Who Is Running This City

Seriously, can it get any worse or any funnier than this?

That there is no leadership in this City whatsoever has become abundantly clear. Dan Mulhern, the Michigan Governor's hubby, better come back quick to start talking about that subject again. And Dalton McGuinty wants municipal councils to have four year terms! How about a compromise, two years with the right of recall too!

Obviously, I am talking this time about the Public meeting that has just been set up to deal with the City's response to DRIC. Strangely they do not call it a "special" meeting, the language used when we had the big Caboto Club meeting on the border. I bet the choice of the word "public" was deliberate to distinguish this meeting from their usual secret or "in camera" meetings on the border. I assume we were to give them credit for their openness and transparency.

The strange thing about all of this and the timing is that the City Presentation will take place a few days before DRIC sets out their position on March 28. Clearly, the City and any concerns it may have are been ignored in what is happening next. What then is the purpose for any of this other than electioneering.

Eddie better have convinced Dwight to make a big border announcement for Windsor in his Budget speech so he can claim victory later at the public meeting or else Eddie will have failed on that too. Does Dwight dare without the Feds' support or without antagonizing Toronto if he makes no subway announcement?

Now unless there is a way around this, I do believe that the meeting may violate Council's Procedural By-law, you know that document that the Mayor throws in people's faces, and may even be contrary to the Municipal Act. So I am not sure what kind of a meeting it is going to be. The Senior Levels will ignore anything that comes out of it anyway and will treat it as illegitimate if the Mayor tries to say that he received public support for anything. No Resolution can be put forward and voted on that would be valid if there is no proper meeting. Utter chaos.

I wonder if the Mayor's Blackberry is working since I believe he is away for the week. Surely he must have been involved in the fiasco of having a City of Windsor meeting being held in Tecumseh! He is too much the micro-manager to delegate this task to another. Can you believe it!

It is such an important meeting too that people who rely on public transit to get around cannot get there since Councillor Zuk on Melanie's show admitted there was no bus service to the Ciocaro Club. But don't worry, we will see shuttle buses arranged ASAP at a cost to City taxpayers.

Now Councillor Zuk took it upon herself to appear on Melanie's show to answer questions on this. At least she was brave. I must admit I would have liked to hear Councillor Jones since he thought a meeting in Tecumseh was odd too.

I made a few notes about what she said and will give you my comments in brackets:

1. She admits the meeting is not in Windsor but said there was no other place available for it [Yea right...the City has known that it was going to make a response to DRIC and when it would be finished. What this says to me is that there was NO intention to have a public meeting until the very last second or else a suitable location would have been arranged a long time ago.]
2. She admits there is NO bus service there [Joyce is Chair of Transit Windsor so the City can do something but I am sure that she needs her Leader's approval first and probably approval from Transit Windsor as was done before in a similar situation a few months ago]
3. She claimed that DRIC was moving at lightening speed [Before we complained they were too slow. It is the City that is asleep]
4. Windsor had to get our response in at the last minute [DRIC extended the time for the City to get their response in by a month I believe. If Sam and Co. was not so busy being involved in the "fear-mongering" Saturday session, Sam and Estrin could have had their work done in a timely fashion.]
5. Joyce was not certain what the setup will be for the meeting although Sam will give another presentation. There might be may be questions on cards allowed as well as people speaking [She backed off quickly when Melanie said they would be accused of cherry-picking questions]
6. The City wants to give people a chance to be heard [No the City does not. Of course we have NO idea what Sam will say so how can anyone speak intelligently about it. We listen to him and then have to react immediately. The City is pretending, not really listening. Sam's Report was shot down within a few days after people had time to think about it. It may well happen again but better that the negativity be hidden and not in public view like last time too]
7. We are allowed to talk about the Schwartz Plan too ie we can say nasty things about it too [Want to bet on that one! I am certain that Eddie has that Procedural By-law down pat by now so that he can make any person sit down that does not speak about the only topic to be discussed: "the City’s response to the Detroit River International Crossing Partnership (DRICP)."

A question for Cogeco. I heard that it is very difficult for Cogeco to get cabling into the Ciocaro Club for broadcast coverage while it is much easier at the Caboto. Is that true? Hmmm so if I do not want wide coverage of a meeting but want it to be open.......

Really, this is past the point of being laughable. It is a tragedy for the whole Region to observe at our expense. Is there anyone in charge at City Hall that knows what he/she is doing?