I Cannot Believe What I Am Reading

More stories of interest

DON'T THEY LEARN

I was rather surprised that a member of the Occupational Health and Safety Branch of the Ministry of Labour would go around as part of their job checking that firefighters were wearing seatbelts and writing up an order when one was not. My first impression was doesn't this person have more important things to do in his job.

The person involved was a Fire Department Captain out of the College Fire Station. A senior officer ought to know better and be an example. The truck was going to the Metro grocery store in the University mall.

Then I remembered the big accident involving the firetruck from that station I believe a few years ago:

• "The crash left all four of the truck's occupants with injuries.
  
  Copeland, 46, who remains in hospital unable to move his limbs, was found lying across the dashboard of the truck.
  
  "Mr. Copeland was not wearing his seatbelt at the time of the accident," Stannard said.
  
  Seated in the rear were firefighters James Waffle, 33, and Randy DiCocco, 35, who suffered a broken arm and a broken rib, respectively.
  
  Both were wearing seatbelts.
  
  Capt. Bill Hopkins, 56, was ejected from the front passenger seat and suffered minor injuries.
  
  "He had made every attempt to buckle the seatbelt up, and it was still in its extended form," Stannard said.
  
  "I'm certain had that vehicle continued its roll, it would have rolled on top of the captain."
  
  Stannard said the fire truck was doing driver training with DiCocco in the operator's seat and Copeland in the rear when the firefighters received a call about a medical emergency around 3:40 p.m. At that time, the fire truck stopped in front of Assumption high school and DiCocco changed places with Copeland.
  
  "I do know that everybody was seatbelted prior to the switch of the drivers," Stannard said."

EXPECT MORE CANAL STORIES

How else to explain the story today by Anne Jarvis:

• "Aquarium concept timely
  
  A city that needs to redefine itself, the respected Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and a location at the centre of the Great Lakes basin, holding one-fifth of the world's fresh water in a global water shortage -- it all adds up to prodigious potential in the proposal for a research aquarium here.
  
  With the decline of our traditional manufacturing base, Windsor is a city trying to diversify, searching for a new identity.
  
  One possibility could lie off Riverside Drive on the Detroit River just west of the Ambassador Bridge: The Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Canada's foremost freshwater research institute, which holds numerous research chairs and has expertise sought around the world."

After all, we need a reason don't we for wasting time and money on more studies on the canal. Tie it into a water ferry service between here and Detroit, the academic community along with a family entertainment centre and we are given reasons to get all excited aren't we. More Windsor "THINKING BIG."

It's just like with the airport Cargo Shanty stories. Sounds exciting until one starts investigating it closely.

There is almost a feeling of desperation in her column. It is merely though a reflection of what is coming out of City Hall: Just throw it against the wall and see what sticks.

What's next for election goodies---a study for a massive Zalev lands brownfields redevelopment is a certainty. That should get South Windsor voters onside. The Councillor formerly known as Councillor Budget should muse about it first to get the credit for his next campaign. But then Eddie would get mad.

MORE FRICTION TO COME BETWEEN CUPE AND CITY HALL

Three Lay-off notices.

As a reader wrote: "We all knew it was coming. Three union lay offs and four supervisor positions opened up over the past two months...typical."

• "Memo
  
  TO BE POSTED IMMEDIATELY
  
  To: All Regular Full-Time Local 543 Employees
  From: Executive Director of Human Resources
  Date: September 10, 2009
  Subject: NOTICE OF LAY-OFF
  
  Please be advised that the following employee is subject to a lay-off per Article 4.11 of the Collective Agreement between the Corporation of the City of Windsor and CUPE Local 543:
  
  NAME: [Name of Person]
  
  SENIORITY DATE: [Date]
  
  JOB CLASSIFICATION: [Position]
  
  LAY-OFF DATE: [Date]
  
  This notice shall constitute notice of lay-off as of the day of posting (September 10, 2009) to any employee whom the employee in the notice displaces, or any subsequent displacement that should result, as is required under the Employment Standards Act. Any Regular Full-Time Local 543 employee whose seniority date is junior to December 15, 1996 is subject to a potential lay-off.
  
  Original Signed by
  V. Mihalo
  Executive Director of Human Resources

ANOTHER MINI-GORD CUPE SWIPE

Ahhhh, what a guy.

"Still, it was all very mild stuff compared to the usual hotheaded behaviour of Windsorites when a thorny issue divides the electorate.

(Raise your hands, all those amazed there weren't injuries during this summer's CUPE strike ...)"

FRANCIS REHABILITATION MATH

Finally we learn the sale price of Maxxess. Cogeco paid $15M. It was at the low end of the range I BLOGGED about back in March, 2008. Funnily enough

• "City-owned Enwin utilities has sold MaXess Networx to Cogeco Cable just as the broadband telecommunications service provider was stemming its financial bleeding.
  
  While MaXess has lost money since its inception in 1999, it was projected to break even this year, according to the 2006 annual report."

Try and figure out the Francis profit numbers because I cannot:

• "Francis' plan is to "rehab" what is now a nearly worthless asset in commercial terms. Adding cargo capability would boost Windsor Airport's value to the point the city can negotiate with potential tenants from a position of strength.
  
  He cites Windsor's experience with MaXess Networx, the money-losing fibre-optic carrier created by taxpayer-owned Enwin Utilities at a cost of $9 million. It then proceeded to lose $1 million a year.
  
  "We could have just given it away -- that's what some people suggested. Instead we spent a few years fixing it up and we sold it for $15 million. We pocketed $7 million to $10 million on that deal. It's the same with the airport."
  
  Staying out of the white elephant business is a brilliant idea, sane taxpayers agree. Getting into the "asset rehab" game sounds less dangerous, on the face of it."

Funny, now it is "rehab." When it was sold it was called getting rid of non-core functions.

• "Four years ago Enwin's board of directors told company executives to pare the utility conglomerate down to its core businesses, which are the electricity and water markets. While there have been negotiations with other companies, Cogeco -- the second largest cable operator in Ontario and Quebec -- offered the best price, Zuber said."

In fact, the Windsor only cost for "stringing thousands of miles of fibre-optics cable all around Windsor" was $12.5M. In 2005, it was announced:

• "A fibre optics cable network linking Chatham-Kent and Sarnia- Lambton will connect every school, hospital, library, college and municipal office in the area with high-speed Internet.
  
  MaXess Network, a Windsor-based company established in 2000, is currently contracted by CKLAG, the Chatham-Kent Lambton Administrators Group, to set up the service.
  
  The $17 million system is to be up and running in January, 2007 with 165 sites connected to the Internet over a wide area network."

I have no idea where Eddie's $9M came from. What happened to the almost $30M in capital costs never mind operating losses for years? But even accepting Eddie's number as true, if one adds in say three years of losses at $1m/year, how does one arrive at a "profit" of "$7 million to $10 million." And why can't he be exact rather than have a $3m difference?

I wonder who those people were who wanted to sell Maxess other than certain Board people.

I always believed that Maxess had value. It truly was Windsor's undiscovered economic jewel that we gave away at a time when broadband is vital for any community. What a loss for us because of short-sighted thinking.

My vision of it years ago was for it to be the basis of the first major wireless, City-wide network in the world. I actually pitched that idea to Dennis Perlin when he was with the Development Commission and to Maxess. The residential side, which interested me a lot, would have been a great opportunity for Maxess since it would have been a business it was not interested in:

• "MaXess Networx, which already links communities as far away as Sarnia by microwave transmissions, has county council approval -- subject to engineering department conditions --to use county-owned rights of way to extend the 200 kilometres of fibre-optic cable it has in the city.
  
  Phil Partington, MaXess vice-president, said Thursday the company, which began operations in May 2000, is aimed at business and institutional use and has clients that include hospitals, school boards, St. Clair College, the University of Windsor and private firms.
  
  At this point, servicing residential customers is far down the road because of the cost of setting up call centres, technical staff and other logistical concerns."

I had a major company as the financial backer, a major technology company who was prepared to put in the wireless system using their innovative approach, and I was talking to them to make Windsor its North American "Showplace" City, and one of the world's major ISPs who would offer its service to residential users over the network. Maxess would have provided the infrastructure backbone service and support.

Alas, I could never get a price from Maxess for their part of what was required and the deal withered away. And so did Windsor's potential world leadership in municipal wireless broadband.

If this is what the Mayor's thinking about the airport is all about....heaven help us with this kind of mathematical logic.