By George, He's Got It

Has the light finally turned on for Councillor Brister, chair of the Council Operating Budget Committee? Does he finally understand after 2 years?

In Gord Henderson's Saturday column supporting a local museum for Windsor, there is Councillor Budget. You remember him, he was the Councillor who suggested selling the Art Gallery paintings that were not hanging on the walls to reduce their need for money from the City and voted against giving Artcite a $3,004 budget increase. He and Councillor Gignac voted against approving the production and staging of the 2005 International Buskers Festival.

So frankly, I expected the Councillor to denounce the whole idea of a even looking at a community museum since it might cost a few pennies.

Imagine my surprise when he finally looked at a situation from a City-wide perspective, as a Councillor should, and not merely as a knee-jerk reaction against, as a budget analyst would. He is quoted as saying "But the time might be ripe he said to examine the potential pocketbook benefits of a new museum through increased tourism and how best to showcase the exisitng collection in city facilities."

Now the cynical amongst you will say that this is Councillor Budget's clever way of saying "NO" but not getting Henderson mad at him since Gord obviously liked the idea. We'll see if the cynics are right or wrong over the next few weeks. The Canada South Science City is coming back to Council shortly as is Buskers. Both projects can easily be justified as providng "pocketbook" benefits can't they?

DRTP’s New Poll

Matt Marchand is circulating some poll results that demonstrate how much DRTP is loved. Imagine, they spent a whole bunch of money to show that residents don’t want more trucks on Huron Church Road! What a surprise that is.

These results plus Mayoral candidate Hendrix's DRTP support after the Grand Rapids fundraiser held by DRTP's Marge Byington must give them something to be happy about waiting for the DRIC beauty contest finalist results.

Interestingly, they did not give any results for the Ojibway crossing.

What interested me more however is that the contact name for this survey is John Laschinger. If it is the same fellow, he was appointed as John Tory's campaign manager. Laschinger was also the Campaign director behind Belinda Stronach when she was with the Federal Conservatives and remember she came out in favour of DRTP. He was also Toronto Mayor David Miller’s campaign manager.

PS. I just saw the full-page ad that DRTP purchased in the Star. I hope OMERS retirees and City taxpayers do not mind paying for it. I was amused by its wording since it was so predictable.

I wish the DRTP polling had compared DRTP with a solution that kept trucks out of the densely populated parts of Windsor. I wonder if DRTP's score would be so high. Well we all know the answer to that, don't we.

OMERS: Dwight Duncan’s Dilemma

Imagine the conflict that Dwight is in as Minister of Finance. On the one hand, he desperately needs the pension money that OMERS has socked away to help build infrastructure in Ontario. On the other hand he is the Minister responsible for the Financial Services Commission of Ontario that has been investigating OMERS for over a year now with no report yet in sight.

The Globe and Mail has just reported that the five new directors quit the OMERS Private Capital board, a group that was to receive about $3.6 billion of OMERS pension money for investment.

While that is scary enough, the comments from one of the people who left ought to turn Dwight’s hair white, and make Sid Ryan of CUPE apoplectic. Paul Morton, said he left "out of a sense of frustration with the incompetence of the OMERS board…Private equity is a promising asset class, but it's not a panacea. If you're not very good at it, you can get your head taken off." Morton is no slouch either being co-founder of what is now CanWest Global Communications Corp., and a former director of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corp. and Onex, Canada's pioneer private equity company.

It is time for the Minister to act decisively. Too much is at stake.

There are better ways to fund CUPE member retirements that meet the CUPE members retirement goals and taxpayer pocket-books. The OMERS Act Governance changes must be stopped immediately until someone figures out what is going on over there. Our Council is already complaining about the increased amounts we in Windsor must pay to OMERS. We will hear the same story from every Municipality in Ontario shortly.

Mister Minister, it is time for a full-scale Judicial Inquiry into the affairs of OMERS

Raceway Wants Arena Cash

Well so do I! I am tired of everyone else asking for money from Government for their pet project. I want some too for mine. I deserve it.

I did not understand John Millson's comment that the Senior Levels and Essex County municipalitites should help pay for a new Windsor arena. Why is Millson delivering a speech about this and not Dave Batten as an example (or Wayne Gretzky if you really wanted to get people to pay since he is still part of the group we are told). When this all started Millson said "Under a partnership with the Jebb group, the raceway would provide the land and Jebb would build an arena. "Jebb will carry the ball from here," Millson said. "All of the operations, all of the finance, that's really the Jebb group. We're merely the landowner."

This is a rather dramatic change in circumstances wouldn't you think. From just being the landlord to pitching for the project. In my opinion, the Windsor Council Spanish Inquisitors should immediately call a into session their Special Star Chamber meeting and ask questions of the landlord such as the following:

1. Can they get Wayne Gretzky's autograph
2. Whose deal is this?
3. What exactly is the Raceway's involvement in the project
4. Will Wayne Gretzky move to Windsor
5. How much more money is required after the City's $15 million contribution
6. Is there any hope of getting this money from the Senior Levels after the Mayor and the Council snubbed them
7. Is there any hope of getting money if five Essex County municipalities said Thursday they will not help Windsor pay for a new arena at the raceway
8. Will Wayne Gretzky give up his coaching job to be involved in this
9. If there are positive spinoffs and benefits and a $78 million direct economic benefit during construction, wouldn't it have been nice to use them to kick-start the urban village downtown?
10. Does the Raceway have Beztak's phone number?

The key comment in the Star story as far as I was concerned was Millson's remark that the arena would generate the development of commercial property nearby. Wasn't that similar to Beztak's approach at Council when the Inquisitors drove them out of town on a rail. Why shouldn't this commercial development be located downtown to kickstart the urban village and the economic revival of the City?

Poor John Millson, poor Tony Toldo, poor people who hoped to cash in on the development in the burbs. All of that wasted effort. They have those Councillors who want the project downtown against them, they have the Budgeteers against them and they have those who believe that Beztak was treated shabbily against them. They should have guessed right at the start. If doing it for free would not impress the Inquisitors, then what they were proposing was a loser right at the drop of the puck!

As Sonny Eliot of WWJ would say. The score of the game will be 6-4 to kill the arena dream and, perhaps the careers of some people on Council.

Dead Last, Again

It is hardly a surprise. After its ranking in the Globe and Mail poll and the past rankings in the Macleans poll, did anyone really expect otherwise. Another Star story on Saturday was to set us up for what we knew was coming

As I wrote before, there is no way that the University of Windsor could do much better. Positioning is decided by the 23 performance measures chosen for determining ranking. Depending on the criteria and the weighting, that almost pre-determines the result.

A good example of that locally was the Report of the Joint Management Committee on the border three years ago. [Man, how do I get the border into everything I write about!] Their "Principles" meant that a certain result was inevitable---truck roads all over the city in the "short-term" so that no long-term route would be prejudiced.

As I said before in my October 13 Blog "Pipedream Or Usefully Provocative Idea," Who cares about the Macleans rankings? As a fellow I know who works at the University wrote to me:

• "I've told people a similar argument when it comes to the rankings.
  
  One point you missed.... There are only 11 comprehensive universities in all of Canada and Windsor is lucky to have one of them!! People forget how lucky their kids are ie. they don't have to leave the city..."
  
  

We need to look more closely at what the University and City can do together, especially in this time of economic turmoil. Read again the speech of Dennis DesRosiers for some provocative ideas (BLOG, October 26) and Dr. Paul's Windsor Star Guest Column, parts of which I quoted (BLOG, October 13).

Frankly, we are lucky that we still have a university here. A few years ago, the Province was thinking of cutting back on the number of universities in the Province. And you know which one would have been first on the "hit list" for elimination.

Since that time, the University has done an excellent job in building up its reputation in areas such as automotive research, the environment, and social justice making it difficult for anyone to think of cutting it back. If we can get a medical school here or at least an expertise in training foreign trained doctors to Ontario standards, then the University would become essential to the Province, no matter what its ranking.

I supported before Dr. Paul's vision of the University and City working together. I repeat again his comments:

• It is important to note that more and more municipalities are investing in their universities and colleges because they understand their critical importance, not only to the economic development of their regions but to the quality of life that they critically help to develop and support.

John Millson's plea for more money and the County's rejection of it are proof that the arena is dead. Let's take the City's $15 million that has already been set aside for an arena, demand financial assistance from the County Governments and Senior Levels, get the business leaders onside (Hell, Beztak was prepared to bet $50 million on an arena downtown as the focus for an urban village) and accomplish something brilliant for the Region by growing the University. I even know a developer or two or three that might be interested.

OK Councillor Jones. You are a member of the "Town and Gown" Association. Take the lead!

Windsor----the Cambridge, Oxford or Ann Arbor of Canada. Sounds good to me.

PS. To the University's PR department...is it really a smart tactic to waste money on a full page "feel good" ad in the Star to try to counter the Front Page story! Western ran a small ad on the first page of the B1 section which will probably get more attention than Windsor's and at a much lower cost.

What Are The Answers

Lots of stuff going on behind-the-scenes on the border file I heard with everyone jockeying for position. A few questions for you to consider over the week-end:

1. Have the DRIC finalists been determined already by the Bi-national engineers and discussed with their political masters
2. Will Dwight and Sandra try to "outgranholm" Michigan Governor Granholm now by giving their opinion that DRTP and the Twinned Bridge projects should be removed from the list of finalists?
3. Why didn't the Windsor Star report on the Detroit Mayoral candidate Hendrix's support of DRTP and his fundraiser held in Grand Rapids by DRTP's Byington
4. Why didn't the Windsor Star report on the visit of Mayor Francis with Mayor Kilpatrick in Detroit earler in the week?
5. Why hasn't the Windsor Star reported on the Mayor's ambitions respecting the Tunnel
6. Has the Federal Government walked away from the Walker Road underpass project and if so, who will take the fall for it happening
7. Has the deal between the Province and City respecting all of those people involved in the Phase 1 projects been agreed to yet
8. Why hasn't the Star phoned up Sam Schwartz and asked him what he is doing for the City now on the border and if a reporter has, then why haven't they reported it?
9. Will the City or the Bridge Co. be the new owner of the Tunnel as it starts its 76th year in operation
10. If the Schwartz Report is just the "starting point" then how much money and time has been wasted over the past year by the City, proponents, Governments and citizens analyzing something that is meaningless
11. Can the funds wasted be claimed back from the City?
12. If the Schwartz Report is just the "starting point," then how can anyone including the Senior Levels and Windsorites take the City seriously after all of the effort put in.
13. For what did Councillor Gignac want to rally for now---the dead Schwartz Plan, some undisclosed new Plan or buying the Tunnel
14. Is it true that Councillors Postma and Jones planned the rally for spring because they knew that it will take the Mayor that long to develop another Plan in secret that won't work
15. Is it true that there is no City Plan that can be produced if someone asks for it
16. If you ask a certain Windsor Councillor something he/she does not like, will you be asked to provide "copies of your phone bills (home, office and cell) over the last six months so we can discern who you have been communicating with and how frequently."
17. How many times has the Border Czar visited Windsor since his appointment?

City Hall To Shut Down Until The New Year

Remember what Candidate Francis promised "We need a starting point, a place to know where we are so that we can judge how well we do when we look at results. We will conduct in depth audits of all of our departments to assess where we are and to identify inefficiencies and implement sound management principles across the corporation."

The recent Sub-head in the Star's front page story made a mockery of that election promise "Mayor: 'No accountability"

The story continued "We're a half a billion dollar corporation ... and there was no process put into place what we were paying out for overtime to begin with," Francis said. "There was no accountability whatsoever...There were employees who had 30 years plus in this corporation, who had banked all their overtime, and there was no way to track or validate if that was the case."

Non-union employees are being instructed to use any banked overtime by Dec. 31. After that, they will lose any time owing. "Use it or lose it," Francis said"

Accordingly, the 430 non-unionized staff members involved are now booking off and returning on January 1 since they all have that much banked time available forcing City Hall to close down for the next two months.

Relax, I am kidding. But it is great to see how tough the Mayor and Council are on non-unionized staff. Too bad they were afraid to take on the unionized workers. Why the City even entered into a 4 year agreement with their unionized workers, adding an extra year to keep labour peace.

This "new way of doing business" at City Hall will cost taxpayers an extra $1.9 million. Interestingly, the financial gurus at City Hall could not estimate "The amount the city will recoup through pay cuts..."

Whatever happened to the promised "in depth audits?" And whatever happened to Citistat? Didn't it save Baltimore $10 million in cumulative savings over a few years in reduced overtime? Why hasn't it been brought into Windsor to save us money?

By the way, I wonder how Dr. Alfie Morgan would rate a CEO who admited that he was involved in a company for 4 years as one of its senior officials and 2 years as its CEO and had no idea about lack of accountability. What would he say if that official knew about the problem "in the last couple of years when [his company] got whacked with eye-popping bills for accrued overtime..." If it takes him years to act on something so simple and obvious, then how would Dr. Morgan expect him to act on something really complicated such as , ummmmmm, the border issue!

Wasn't it fortunate that this just happened before Operating Budget deliberations started. Oh well, just another problem for which Councillor Budget has to find the money to fix without increasing taxes. And if he cannot do it ........there go his chances to run for Mayor against Eddie, even if he was never going to do it.