Thursday, December 18, 2008

More Readers Write


Here are some of the thoughts that my readers have had on stories of interest and a photo as well including one from a reader who did not like what I had to say and decided to stop reading :-(

Oh well, you cannot win them all.

1)I know we have to get into the spirit of the season and all but I thought there would be someone ready to spit over the 400 City Hall Square Audit. The biggest problem I have with the February release of the information is that I did not notice it was specifically to be 2009.

2) 2010, only 1.75 years to go!!

3)If it was a "personal' call what name did the PM use?
We have many pet names for him [Eddie]down here, I wonder which one was used?

4) LMAO - Oh Ed, you made my day. I decided to read The Windsor Star first this morning (sorry, no insult intended) and then flipped over to The Blog. Hilarous!

The more Edward opens his mouth, the worse it's getting for him (and I think he knows it). He is burying himself (along with a little help from the media and the bloggers) and there is no dodging this career bullet now. Good thing Michelle has a thriving practice.

Do you want to start production on those T-shirts? How about:

I HOPE to survive the Border File

2010 - Shovels In - Francis Out!

Keep it coming Al.

5) I am cutting off your blog. I used to enjoy it. But now I really do not like what you said about Harper. Thia is not a time to act like Kids , I am talking about the three stoogies.

6)I believe there are many things related to air quality that we can understand. For example the air we breathe is filled filled with contaminants, pollutants, and carcinogens, particulate matter of all types, some being more damaging to mankind than others. None of it is desireable, all of it is undesireable.

Most of what we experience comes from the south and south-west of our communities. A meaningful amount will be generated within the local communities. Locally we contend with the likes of the Zalev smelter and the automotive plants towards the east, none of which release their fumes and contaminates along the corridor to the border. This leaves us with the exhausts, from trucks and cars, mixing with whaterver else is there to be moved from the area by the prevailing winds.

Perhaps Mr. Estrin, the consultant Mr.A. van der Vooren or the Mayor of Windsor can explain to the Public how Green Link impoves air quality through the use of longer tunnels.

It seems to me and many other citizens the longer tunnels will only redistribute the flow of contaminants along the corridor. Some areas will get more, some will get less. Heavier concentrations will exist. How do you justify what you are proposing? Help us to understand your purpose and motivation.

7) So now it appears that Eddie is stalling AB and the DRIC - interesting tactic...

8)I surely felt like I would like to write your blog for you after watching city councilors posture about the great offense that is being done to Windsor citizens by the DRIC Proposal.

To have certain Councilors carrying the torch for the adverse health effects caused by fine particulates and smog caused by traffic was laughable. Their concern for the smog and adverse health effects [to people] who live on Riverside Drive was nowhere in evidence when they decided to widen Riverside Drive.

Watching them resort to that old chestnut “traffic calming” is only further evidence that these councilors are about ten years behind the times when it comes to the actual data on traffic calming. Worse, they have absolutely no concept of the differences between bike lanes, bike paths, bike boulevards or several other bikeway designs that have travelled here from Europe and offer a truly world-class cycling experience. Instead we have Councilor [X] talking about how bike lanes, the lowliest and most unimaginative form of bike facility, are going to make us the cycling mecca of North America………sheesh!

9)[Re Dwight Duncan's meeting] No mayor, no council, no admin

10)Eddie is the Stephane Dion of municipal politics - the same way it was political suicide to propose increasing gas taxes when gas prices were going up, it's political suicide to threaten lawsuits to stop the government, or anyone for that matter, from coming to town and spending hundreds of millions of dollars when you've got double digit vacancy rates and unemployment. Talk about out of touch. I suppose at this stage Eddie sees politically he's done, so he's onto other agendas now and has given up the ghost on moving to provincial or federal levels.

11) I believe DesRosiers has said that the auto industry in Ontario has been job neutral over the past 5 years. The big three have 35% of the market share ... that market won't evaporate with the Big Three collapse. Rather those consumers will go buy Toyota, Honda, Nissan et al - companies who've been building plants in Ontario (see Woodstock, Cambridge, Alliston).

And guess where all of the new domestics are setting up shop? On the 402 east-west corridor. Who needs a new bridge and parkway down Windsor way? So - does Eduardo need a bailout because he needs the DRIC/Ambassador Bridge fights as his raison d'etre?

12) “Francis fired off letters Tuesday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty begging for fast action on a co-ordinated, comprehensive response. "At this stage, a refusal by the federal and provincial governments to act is nothing less than a decision to allow the death of a community," wrote the mayor.

"If this industry fails, you're going to lose a city.”

Such hypocrisy .. here is a Mayor who has delayed by years and years the creation of jobs tied to the border solution, has mess up virtually every file he has touched costing Windsor thousands of additional jobs and he had the nerve to write the Government requesting "Fast Action". Why doesn't he write to Ken Lewenza and ask the CAW to move to two tier wages ... and to give up their SPA days! ... Spa days for Christ sakes ... how inappropriate is that ... and there are a dozen other non wage excesses in the contract that should go. I don't see the Mayor trying to "quickly" move the CAW off a position that is giving our politicians fits. The politicians actually have some sympathy for bailing out the D3 ... they and the tax payers that elect them have zero interest in bailing out the unions.

13) we know the report from Dunbar, has been read by some councilors, , what kind of pressure can we put , so we can have a copy from someone, as I look at the Windsor star and see the faces of councilors, , I wonder how they sleep at night, but I also wonder , why have these yo, yo,s been elected,, does not say much for the electorate, I feel sick to my stomach when I listen to these people , no rhythm nor reason to what they expect the tax payers to digest, , there has to be a way, and soon to stop these idiots from spending more money on nothing.



14) Interesting that the Windsor Star bills it's "provocative city columnist" as having "hard-hitting views on City Hall". The 400 building audit has been delayed once again, but Gord has not written not a word about the ongoing debacle. Seems to me that the the Star should re-word its biography of their chief columist.



15) I heard someone speak about asking a contractor how long it would take to build an office building downtown. The answer was that it could be built in about half the time it would take the city to audit it!

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