Happy MotherF***** Day, Councillor Marra

Ooooooo. Things are getting hot and heavy at some of the Council in camera meetings dealing with the border road. Thank goodness they are keeping all of the sessions secret and not allowing Councillors to speak publicly on Cogeco. Can you imagine the fines that would be imposed on our Mayor and Council. It would make the penalty for Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction look like peanuts.

The meetings are strange ones too. Personal attacks, no finality on an approach I am told, just keep the Greenlink ad blitz going for a few more weeks. Remember, it was a 60 day campaign at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars. Why?

Don't take it out on me. The language in the BLOG title...That's the kind of language that was used in an in camera meeting by one of the colleagues of Councillor Marra a few days ago I was told. That Councillor must have known that it was Mother's Day this past weekend and just wanted to give Bill a variation of the greeting to let him know exactly how Bill was viewed by some of his colleagues.

I am told that Bill did NOT back off either.

What was the cause of this outburst, Bill's crime... poor Councillor Marra dared to suggest that perhaps a consensus could be arrived at between the City and DRIC on the border road since, to most objective people, their plans seem to be reasonably close.

But our Mayor could not allow that to continue. Only Eddie can be the Voice of Council and Council had to reconfirm that. If Eddie allowed others to speak, obviously he would not get the credit for the settlement that is about to be achieved and it would go to his Councillor rival if Eddie decides to run for a third term. It is very similar to the attack on Councillor Halberstadt when he dared used the "C" word, compromise.

You see, Eddie is under the gun right now. He knows he's in big trouble from a number of fronts. How else to explain his huge waste of taxpayer money on Greenlink advertisements. There was another wrapper around the newspaper on Saturday. Eddie needs to pretend that all of this advertising has gained so much citizen support that it will force the Senior Levels into changing the DRIC road plans to make them closer to Greenlink even if they are not.

His friends however at the Star are very pleased. The Sales and Marketing Manager at The Windsor Star must be overjoyed at the influx of City dollars. And don't forget all of the Economic Development Commission ad dollars too now that they have received a vote of confidence from the Council. I wonder if employees get bonuses at the Star if they exceed their advertising quota.

The business interests in Windsor are furious at the delays that are costing this economy dearly. They have finally decided to open up their mouths after all this time and let the Mayor know what they think. It's a shame they didn't do so before. We might not be in this mess if they had but then again it is hard to confront a Mayor in a small town when you do business here.

Gord tells us that:

• "This week some of the city's top movers and shakers were leaning hard on local politicians to capitulate so contracts can be tendered and the bulldozers can get moving."

I have heard similar comments from insiders.

Eddie is also well aware of the threat that the Senior Levels may pull out of Windsor. Dwight Duncan mentioned that for the first time in an interview a few days ago. Can you imagine being Mayor and being blamed for that calamity if that happened. Windsorites would run him out of town.

Finally, Eddie is desperately afraid that the Bill Marra will be Windsor's next mayor especially if Eddie chooses to run again. Where else can one get a $2o0K per year job for continually failing on key tasks! No wonder that pressure is being put on Dave Cooke to run so that Dave can be the third candidate allowing Eddie to sneak up through the middle. The Star probably figured out that Mahatma Brister is not credible as a mayoral candidate any longer after his Huron Church foolishness.

No wonder Gord still feels the need to attack Marra as he did over the weekend. Bill is a very credible candidate who could easily have defeated Francis the last time out:

• "Perhaps that explains why Ward 4 councillor and future mayoral aspirant Bill Marra went all wobbly on his council colleagues for a few hours. Maybe the heat from on high in Gritville was getting to him."

But don't be harsh on the Sheriff. He's been telling us now for several weeks Eddie's plan is. Eddie intends to cave in to the Senior Levels; he has no choice. He overplayed his hand and Dwight Duncan's polling demonstrated that. No wonder Dwight could say with impunity

• "THE MAYOR IS WRONG. THE MAYOR IS WRONG."

I thought for sure that Eddie was going to give in on the day of the DRIC announcement and declare victory. After all, Gord's column in which he suggested that the CAW help Eddie--Buzz Hargrove and Ken Lewenza Sr.-- was hilarious. Gord stated that Buzz and Ken were:

• "sniffing out a possible compromise between DRIC and GreenLink."

Don't be silly... they were teaching Eddie to follow the practice of the Union and learn how to claim a victory even though the other side has completely destroyed you. The CAW are experts at doing that and have been for years!

The recent Ford agreement is classic... it allows Buzz to claim victory while giving Ford labour peace and permitting Ford to move most of their production into the United States over the next several years. Buzz will be long gone before the next negotiations in his new role as Senator if the Liberals when the next federal election. Let the next CAW leader worry about the future rounds of negotiations.

I have to admit that Gord's Column on May 1 fooled me. I thought that he was signalling that the Mayor was going to capitulate. Can you blame me after reading this:

• "You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find. You get what you need."
  
  He wasn't born when the music came out. But that line from the Rolling Stones' 1969 Let It Bleed album, along with some Kenny Rogers wisdom about knowing when to hold 'em and fold 'em, should be dancing in the cerebral cortex of Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis this morning as he contemplates how to respond to the latest and supposedly final border plan being rolled out by the province."

In fact what he was telling us is that Eddie is going to do so, but not quite yet, and also warning Eddie that he is in trouble with the Windsor Star. Again, I'm sure you recall this Editorial where the Star finally figured out what Eddie was really doing and made a suggestion for a solution:

• "It seems clear Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan aren’t the best of friends. While not ideal, the strained relationship would be acceptable if it wasn’t influencing their politics and undermining their constituents’ interests.
  
  But Francis and Duncan, the two principals in negotiations over a border access road, are barely on speaking terms, with Francis levelling accusations the province left Windsor in the dark about its preferred border plan while enlightening county politicians, automakers and the chamber of commerce.
  
  Francis called this “divide-and-conquer” tactic “dirty pool,” but he’s been wielding a big cue of his own recently, with an advertising blitz promoting GreenLink and targeting Duncan and cabinet mate Sandra Pupatello. By default or design, the campaign has also bolstered the image of Francis, laying the foundation for a third mayoral term or a run for a provincial or federal seat...
  
  These differences are not insignificant but they can be bridged if both sides check their egos and resolve to find a compromise that ensures the road to a new border crossing doesn’t pass through a courtroom. Litigation would waste time and resources and delay a project promising to yield thousands of jobs. That doesn’t mean litigation should be avoided at all costs, but it means litigation comes with a steep cost best avoided."

And he cannot afford to lose the support of the Star or frankly his career is over. He's been protected so long by the Paper that it is shameful. This Star has a lot of making up to do with its subscribers.

In passing, the Star has to end the blood feud between these two since they are both needed by the Star to keep on opposing the Bridge Co. Dwight especially is their champion and the Star cannot afford to have his credibility undermined!

There is no doubt that Eddie is desperate for compromise. He has to get one, no matter what it is. As we have seen, he is a crummy negotiator and will do what he has to do to get a deal that he can pretend is a victory for the City no matter how foolish it. He is the perfect middle-management type who is clawing to get ahead. We saw his poor negotiating prowess with the Mady garage, the Cleary deal, the MFP settlement, the Keg 5 cent parking deal, the Spitfires lease, the Canderel giveaway and I am sure with the Tunnel deal. Why should the Border road be any different.

It is almost a given that there will be a compromise announcement after, or even perhaps during, the train trip to Toronto. You know the one with the Windsor business types meeting their colleagues in Toronto to promote business for this area. One can hardly sell Windsor when the City is threatening to sue the Province. That doesn't make any sense to business types. So there is an urgency to create a deal that works.

There will be another urban legend to create spread by you know who. It will be along the lines of the three politicians huddling together for four hours on the train to Toronto with maps in hand to hammer out a deal as the other Windsor business people party on around them. When the deal is announced, on-board of course, as they pull into Union Station (with the Star photographer nearby taking pictures of the historic moment in our City's history) , the cheers of the participants erupting will bring a tear to one's eye!

Hmmm I expect it will be claimed that Eddie threatened that the VIA train would be quarantined like the one recently unless a deal was reached and that forced a resolution.

How it really will happen is a lot different if it happens at all. We saw in the Star that

• "Windsor’s two provincial cabinet ministers said Friday they are now ready and willing to meet with city councillors over border issues...
  
  Pupatello said there may be scheduling problems in arranging a meeting with council and it may have to be a weekend session.
  
  “I’m looking forward to it,” Mayor Eddie Francis said, adding council had requested a meeting as recently as last Friday after the DRIC proposal was released.
  
  “I think members of city council have a lot of questions to ask of them and I don’t know if anyone can sit back and really predict what we expect the result will be.
  
  “What it would be is the first opportunity that city council’s had in a long time to sit down face to face with the ministers and to have a real discussion on the border,” Francis said."

Unfortunately for Council, Eddie scooped them on that. They will not get a chance to ask any questions of the Ministers. He has no interest in having them talk with Council because then someone else might get the credit.

They may not know this. My sources informed me that Eddie was to meet with the two Ministers this weekend and in secret. That's a nice way to undercut your Council. They obviously had no opportunity to give him any kind of negotiating instructions either. What was the purpose of the meeting other than Eddie's career since he is desperate. Sandra and Dwight are just laughing at him since they know that they have him by the short and curlies.

Even the game that Henderson is playing by trying to boost the Federal Conservatives thereby scaring the Provincial Liberals isn't working. No one really believes that Henderson saying nice things about the Conservative Government will change anything:

• "And now, miracle of twisted miracles, the Harper team has turned itself into Windsor's new best pal -- the straight shooters in the white hats --
  
  Freed of all the Windsor baggage that weighs down the Dalton McGuinty government, they can simply get on with fixing the country's most important border crossing and doing it in the most expeditious manner possible. And if that means doing precisely what the city and its experts, especially New York traffic guru Sam Schwartz recommended, so be it."

The Province knows that the Federal Transport Minister has only committed $400 million to the road project. The Province also knows that it desperately needs the Federal Government to commit more because they can't do so. We are on the brink after all of becoming a have-not province!

That is why the Provincial Budget has never set out a specific sum of money. That would tie up the negotiating position of the Province to try to get more cash or to at least get the Federal Government to provide a bigger percentage of the money required.

The Feds are running out of money as well with their $2.1 billion fund needed for the next Federal Election. It is not going to go into NDP Windsor. That is for sure no matter what Gord pretends. We'll be lucky if we get the at grade road. After all, the DRIC Road is nothing more than an artist rendition similar to the way that US DRIC is fooling the people of Delray with all of their conceptual drawings.

In the end, Bill Marra did not go "wobbly." And given his Provincial Government political connections he understands exactly what the risks are to Windsor in a way that I believe the Mayor does not.

We will see if Marra is intimidated by Francis and Gord Henderson or whether he will continue to speak out to get a proper solution for Windsor before it is too late. For our sake, Bill better keep speaking because that is the only thing that will push Francis into a real settlement. He does have a legal responsibility under the Municipal Act that he must not forget about.

In my view, Bill needs to distance himself from theMayor's absurd stance if he wants a shot at the position next time around. He has to position himself now and very publicly as the Voice of Reason and Consensus while the Mayor continues to be the Voice of hollow threats, divisiveness and taxpayer waste. It would be helpful if some other Councillors started acting as Councillors as well and not as sheep for once. If Bill remains quiet, then one has to ask if he has the stuff to be a leader in this City! The issue is that important.