windsorcityblogtest: More Items Of Interest

Here are some items you may find interesting and enlightening! I just had to clear them out to make way for the new ones coming in.

SECURITY AND REDUNDANCY

I’m sure that you saw this headline:

“B.C. pipeline still leaking after latest attack”

This is the third attack along the route of sour gas pipelines in British Columbia.

This clearly shows the risk to the pipeline system in Canada yet I don’t hear anybody demanding that we duplicate the oil and gas pipelines for security and redundancy purposes.

I just saw the story:

“Ont. government opposes two possible new nuclear reactors from Bruce Power

TORONTO — Proposed plans by Bruce Power to build two new nuclear reactors on the shores of Lake Erie met with strong opposition from the Ontario government Friday.

The only private nuclear generating company in Canada will conduct an environmental assessment as it considers building two reactors at the former Stelco lands in Nanticoke in southwestern Ontario…

After a luncheon speech in Toronto on Friday, Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman made it clear the province is not behind Bruce Power's plans.

"It does not have government support in any form," he said…

"Hawthorne called it "disappointing" that the government did not view his announcement as positive. He said in a world of financial turbulence, his company should be commended for laying out proposed future projects."

I have no idea why the Government is opposing this project. It would seem to me that it provides good security and redundancy in case there’s a problem at the Bruce nuclear plant.

No. It is only with respect to the Ambassador Bridge that security and redundancy become an issue.

LOOPY COUNCILLORS

According to Councillor Postma in her interview with John Fairley, the only Councillors who attend on a regular basis with the Mayor in his bullpen sessions on Fridays are herself, Councillor Jones and Councillor Lewenza. Councillor Halberstadt attends on occasion and sometimes Councillor Valentinis.

However, there is a real question whether the Mayor takes these sessions seriously or not. For example in October, one was cancelled because the Mayor had a Windsor Utilities negotiation meeting scheduled and another was cancelled because the Mayor was in Toronto for the Provincial Municipal Review Report and Press Conference. We know the Mayor was there because didn’t he get a quote in the newspaper.

The Bull Sessions were not rescheduled either.

QUICK CALL THE PARAMEDICS

Dr. Allen Heimann, the Medical Officer of Health, may be focusing on the wrong diseases I am afraid. He is so worried about SARS, West Nile disease and flu pandemics that he has missed the fact that there is an amnesia disease sweeping through City Hall again.

The cause may well be due to all of those fumes being exhausted from the Ventilation building for the Windsor Tunnel near City Hall since there are no scrubbers on the exhaust. I would hate to think that such a concentration of fumes would cause the amnesia around the residences from the exhaust of the Greenlink Schwunnels.

Here is a video rom the EH News report:

“Mayor's Office Out Of Touch With Automotive R & D Future: Analyst

“Canada's leading auto industry analyst -- with a reputation for frank talk -- says the mayor's office is slowing Windsor's shift from blue collar automotive jobs to the industry's
future -- research and development.

Tonight on A-News at Six, Daryl Newcombe reported on Dennis Desrosier's comments and how Mayor Eddie Francis responded.”

As is very clear, the Mayor cannot stand to be blamed for anything that may be going wrong. Listen as he lashes out but more importantly listen to what he says about the proposal that the City made to the University.

Now I do not know whom to believe. Here is what Councillor Halberstadt said months before on his BLOG about a so-called proposal.

"On January 25, at an in camera meeting, Mayor Eddie Francis received approval from City Council, in an 8-2 vote, to concoct a business case to offer free city land, $25-million in cash, plus expropriation costs, to convince the University of Windsor to build its new $110,000,000 engineering school on the western anchor site.

Two days later, details of this closed meeting were leaked all over the pages of the Windsor Star in the wake of a January 26 decision by the university board of governors to reject the downtown site and locate the new faculty on campus.

Columnist Gord Henderson told us that Mayor Francis was to come back to Council in three weeks with a business plan, a rapid timeline I do not recall being pinpointed to Councillors.

I am not sure what the mayor communicated to university President Ross Paul regarding Council’s closed-door decision prior to the board of governors meeting. As one of the two Councillors who opposed the resolution, it offends me that it is now taken for granted that Council gave the green light on the $40-million package.

In fact, all the Council majority did was to give the mayor permission to develop a business plan. Once that came back, I would certainly presume that it would be vetted in full public view, including details of the obvious hit to the property tax base, the city’s financial plan and the much-acclaimed debt-reduction policy.”

I sure would like to know what the City’s proposal was. I find it interesting that the Mayor never made that proposal public.

In case you are suffering from the amnesia disease as well, dear reader, here’s how the Mayor tried to help the University. Here is what I wrote before:

"Together, we are working to build the new, state-of-the-art Centre for Engineering Innovation. And, it needs to be downtown."

Of course he “ad-libbed” so it would NOT be in writing when Eddie threatened saying if it was not going to be downtown, do not expect a City contribution.

The City would play a role "if and only if the campus was brought downtown."

With help like that...

OYEZ, OYEZ, OYEZ