Question: How many negotiators does it take to set up a meeting between the Mayor of Detroit and the Mayor of Windsor?
Answer: See below
If you want to know why we need a Judicial Inquiry under the Municipal Act in Windsor just listen to this excerpt from the interview of Eddie Francis on CKLW yesterday morning. The transcript is set out below as well.
It just seems that information comes out in dribs and drabs and things are told to different people at different times. But for this BLOG frankly, you would have to put it all together yourself.
Here is what was said as reported so far:
To Councillor Marra
- “I can share with you that Mr. Sutts has been following the direction of City Council and, ah, I don’t believe there have been any face-to-face meetings since then.
There may be some scheduled this week, as Mr. Sutts tries to respond to council resolution."
In the Saturday Star:
- “Kilpatrick wanted to travel to Windsor that Friday, but Francis told him he had previous commitments.
The Detroit mayor then asked about the following Monday, which conflicted with Windsor's council meeting. On Tuesday, Francis had to travel to Toronto for a municipal association meeting.
"Then we said, 'OK, Wednesday morning,'" Francis said.
Added Sutts: "Eddie called me right after that call and said they were requesting a meeting."
Lawyers leading the tunnel negotiations from both cities set up the Wednesday meeting in the boardroom of Sutts's downtown law office.
In the Star Editorial:
- “Francis insists he answered Marra's question "to the best" of his ability and that he couldn't confirm any details of any meeting because he didn't receive official confirmation until Tuesday, the morning after Marra's question and the day before the meeting. That doesn't quite jibe with quotes attributed to Francis and Sutts in Saturday's Star.”
On CKLW
- Francis: You will recall back then in those discussions, the Detroit City Council had a flip-flop. Detroit City Council then ejected the then-Deputy Mayor out of the Council Chambers on the Thursday. That Thursday evening Mayor Kilpatrick and his team held a media conference of which our local media, some were in attendance. At that conference he said I am going to be meeting with Windsor tomorrow to put things back on track.
On Friday I did receive a call from him saying that it was important to put this on track, City Council in Detroit was reacting, there were a lot of emotions on that side and there are certain things that we shouldn't read into, but wanted to get together. I said that I would welcome the opportunity to get together. He said how about today? I said today doesn't work, Monday doesn't work for me. Tuesday I am in Toronto negotiating with the provincial fiscal review, Wednesday works for me but lets get our teams together and have our lawyers set it up at which point of time our lawyers had a discussion.
Host: And it was decided the meeting would be in Windsor?
Francis: It was decided and set up by Cliff Sutts our lead negotiator that the meeting would take place in Windsor on Wednesday morning. That was confirmed Tuesday by Cliff Sutts and by the negotiating teams. They had, I would say, four or five people in attendance and we had three people in attendance.
Do you see anywhere previously where Councillor Marra was told about the Tuesday session, nevermind Wednesday? Was there anything in the Saturday Star story about a session on Tuesday? The Star Editorial gave us new information but all that the Star was told was that Eddie was waiting for official confirmation on Tuesday, even though he was out of town. The Saturday story said that the meeting was set up by the lawyers, nothing about waiting for a confirmation.
Now we learn that there was some kind of a meeting on Tuesday, was it “face to face,” in which four or five people from Detroit were involved and three people from Windsor. What was that all about and why where we never told about it? Does it take all of those many people to set up a meeting between two Mayors or was a lot more discussed? [There is the answer to the joke!]
Eddie was reported on the CKLW website on August 9 as saying
- “Windsor's mayor says now is not the time to talk about a tunnel deal with Detroit. Windsor mayor Eddie Francis says city council is standing behind it's decision to wait until the dust settles between Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Detroit City Council to proceed with discussions about purchasing the US side of the tunnel.”
He said on the radio yesterday on CKLW:
- Host: What this means is that, I guess, these talks have been put on hold for a while
Francis: the talks have been put on hold by Council Resolution. And we have indicated to Detroit that we wanted some certainty from them as Council has directed. Detroit said that they would get back to us and then all of this stuff has taken place. That is where we are at. We continue to monitor the situation."
If what the Mayor just said is true, then Councillors should be outraged. If they were put on hold, were there any meetings that took place, "face to face" or not? From the timeline that I have prepared, it seems that they were meetings whether on the telephone or otherwise. In fact, if the Detroit Deputy Mayor is correct, Mr. Sutts contacted Detroit's lawyer the night that City Council resolution supposedly putting everything on hold.
- "July 11, 2008 In fact, he said attorney William Phillips, who has represented Detroit in the negotiations, spoke with Sutts as recently as Thursday night, and Sutts asked for Phillips to provide him Detroit documents on the deal.
Adams said Francis told Kilpatrick as recently as last week that the deal was on and he was excited about the Detroit council finally taking a first step toward a sale.
In fact, our lawyer claimed that he was authorized to keep on speaking!
- "July 11, 2008 Sutts said he still has authority to continue speaking with Detroit officials and negotiations would resume if Detroit council members state their support for finalizing the sale. In fact, he spoke today with Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams and attorney William Phillips, who has represented the City of Detroit in negotiations."
We now know about the 7 or 8 person session on the Tuesday before the not-so-secret "secret" meeting.
What exactly was put on hold?
As Mr. Sutts said:
- “We feel it's necessary to put the record straight…”
So do I and so should you, dear reader. We need that Judicial Inquiry and under oath and we need it now!
In passing, it sure sounded to me like Kwame wanted a meeting early on. Was it an "emergency?" You decide after listening to the clip.
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