop that has never been reported before except in my BLOG. That is how I read what Don wrote. Just like Henderson, he gets the really big scoops already. It is all about the up until now secret Grandson of Greenlink:

• “This arrogance and intransigence rankles because the city has signalled a desire to make a deal. A few tweaks to the Parkway -- longer tunnels around schools and key subdivisions -- could be enough to win community and council support.”

A new "signal." Why can't they just come out openly? Geeez. When did that happen and how---smoke signals? What are the exact details, the tweaks? Does Council know about it? Why weren’t Citizens told too. Why all of this latest secrecy? Were there any other changes like Schwunnel omissions or reductions and if so, where?

However, the Star Editors had better be careful. McArthur is clearly a member of the Posse. Henderson has passed over his spurs to him to carry on with what he started. His Column is a damning indictment of our Mayor but of course you can’t prove it by reading the Column. Just like with Gord.

Let me explain why:

•  Obviously, we know that the latest advertising blitz has failed because McArthur is saying that we should be sending letters
  


•  He mocks Francis by telling us about the Grandson of Greenlink. More secrecy and less open and transparent government
  


•  Which Greenlink are we supposed to write about, Greenlink I, Son of Greenlink or Grandson of Greenlink
  


•  So much for quality of life, or rather the latest buzzword “health.” Eddie is prepared to compromise again to get a solution that will save his career.
  


•  Henderson wrote in columns twice that Eddie should compromise but Eddie refused. McArthur mocks that again by suggesting a compromise. He knows that Eddie cannot do it
  


•  Talking about lawyers merely reminds everyone how much Estrin has spent on this file and Mr. Sutts on the Tunnel file.
  


•  He makes fun of the first Greenlink advertising blitz by telling everyone that that money was wasted with people tossing out their postcard
  


•  Naturally of course, the Province will not listen, especially after the dumb Deputy Clerk letter to the Premier. Just like Henderson, McArthur has given Francis no way out but to sue, an action that MacArthur/Henderson know Eddie will never start.

McArthur has started off his new career telling us what we already know but in a way that no one can pin on him:

Eddie is a WEAK-LING!

Welcome to our ever expanding phone booth, Pardner. Shhhh Don, I will never tell your secret.