WE-DRIC: Windsor-Essex District Regional Incarceration Centre

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Mayor opposes Province's WE-DRIC project
Estrin/Schwartz team rehired to fight Provincial EA process

Mayor Eddie Francis is outraged and has demanded that his choice, Brighton Beach, be used to house the new, co-ed Windsor-Essex District Regional Incarceration Centre (WE-DRIC) if in fact studies demonstrate that there is a need for a new Jail.

"Why do we need to disrupt the Community by constructing a completely new Jail. Look at the waste of taxpayer dollars when rebuilding the old one is perfectly satisfactory. If we need a new one, then perhaps building it right near the old one makes the most sense. Logistically, Brighton Beach works out the best for everyone."

"Can you imagine putting this sprawling WE-DRIC facility in the City's newest downtown on Walker Road," fumed Francis. "Shoppers will flee from this area like the plague. I can just hear it now. "Attention shoppers. This store has been locked down because of a prison break!" It is bad for business and bad for investors.

We demand a Made in Windsor solution, not one imposed by Queen's Park bureuacrats. If we do not get it, then I will have no choice but to ask Council for instructions to have our well-known counsel study this situation carefully and provide us with a position paper outlining every possible alternative up to and including massive lititgation. We will have this study undertaken forthwith and will have a Report back within a very few months which we shall provide to Council so they can take the appropriate legal action."

Francis has retained David Estrin, without consulting with Council first because of the emergency, to fight the proposal to put the WE-DRIC jail at Walker and Highway 401, the area of Windsor's Big-Box stores. Estrin expects that his fees for the WE-DRIC EA process will only approach that incurred for the DRIC opposition but ought not to go higher. In this case, after doing a conflicts check, he is not aware of a problem so he is confident that he can act for the City.

"The Senior Levels have again decided to impose arbitrarily a solution on local Windsor residents." said Estrin. "Government inmate traffic figures are exaggerated. We have demonstrated conclusively that inmate volume has decreased as crime has dropped in Windsor by 19.4 per cent. We do NOT need a bigger facility. We merely need to rebuild the existing one. Who can oppose replacing an 83 year old building with a new one. It is like replacing an old factory with a new one. It is the right thing to do. It is irresponsible not to do so immediately!"

Estrin will retain Gridlock Sam Schwartz to protect solicitor-client privilege to come up with the Made in Windsor solution to this problem.

"I do not understand why they cannot put this Jail completely underground, Schwartz proclaimed. "If Windsor can be the terminus of the Underground Railway, then there is no reason why we cannot be home of the Underground Jail. Marin County, near San Francisco, has one near its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Civic Centre. Windsorites can have our own "Jail Hill" here too. We are entitled to it. We are owed it. We should demand it. Windsorites must "THINK BIG," Schwartz said until he was reminded that he had used that line before in Windsor.

The Councillor formerly known as Councillor Budget believed that "the money for lawyers and consultants can be found without increasing taxes if we do not buy any books at all for the Library system. Who needs books if Windsorites are the most illiterate in Canada!"

Councillor Ron Jones was shocked. He claimed that Council understood that "The jail was to be located in Sandwich to replace the old one located in Ward 2. We West Enders are people of great conviction too. We need a jail here."

Chief Gary Smith of the Windsor Police Department was quite upset, expecting jail numbers now to sky-rocket. The WE-DRIC facility is a co-ed jail of 315 beds. "Can you believe the parties there especially on weekends if it is co-ed? Why Americans will be getting drunk here in droves to be locked up for Friday-Sunday nights!"

Sandra Pupatello was furious at the Mayor's reaction. "Didn't the Mayor attend the Maurice O'Callahan happiness session at the City of Windsor event at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts the other day? If not, he should have. Why can't he "adopt a "cultural shift" and start thinking positive thoughts and focusing on making things good rather than hopelessly moping about the bad," Windsor's MITI Minister exclaimed.

Minister of Finance, Dwight Duncan was outraged at the Mayor's negative reaction "THE MAYOR IS WRONG, THE MAYOR IS WRONG."

Councillors have been surprisingly quiet. Rumour has it that a number of them have been approached by WE-DRIC Officials and told off the record that if the Mayor continues to protest, the WE-DRIC jail will be moved to the lands in Tecumseh where Project Ice Track was supposed to have been constructed. They are terrified that Windsor could lose all of the high-paying construction jobs and the on-going jail services employment. Tecumseh Mayor McNamara was said to be unavailable for comment.

READ THE HENDERSON COLUMN FOR GORD'S REACTION

Windsor's new Welcome Centre, a Jail!

Can you imagine a visitor or potential new business investor just arriving off the 401. The first impression of Windsor will not be a Parks Department WOW-Factor Garden but the sprawling walls, bars, barbed wire and gun turrets of a MegaProject WE-DRIC jail.

Those snivelling bureaucrats from Toronto have done it to us again! Oh they have a criminal sense of humour. First DRIC, Now WE-DRIC!