Only Diamonds Are Forever

Councillor Budget's ridiculous comment at Council really bugged me. In fact, someone phoned me and asked if I had seen the Council meeting. He asked why the Councillor made such a big deal on a matter that he claimed only 2 or 3 people out of 200,000 were concerned about. Who knows, perhaps the Councillor has the need to loved by everyone.

Well here is a BLOG I did a year ago but never posted. It seems appropriate to post it today. Then that's it from me about Councillor Budget until the next time he puts his foot in it again. You may just have to wait until next Monday night!

That Eddie Francis Juggernaut is a formidable force and no one has even announced that they may run against him. I guess the theory is to close 'em down before they even start up.

Clearly the so-called invincibility of the Mayor and the inevitability of him winning again is so powerful, or some want it to be that way, that not only did Councillor Brister run right to Gord Henderson to announce that he was not running against the Mayor but he praised Eddie to the heavens!

And as for Gord, well he did jump on the Star Editorial Board bandwagon on a recent Saturday and criticize the Mayor and by name. But here he was on the next Tuesday making up again by using the words of the Ward 1 Councillor.

Councillor Brister suggested that he would never run for Mayor.

• "Write that rumour off forever...it's just never going to happen."

But should the Councillor be that hasty? He may need a new full-time job soon. The Star reported that "Windsor's famed Canadian Club whisky will continue to be produced at the 150-year-old distillery in Walkerville for the "foreseeable future" but the future of office and production workers at the plant is less certain....But the future of 100 salaried employees, who continue to work for Hiram Walker and Sons Ltd., is in doubt."

It's a good thing though that Dave does not run for mayor this time around. It would be unlikely that he could win! Dave has to be realistic. If he is going to run, Dave is going to have to live down:

• his "sell the unhung paintings at the Art Gallery to get money" remark and use a Transit Windsor bus to save gas to throw a piece of art in the city dump


• his comparison of building an airport in Hong Kong Harbour to building a border corridor on land through the populated area of Windsor


• the fact that his operating budget committee was unable to deliver on its intention to hold the line on taxes


• his flipflopping on the arena--opposed to the proposal with Beztak, who wanted to do it at no cost to the City in downtown, but minutes later, voting in support to examine the Jebb/Raceway combo for a Raceway arena that may require up to $15 million of taxpayer money


• His seeming reversal of his previous Schwartz Report support when he voted against the Ambassador Bridge proposal to add new booths into Canada, a concept Schwartz encouraged


• His failure to force this Council to hold a "public" meeting on the border when, as STOPDRTP Chair, he accused the previous Council of betrayal after their secret session that supposedly endorsed DRTP North.

As the former General Counsel of STOPDRTP, I am angered every time that Councillor Brister reads off his "conflict of interest" legal script when the border issue comes up. If this was an issue, then why didn't he raise it during the election campaign? If it is not an issue, why raise it? I know, I know "abundance of caution" but I still get mad.

I especially liked this quote of Dave as reported in a Henderson column when speaking about the bus terminal:

• "The fact that the money is budgeted doesn't mean we have to spend it. We have many examples in Windsor of spending on bricks and mortar for projects that haven't panned out," he warned. Brister fears council is itching to give the green light in order to show progress downtown. "To push this forward so that we can say we're doing something isn't the right approach. That's just not in the best interests of the taxpayers."

So given his bus terminal position, was the Councillor consistent on the arena? We know that $15 million was budgetted for it (or only $75 per household for "X" years as Councillor Lewenza said) and Dave seemed opposed to spending money on the arena at all.

He voted down Beztak even though they offered to do it at no cost to the City. A few minutes later he voted in the affirmative to give time to the Jebb/Raceway Group for their project which requires up to the budgetted $15 million. I did not understand that vote of his at all.

It is most likely that Councillor Brister will just running for Council in Ward 1 again. It is the safest alternative it would seem. Dave could build up his reputation and wait until the end of Eddie's second term as the Juggernaut is trying to convince everyone to do.

However, Dave might be faced with Drew Dilkens who came out of nowhere and came in third in the last election and Charlie Hotham determined to recapture the seat he lost last time.

Of course he still has to worry about his Council-mate Joyce Zuk who may wind up in the #1 spot if she runs again. I believe that she is one of the smartest and toughest members of Council. She has the ability to cut right to the heart of a matter. After all, she stood up to the former mayor and told him to get out of the Chair if he could not conduct a Council meeting properly.

It will be a doozie of a battle since there is no love lost between the two of them. She had surprising strength last time around and is building on it now. She ran a superb campaign and did extremely well against the guy who grabbed the headlines as spokesperson of STOPDRTP.

Thus Dave faces being knocked out as #1 and could have strong competition for the #2 spot. Moreover, if this Council is viewed as not living up to its promise and expectations, Dave and others could be swept from office.

It's going to be tough to make a decision. However, a lesson for Councillor Brister at no charge. As James Bond said. "Never say never again."