It's Not Easy Greening Windsor

Our poor Mayor. He must think, because he controls the Kill button at Council, that the world acts this way. In other words, if he says stop or do this, everyone must jump to his commands. The world unfortunately for the Mayor does not play by the City of Windsor Procedural Bylaw rules in real life, outside of Council Chambers.

I wonder if he will ever learn that lesson.

I can just imagine the Premier and his Ministers sitting around the Cabinet table at Queen’s Park laughing themselves silly at Council’s letter that he attend at Council to be cross examined by Council members over the DRIC file.

It probably was just as funny when they read this in the Star:

• “Windsor has demanded a mediator be appointed to end outstanding differences with the provincial government in the ugly fight over the proposed $1.6-billion Windsor-Essex Parkway border feeder road…
  
  It calls for immediate mediation to be completed within 21 days after an agreed-upon mediator is appointed.
  
  The focus of the mediator, according to the city, would be to mitigate access road deficiencies through strategic tunnelling with an understanding the cost of doing so be no greater than $200 million more than the parkway’s current estimated $1.6-billion construction cost.”

The arrogance and air of entitlement of the City leaders help explain why nothing ever gets done and why no one listens to Windsor.

What right does Windsor have to “demand?” Moreover, what right does Windsor have to set out the rules unilaterally about what the mediation is all about? It is nothing more than a mediation ploy designed never to be accepted by the Province to accomplish some objective of the Mayor.

I guess the Mayor and Council need to say that they had no alternative but to litigate because everything that they offered to do was turned down by the Senior Levels. As I have said before, it will be YOUR fault, dear reader, if the City has to spend more millions of dollars more to fight a lawsuit. You cannot blame the Mayor and especially cannot blame the Mayor if the City loses.

I mention this to you because of what happened last night with respect to the Bridge Company homes that they want to demolish and to improve the area with the help of the University’s Green Corridor Group.

The Mayor made a big show that he had had discussions with the Bridge Company about the subject. Unless he has met with them recently, he probably forgot that he said on Face-to-Face at year end:

• “JOHN FAIRLEY: Okay, alright. When was the last time you talked to them?
  
  MAYOR FRANCIS: I believe it was about six months ago, seven months ago.”

It was interesting that the Mayor was the one who introduced the Motion to “invite” the Bridge Company to come to Council. It will be interesting to see the final wording of that Motion.

Obviously, the Mayor and the Ward 2 Councillors in particular are feeling the heat with all of these homes that most people believe should be torn down and turned into parkland. The neighbours around these homes in particular are the most vocal. Who can blame them even though the hearts of certain members of Council go out to them! How touching.

The Members of Council are also concerned about a bad faith claim that could be made against them. The solution as far as the strategists on Council is concerned is to bring in the Bridge Company, have them present their plans, have a discussion and then turn them down because their plans will be found to be inadequate.

The residents cannot complain any more because it is the fault of the Big Bad Bridge Company with their inadequate plans. Moreover, the bad faith claim disappears because Council listened to them even though they refused to give them more than 10 minutes when the Bridge Company initially made its presentation along with the Green Corridor Group on their billion-dollar project.

The Council meeting would have been stacked against the Bridge Company right from the beginning. Council had a “requirement” according to the Mayor. If that requirement was not met, then how could the Bridge Company go to Council in the first place?

The requirement seemed rather simple: to have a definitive plan as per their greening plan. The plan initially had to be “detailed” with respect to the plan, funding and the timeline according to the Mayor. Presumably, the Mayor used the wrong term because “detailed” soon became “definitive.” The Mayor used the word “definitive” on John Fairley’s show. It’s that darn amnesia disease again.

Moreover, after Councillor Jones asked how long the time period would have to be for this green space, the Mayor added in the assumption that it was to be transformed in perpetuity for green space and green parks.

Effectively, the Mayor told the Bridge Company what they must do and even then he stated that he could not say that the plan would be approved. He said before on John Fairley's show as well:

• “if we agree to it.”

Here is what the dispute is over: the Bridge Company stated merely that they would like to work cooperatively with the City as can be seen from the letter I posted while the Council Motion will talk about definitive plans.

Think about it. What does definitive plans mean? It means that the Bridge Company comes to Council with something that a Councillor for whatever reason can reject out of hand because he/she does not like where a tree is placed. It would be so easy for a Councillor to speak all of the platitudes about wanting to work with the Bridge Company and then turn down a definitive proposal because he/she did not like something.

If you think I am making this up, then you should have watched Council last night and the fiasco with respect to the Site Plan approval respecting the four-plex on Askin. I almost hope, except that it will cost me money as a taxpayer, that the City tries to play stupid games with the developer. Based on the video that I have, and I hope the developer has a copy as well, the City is acting in the most egregious fashion against a law-abiding taxpayer that I have ever seen.

The attitude seemed to be who cares if the City loses, take him to the OMB. Teach him a lesson. I honestly could not believe what I was hearing.

The result at Council was that the application to approve his Site Plan was rejected but the Motion to deny his Site Plan application was also rejected. You try to explain to me what all that means because I don’t get it.

If the Council had said in its Motion simply that the Bridge Company should work with Administration cooperatively, then it might have made some sense. It could have been a good first step to try and re-establish relations. Instead, all that Council is trying to do with the Mayor’s Motion is to sucker the Bridge Company. Everyone watching could see through what the Mayor was doing.

After all, when the Mayor calls your Company the City’s “enemy,” it makes it very difficult to accept at face value what is being offered.