COST OF BORDER FILE TO DATE
The costs to date are $3,357,537 for the border file and the OMB application. How much of that includes the work of Gridlock Sam and Parsons Brinckerhoff I have no idea. We do know however that those costs are approximately $500,000.
Those costs obviously don't include the costs incurred subsequent to September, 2007. We would need to add on the cost of five full-page ads in the Star which would have to be in a range of $50,000 I would think, the costs of ads on CKLW and the mailer.
If the Mayor's latest numbers are correct, about 3-4000 people people are supporting Greenlink. Let's add on another couple of thousand who responded to the advertisements. Let's say that's 5000 people. That works out to slightly over $100 per person to get an approval vote.
Pretty pricey road campaign wouldn't you think. I remember the good old days of STOPDRTP. We could get 1500 letters signed in a weekend with a few people going out along the DRTP corridor and asking for support.
Did you see the story about the necessity to move the 311 location outside of the City's downtown core. How absurd.
The excuse given is:
- "Another reason for the move has to do with security. A report on the city's emergency response plan says the 311 call centre should be the backup for the 911 service, located in the downtown police station. For it to be a true backup in the case of a massive power outage or other disaster in the downtown, the 311 call centre should be in another area of the city, the report by Lapp-Hancock Associates says."
For a massive power outage, hasn't anyone ever heard of backup generators? As for a disaster downtown, if it is that big of a calamity that the entire downtown is affected, I would think that a good part of the City would be affected as well.
Anyway, the perfect location is the Junction since it has the space and the parking. But you know it's never going to go there!
ANOTHER WHITEWASH AUDIT NEEDED
Doesn't this sound so similar to the Windsor Utilities Commission matter. We have a need for capital expenditure, it is not met and then we get hammered subsequently. I noticed the following comment by Councillor Postma to justify the fare increase at Windsor Transit:
- "Coun. Caroline Postma, who chairs the transit board, said the new fares are justified because of increasing costs in areas such as insurance, wages, fuel and maintenance, as well as the city's "desperate" need for new buses."
But it's okay. We can keep the Transit Windsor agreements with transit authorities in Detroit and its suburbs to provide reciprocal bus service. We learned though that "During an average week, between 30 and 40 passengers take advantage of the transfer exchange." We keep it so the Mayor can use this to show how progressive he is with an international bus service linkage. And we can keep the Tunnel bus service even though it loses $25,000 per year since every time a bus goes through it generates revenue for the Windsor Tunnel Commission.
Remember what I blogged before about how money was not going to be used for buses. Boom, then we need them and fares have to go up.
- "In doing some research on Transit Windsor, I discovered that
"The bus fleet, which consists of 99 coaches, is on average 12 years old.
"The useful life of a bus is 18 years," Williams said.
A quarter of the fleet is 18 years old and two buses were bought 28 years ago. Administrators had hoped to buy six new buses this year at a cost of $2.7 million."
Our Mayor said on March 16, 2007:
"Before we buy new buses, I'd like to streamline practices," Francis said. "I move we not buy new buses and reconsider the issue in 2008. Before we add to services, we need to get a handle on the service we provide."
Then during final budget deliberations in early May:
"In finalizing its budget, council did end up helping the landlords by re-directing a $1-million savings by agreeing not to buy any Transit Windsor buses this year and instead apply the money to reduce this year's multi-residential rate increase from 3.25 per cent down to 2.95."
I'm absolutely waiting to see the Mayor's dramatic white board presentation at Council to explain this one.
AIESEC
I read the story in the Windsor Star about AIESEC, Association International des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales. It is an international organization of which I am very familiar since I was involved with it at the University of Toronto many years ago.
When I was involved, it offered job exchanges for business and economic students only around the world. Canadian students would work overseas while overseas students would work in Canada. Now, as I understand it, the program has expanded to include students from a number of different university disciplines.
I met with one of the organizers and was shocked to learn that I was the only person in Windsor who responded to AIESEC after Dave Hall's story was written to offer any kind of assistance whatsoever.
I was thoroughly disappointed since for businesses it provides them with the opportunity to get top-notch international students, many with postgraduate degrees, working here for them for several months. In my experience, companies would use them for special projects quite often. In addition, I found out that many students were so outstanding that companies offered them jobs either in Canada or with an associated company in the student's home country.
I hope that some of my readers will contact AISEC at 519-253-3000, ext. 3148, or aiesec@uwindsor.ca or or uwindsor@aiesec.net or go to www2.uwindsor.ca/~aiesec/
Here is why I am a big booster of AIESEC. It is a note that I sent for their 50th Anniversary "Alumni Stories" Project for stories showing how AIESEC impacted the lives of Alumni
- "It is not very often that one can point to a specific event and say that it had a significant influence on the course of one's life. I can say that about my involvement with AIESEC.
Many years ago, at the University of Toronto, I was the summer program coordinator. My functions included arranging accommodation, meeting students who are going to work in Toronto at the airport and then taking them to their residence to ensure that they settled in properly. I was also involved in organizing social functions, trips around Ontario, visiting businesses and other such programs to make their stay in Ontario educational and enjoyable.
We were very fortunate in our program in having about 20-30 people from around the world staying and working in Toronto. What I found fascinating was their perspective of the world and of life that was so much different than mine in North America.
As a result of the experience that summer, I decided to do postgraduate work overseas rather than enter the workforce immediately after University. While I did get a postgraduate degree, which helped me immensely in my career, my real reason for doing what I did was to experience what I learned in Toronto that summer from my friends from overseas.
But for AIESEC, there is no doubt in my mind that my life would have been different!"
SENATOR BASHAM'S BASHINGS
It is well-known that the Michigan Senator is not a friend of the Ambassador Bridge Company. That's all right. That's his opinion. However, if you want to understand why the Bridge Company is having the problems that it is having than one needs only look at a comment made recently by the Senator.
The Senator surely must know better than this. If not, then he should learn to keep his mouth closed until he finds out the true information
- "This is a huge issue. The Canadians, who should be our partners, have already passed legislation, commonly referred to--not a resolution, by the way; legislation--as the C-3 legislation that says no private entity can build an international border crossing into Canada. That's a law in Canada."
That is absolutely false. There is no such provision in the law. He ought to read the legislation first before speaking.
The Senator owes his colleagues, his constituents and the Ambassador Bridge Company a correction and an apology. Now that he knows the true facts he can support the Bridge Company moving forward with its Enhancement Project to help out Michigan in getting thousands of jobs and being able to move forward.
PICKING ON MONICA DAY
No I'm not trying to pick on her nor am I picking on Chris Vander Doelen. It looks like both of them actually read Windsor BLOGs and even admit it. However both of them, reporters at the Windsor Star and Bloggers on the Star online edition, have jumped on Bloggers for drawing incorrect conclusions about some of the material that they have written online.
According to Chris, he pulled one of his BLOGs because his wife thought it was too negative, not because of some great editorial conspiracy. As he said
- "It's so unrelentingly negative. A real downer," Da Wife said. "Is there no hope?" Well, actually, no. Not as long as the current powers-that-be continue to run the city. They aren't going to change, and they aren't going anywhere. All we can expect is more of the same.
But I took the piece down. Who wants to be unrelentingly negative? That's almost as gag-inducing as being unrelentingly positive. "
Da Wife may be just as upset by the explanation since the language is quite blunt and direct.
As for Monica, she explained
- "...what you read on the Web isn't necessarily going to be the same, thorough story you'll find in the paper edition of the newspaper.
Why is that?
Because often the Internet is used like radio. We break a story online and then maybe we'll update it...
The reason I write this explanation is because a story I did last week was the subject of a blogger's ire. He complained about the story that appeared on the web versus the one that was in the paper. What he doesn't know is I wrote the Web story in 10 minutes after returning from a meeting and I had not even started reporting. So the web story only contained the basic facts of an event that just happened. Once I was able to interview more people and go through my notes, I wrote a fuller, richer and more complete story of the event for the newspaper.
So, please remember, the stories you see online are sometimes our first version of a story. They may contain unintentional errors, which we try to correct quickly. Or they may be a full story. But you won't know the real story unless you read the newspaper."
If this is the new journalism and is acceptable practice I think it is shocking. Now we have to guess when we read a story online whether it is true or it is not true. Is it correct or is not correct? Maybe it will be updated or maybe it won't. Has a reporter started reporting or not? If I am not a subscriber to the Star, then it means I should not take seriously anything that is in the online Star because only the real story is in the published edition.
Now that's a way to keep that revenue up. Publishers and other papers should have thought of this before. Only give the public the "real" news if they pay for newspaper! Keep them guessing otherwise.
I don't blame the reporter. I blame the Publisher. If one is to take a newspaper seriously then one should expect what is published, whether it be online or in the paper is as accurate as it can be. Don't publish it otherwise. After all, aren't three of the main rules of journalism according to Joseph Pulitzer "Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy."
Of course there will be add-ons and corrections, no one doubts that. But when a story changes dramatically, and I have identified a number that I have seen, then one is entitled to ask what is going on at the Windsor Star.
I leave you with this excerpt from an article by William Safire. It contains a phrase that I read in a Globe and Mail column many years ago by one of its main columnists who had messed up on a story. I can still remember it:
- "At the beleaguered White House, Joseph Lockhart, a spokesman for President Clinton, lectured hectoring reporters with, ''I understand the competitive pressure that everybody is under, but I do think it's a significant lowering of standards when getting it first supersedes getting it right.''
This was an allusion to a journalistic adage that was taken up in the 1940's by Hearst's International News Service: ''Get It First, but First Get It Right.''
We deserve better from the Star as the only major newspaper in town and the news outlet from which most people get their information.
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