Would Gary McNamara Be The Super Mayor

Isn't that the real concern to certain people at City Hall? If there was total amalgamation, then Gary McNamara would be the Mayor of the combined City/County, elected by a landslide. If there was some kind of regional Metro Government, then Gary might be our "Big Daddy," the way Fred Gardiner was in Toronto.

There might go Eddie's chance for a new job after his second and last term as Windsor's Mayor ends! Wasn't Gardiner appointed as the Metro Chairman, not elected! Is that why Eddie is friends with Sandra?

From Wikipedia:

• "This meant that Gardiner would be Chairman of Metro Toronto, and charged with the responsibility of providing the thirteen municipalities with those services which were metropolitan in nature, while those services which were local in nature were to be left to the thirteen local municipalities. The metropolitan corporation was responsible for water supply, sewage disposal, policing, licensing, civil defence, arterial highways, the financing of education, the financing of the rapid transit system, air pollution control, metropolitan parks, certain welfare services, the overall planning of the metropolitan municipality, and many other collateral activities."

It’s too bad that we really don’t have any real way of questioning the Mayor and Councillors after a Council meeting about why they acted the way they did.

I can just imagine what Percy Hatfield would have done on Percy’s Panel after the disgrace at Council last night on the Motion put forward by Councillor Dilkens. The ironic thing about it is that Councillor Hatfield was the guy who led the charge against the Motion.

I must say that after the performance last night I believe that this Council is incapable of making any kind of significant decision. No wonder the border file is a mess and it takes years for an audit to be disclosed. The politics last night was horrific. The lack of leadership by the Mayor and a Senior Councillor was pathetic.

Councillor Dilkens’ motion was so innocuous I am shocked that there was a discussion about it all. It should have gone on the Consent Agenda. He gave a very long and detailed speech setting out a myriad of examples of where cooperation was required. All that his Motion asked for was approval of the regional governance concept by the City for significant issues and the request of the County to do so as well and then to get together jointly to discuss.

Now what is controversial about that!

According to the Naysayers on Council, this was the City putting the hammer to the County again. According to Councillor Hatfield, the problem was not the Motion itself but the way that Councillor Dilkens approached the matter. As he said, there are “different ways of doing things." So kill something that makes sense because Percy might do it in a different way.

How would Councillor Hatfield have acted. He would have written to the seven Mayors telling them what he wanted to do. Of course, in my opinion, it would be absolutely inappropriate for a City Councillor to write directly to a County Mayor. That is not the function of a City Councillor but rather of the City Mayor as the Head of Council. I can just imagine how Councillor Dilkens would have been attacked had he done so. He would have been accused of end-running Council and grandstanding.

Councillor Brister’s nose was all out of joint and he spoke against the Motion as well. He is the Wardmate of Councillor Dilkens and has not been receiving good editorial coverage by the Star for his mayoral run. His function was to remind everyone that he was the one who put forward the idea about setting up quarterly meetings with the County. He thought that the Joint Session was the appropriate forum to raise this issue in the first place. I mean, get real. He did not want to be one upped again by the junior Councillor of the Ward.

Moreover, if one wants to talk about undercutting a colleague, Councillor Brister showed how it is to be done. The Councillor again in my view inappropriately talked to some anonymous County colleague about the wording of the Motion. Remarkably, that person was less than favourable about what was being proposed. I wonder if the Councillor would have mentioned the conversation if that anonymous person was supportive. On that basis therefore, how could Councillor Brister support his Wardmate.

I do note that in one sense the Councillor formerly known as Council Budget is acting mayoral. He wraps up everything that he says in anonymity. Wouldn't you really like to know with whom the Councillor spoke? I wonder why the Councillor was so shy in mentioning who that person was.

It was hilarious actually. What was suggested by the Naysayers was that the City should propose to put the issue on the Agenda of the Joint Session. My goodness, if the City proposed something like that, wouldn’t Council have to agree to it? They could not agree to it last night. If the City proposed it, why wouldn’t that be considered “hammering the County” as was suggested? I guess if the County said "NO" that would kill the idea for years to come even if it made sense for all taxpayers.

It appears that our Council is incapable making a decision or rather it may be afraid to do so since Council might get blamed if something went wrong. It seems that we need permission to do something from the County because we have been so nasty to the County in the past. We do not want to create acrimony in the County now do we.

Such deference to the County sensibilities is odd considering the attacks that were made on the County by certain City politicians with respect to Greenlink. Does that mean that the City is backing off of its Greenlink position to meet County needs? I hardly think so. It was made clear last night at Council for example that the City would have a very active role in the Manning Road expansion. And, I am certain, not in a way that the County will be appreciative.

Councillor Hatfield merely wanted to ask the County if they had any interest in a joint study to determine whether any form of regional government would prove beneficial to taxpayers. Now that is his form of leadership. NOT.

And speaking of lack of leadership, Councillor Valentinis must have done some Councillor counting before he raised his hand to vote. Can you believe it, he seconded the Motion, spoke in favour of it, said he would support it, and then voted against it! I guess he really didn’t want it passed either and thought that a vast majority of his colleagues would oppose it. Thus he could speak in favour to appear to rise above petty City/County politics knowing that the Motion was going to be defeated. When that was not going to happen, he had to oppose the Motion or else it would have passed 6-4. How else to explain his switcheroo and flip-flop. For a Senior Councillor at City Hall, this was a shocking performance that I cannot remember ever seeing happen before.

And speaking of a disgrace, where was the leadership shown by the Mayor at Council. The vote on the Motion was tied at 5-5. What did the Mayor do as Leader of Council? How did the Mayor vote? The Mayor did nothing. We have no idea what the Mayor wanted.

Actually we do know. He wanted the Motion killed but did not have the guts to do it so that the Public would see it. He clearly was afraid to take the hit politically. He could have opposed the Motion by putting up his hand to make it 6–5 opposed so that everyone would know exactly what his position was. Instead, he played the Procedural Bylaw tactic whereby the Motion is lost if there is a tie vote.

To be fair:

• "Mayor Eddie Francis offered that the issue could be discussed at the next quarterly city-county joint meeting scheduled in August."

But if it was not added because of County opposition, then the Mayor could not be blamed now could he!

I can just imagine trying to put this on the Joint Session Agenda. If I was a County politician, I would suggest to the City that before they try and put it on the Agenda, they ought to figure out what their position was first. That should kill the concept of regional governance for another few years.

The most bizarre point of the evening came when Councillor Hatfield asked for a transcript of the debate be taken and given to the County Governments. I’m not quite sure the purpose of it. Perhaps it was to show that the Naysayers were so protective of the County’s interests that they should be trusted.

That would be a horrible mistake if it was undertaken. All that it would do would show the division of City Council and their incompetence for even the simplest of matters. It would show that the City Council is weak and divided with a Mayor who is not decisive and who lacks leadership ability.

That idea shocked the Mayor since the City has no way of doing transcripts since he claimed that someone would actually have to listen to the tape and type it. What a novel concept that is. Clearly, since that will affect the efficiency of City Administration and will have a huge cost, considerable consternation was caused.

Moreover can you imagine the poor soul who was assigned the task to do the transcript. It would not surprise me if that person would have to take off a significant amount of time after doing it for being forced to listen to this drivel. It certainly could be classified as cruel and unusual punishment and a union grievance filed.

I have a suggestion. Instead of a typed transcript, perhaps someone could transfer the debate to a DVD and pass that out to County Governments. I’m surprised that Percy did not think of that given his television background.

There was however one winner last night. If you read the story in the Star after the debate, you would have seen the headline

• “Council rejects Dilkens' regional gov't plan.”

You would have read:

• “Despite some support for the concept, Windsor's council shot down Coun. Drew Dilkens' motion to form a regional government Essex County.
  
  "What I think you saw tonight was people hiding behind process and not supporting what eventually will happen in this region," said a disappointed Dilkens.”

And guess whose photograph you would have seen right at the top on page 1! I am sure that Drew and Gary could work together very nicely.