The Story The Star Would Not Publish

Dear reader, if you are still a Star newspaper subscriber, you may have missed this story that was posted online.

I do not know if it was published in the paper because I no longer subscribe to it. It was not included in the "Printed Edition" stories on the Star website that I could find.

Better just to have the positive Eddie stories.

• "Francis bars media from YQG meeting
  By Donald McArthur, The Windsor Star August 11, 2009
  
  WINDSOR, Ont. -- Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis kicked a Star reporter out of a Windsor Airport board meeting held in council chambers Tuesday afternoon, insisting that the meetings are and ought to be closed to the public.
  
  The reporter walked into the public chambers at City Hall shortly after the meeting began about 2 p.m. A host of people who aren’t on the board of YQG — the corporate entity that controls the publicly-owned Windsor Airport — were in attendance.
  
  They included councillors Alan Halberstadt, Fulvio Valentinis and Caroline Postma along with Norma Coleman, Francis's chief of staff.
  
  Councillors Drew Dilkens and Ken Lewenza Jr., who are council’s representatives on the board chaired by Francis, were also in attendance. A handful of others The Star reporter could not identify were also present.
  
  Francis was near the public gallery in council chambers fiddling with a slide projector when the reporter entered the room. On a large screen behind him was an image of a title page with the heading — Feasibility Study Phase 1, Market Potential Study and Forecast for Windsor Airport YQG.
  
  Francis told the reporter it was a closed meeting and the reporter asked if there had been a motion to go in-camera. Francis replied that there had not been, but that the meeting was still closed to the public and the media.
  
  The reporter questioned whether the public chambers of council was the appropriate venue for a closed meeting of a private corporation and asked further if the item up for discussion was the $220,000 feasibility study for which Windsor taxpayers are paying.
  
  Francis told the reporter that the media wouldn’t have even been aware of the meeting had he not told them and the reporter responded that the meeting was publicly advertised on a sign next to the elevator on the first floor of City Hall.
  
  Francis left the meeting through the public door and returned several minutes later through the rear entrance to assume the chair. He welcomed two board members via teleconference — he referred to them as Renato and Jack and there is a Renato Discenza and a Jack Fraser on the board — and then sought a motion to go in-camera.
  
  Francis then said he didn’t need a motion to go in-camera because YQG board meetings were closed-door affairs. He then instructed everyone who didn’t have business with the YQG board to leave the room.
  
  Valentinis slowly rose from his chair and motioned unsurely to himself, but Francis said his order didn’t apply to councillors, who were entitled to remain. The reporter then left the meeting.
  
  There are three political representatives on the board but there are six private sector representatives. They are Discenza, Fraser, Robert Payne, Deborah Dent, Ronald Holden and Bill Robertson.
  
  City council agreed in February to pay Lufthansa Consulting $220,000 to conduct an economic feasibility study into creation of an air cargo and perishable goods centre at Windsor Airport. The study was to take four months to complete and was to determine whether the city can become a viable air freight hub.
  
  The two councillors appointed to the airport board are set to receive at least $4,000 annually, plus $200 per diem, which means the total could hit $6,400 apiece if the board meets monthly.
  
  That money — at least $8,000 and potentially $12,800 — will be pooled with other committee stipends and divvied up among all 10 councillors.
  
  For serving as airport board chair, Francis is in line to receive $6,500 annually plus meeting honorariums."

I do not understand this comment by Eddie

• "Francis declined to discuss specific numbers until the report goes to council Aug. 24."

Don's story said

• "A host of people who aren’t on the board of YQG — the corporate entity that controls the publicly-owned Windsor Airport — were in attendance.
  
  They included councillors Alan Halberstadt, Fulvio Valentinis and Caroline Postma along with Norma Coleman, Francis's chief of staff.
  
  Councillors Drew Dilkens and Ken Lewenza Jr., who are council’s representatives on the board chaired by Francis, were also in attendance. A handful of others The Star reporter could not identify were also present."

Hmmmm 6 members of Council in attendance, a majority of Council members. Doesn't that make it a legal Council meeting? If so, they needed a MOTION to go in camera. Otherwise the public could not be excluded never mind all of the other Procedural By-law violations made.

Eddie is an expert in this area by the way. I note that Councillor Jones was not there. Was he invited or not? If not, wow, that sounds like that infamous meeting in 2003 that the Councillor objected to and in which Eddie was a participant and justified his role at a Council meeting.

This sounds like a job for the Meetings Investigator.

PS. Councillor Hatfield came too, probably after the reporter was kicked out. That made it SEVEN Members of Council, SIX Councillors (a majority) PLUS the Mayor!