Speaking Of Talk Shows

John Fairley did it again! It's no wonder that the Councillor formerly known as Councillor Budget is afraid to appear on his show. In 30 minutes less commercials time, John could completely destroy the budding mayoral career of Brister and the Councillor wouldn't even know what happened to him.

It's not that John is aggressive like a Mike Wallace on 60 minutes. He just asks these simple, straightforward questions that go to the heart of the interviewee and quite often provoke answers that the person did not want to give. It is done in such a friendly way that the person doesn't figure out how badly they appeared until they see the taped version.

So the Councillor does not go and the residents of Ward 1 are deprived of listening to him pontificating about the issues of the City. Mind you, that could be a blessing.

By the way, have you gone to John's website http://www.face-to-face-tv.com/ If you have, you will note that he will be interviewing our Mayor shortly. He just interviewed Mayor McNamara of Tecumseh a few days ago.

That interview was another one of his shockers. To be direct about it I can understand why Councillor Brister would not want to appear on this program. Mayor Francis will have a very difficult time explaining some of the bombshells that Mayor McNamara dropped during John's show.

Let me just summarize quickly some of the things said:

• When you listen closely to what Mayor McNamara says, there will be very little regional cooperation and certainly no amalgamation of the various cities and towns while Eddie Francis is Mayor of Windsor. The rift is just too great.
• The Mayor makes it very clear that he thinks that regional development and cooperation is extremely important while at the same time preserving the interests of his own community. That was very clear in his conversation about Project Ice Track
• There was a very long conversation about the Convention and Visitors Bureau. It was clear that the Tecumseh Mayor was not prepared to write a blank cheque just because Eddie hoped he would do so. He actually wanted to see a business plan before spending money. That should be a warning to the Gazelle Feeders that they will not have such an easy time the next time they asked the County for money
• There seems to be a lack of communication on a number of issues between the City and Tecumseh at least
• Mayor McNamara supports the Ambassador Bridge Enhancement Project, one of the few politicians it seems that has the guts to say so publicly
• He also said that he supports the DRTP doublestack rail tunnel. He made it clear that he was not supporting the truck tunnel
• Believe it or not, especially given his town's location, he has not been briefed on Greenlink by our Mayor
• He is not a very big supporter of a tunnelled solution to the border like Greenlink pointing out the obvious security risks and problems if there are accidents
• It seems as well that he has had a very few communications with Transit Windsor about bus service in the County.

I must admit that this is one of the few times that I have seen Mayor McNamara in action and I was suitably impressed. He seems to be a straight talking individual with a good head on his shoulders. There was not a lot of visions and grandiose schemes in what he said but rather, good, straight, honest-to-goodness, well thought out actions to create a municipality that works.

Yes, there could be a lot to share between the City and the County about accomplishing results.

I wonder if Eddie watched the program. I'm sure he did and we will hear his rebuttal to what the Tecumseh Mayor had to say. After all, we saw THE EDDIE STARE at Monday night's Council session when Eddie talked about the County and Greenlink. I was waiting for him to ask the County to "Spit it Out" too. Maybe he was saving that up for John's show!