My CBC Eddie-torial

CBC wants to run a series of commentaries on topics of local and community interest, commentaries with a point of view too. I was very pleased to be asked to prepare one.

I congratulate CBC for their initiative since citizens need more opportunities to be able to express their point of view for others to hear.

Here's the one I did about Bill Marra announcing that he is running for office and giving my reasons about which office he should seek.

• I see that Bill Marra has decided to run for office in the Municipal elections in November. However, he has not announced yet whether he is going to run for Mayor or for Council in Ward 4.
  
  Well Bill, the only way you are getting my vote is if you run for Mayor! We need a serious debate about the future of this City because, frankly, we are in a worse position now than when you ran three years ago.
  
  We all had high hopes when we elected Eddie Francis as Mayor and voted for change with the new Council. While we liked you a lot, Eddie had the Plan, the real Plan, that was going to transform our City.
  
  Instead, we got an Administration that holds secret, in camera meetings on important issues. They have to hire the husband of the Michigan Governor to help our dysfunctional Council function again.
  
  Let’s look at the key issues we expected the Mayor to handle.
  
  1) The Border.
  
  It was not solved. We know that the Mayor’s Schwartz Plan is dead. Not just dead but buried since Schwartz’s key guy in Windsor has just left Sam’s employment .
  
  We had the Premier and Prime Minister eating out of our hands at one time and now we snub them. Not just once, mind you, but recently again, over the Huron Church/Industrial road intersection when the Mayor did not participate in the press release announcing the start of the project.
  
  And we wonder why no one listens to Windsor and why our grants from the Senior Levels are so low?
  
  Thanks to the Mayor and Council, Windsor is now identified as the border problem. We have had $300 million at our disposal and we still cannot figure out how to build a road to the border!
  
  2) City finances
  
  We were all pretty happy about a low tax increase this year until Councillor Lewenza spilled the beans. Expect a hike in taxes next year or a cut in services. After all, you do not increase taxes in an election year.
  
  The Mayor likes telling us that our debt is under control. However, he does not tell us about projects that in a year from now in 2007, will increase the debt by $57 million to $217 million. He seems forgetful of the $206 million debt for employee future benefit obligations that has to be added in.
  
  Our projected debt will be higher in 2010 than it is now by a very substantial amount. And just so you know, the $15 million we have set aside for an arena...We don’t have the cash for it. We have to borrow that money.
  
  3) Economic revitalization
  
  If I hear about the bus terminal being one of the indications of the rebirth of our downtown, I’ll scream. I know it is to be funky but it was supposed to have been built for Super Bowl.
  
  Do you really think 500-1,000 St Clair students at the Cleary will fill up the 50% of the downtown offices that are vacant or will cause retailers to open up boutiques on Ouellette Avenue? And we learn that they are not coming until September 2007, a year from now
  
  The new Casino expansion….I don’t see how the Casino helped us in the downtown. In fact, the downtown is slowly moving eastward away from Ouellete to the Festival Plaza area. Hasn’t the Downtown Business Association learned that Casinos never allow their patrons to leave and spend money elsewhere? They make it so attractive to leave their cash there instead!
  
  We’ve lost 7,000 jobs in Windsor since December and that does not include the loss of highpaying auto jobs and we have still not elected a CEO for our new Economic Development Commission.
  
  4) There’s more--- the cost of the arena which we all know will sky-rocket if it is ever built, whatever happened to Citistat that was supposed to save us millions, the Urban Village, it’s been three years already and no RFP has been sent out yet to possible developers --- but I only have a few minutes to speak.
  
  So Bill, take a chance. We need you as a candidate for Mayor. We need the debate. We need the choice. We need someone who might actually do something for Windsor.
  
  Most of all, we need you to state publicly what we all know but are afraid to say: Emperor Francis is not wearing any clothes!