Giddy But Engaged

It must be the full moon. I am in one of my silly moods today.

Certain things that I have read in the Windsor Star just seem so weird to me that I thought that I should share them with you.

• How do you explain this?

In the story “Windsor waiting for infrastructure funding,” I read the following:

• “It’s a significant list with a significant number of priorities … it’s not going to solve all our problems, but it will help mitigate against this continued economic freefall,” said Mayor Eddie Francis.
  
  Never too shy in the past to publicly criticize senior governments over perceived slights when it came to funding, Francis is almost giddy over the prospect of Windsor getting a fair share of the multibillion-dollar municipal stimulus package the federal Tories announced in their latest budget.”

“Giddy.” What a strange word to use. It hardly seems mayoral to me. It does not give me a lot of confidence that the money will be wisely spent in a well thought-out, planned and organized manner. It sounds more like how one would feel thinking about spending after winning the lottery.

Wait a minute----Eddie would be winning a huge prize in the equivalent of Lotto 6/49 and without buying a ticket. All of this Senior level money falling into his lap merely because the economy is collapsing around him! It's all non-budgetted, found money to be spent giddily! How much will the infrastructure lottery prize be?

In looking back at my BLOGs, I used that word once before in relation to the Mayor since that was the word that someone used with me:

• “I was told that several months ago the Windsor Mayor sought and was given permission by Windsor Council, again in camera, to approach the Mayor of Detroit to buy Detroit's interest in the Tunnel. I had heard rumours about this some time ago. I was told then that our Mayor was “giddy” with excitement as he talked about the proposed deal.”

Now you can understand why I am concerned: spending about $2M in legal and accounting fees on a project that never made sense to me and that now seems dead!

Can you picture in your mind a “giddy” Eddie Francis running out to his Assistant’s office every day when the mail comes in to see if there is a cheque from Ottawa and Toronto. Can you picture how he will jump up and down with joy once he gets that money! Can you imagine how quickly it will be spent too.

I found this history of giddy on the Internet:

• “Word History: The word giddy refers to fairly lightweight experiences or situations, but at one time it had to do with profundities. Giddy can be traced back to the same Germanic root *gud- that has given us the word God. The Germanic word *gudigaz formed on this root meant "possessed by a god." Such possession can be a rather unbalancing experience, and so it is not surprising that the Old English descendant of *gudigaz, gidig, meant "mad, possessed by an evil spirit," or that the Middle English development of gidig, gidi, meant the same thing, as well as "foolish; mad (used of an animal); dizzy; uncertain, unstable." Our sense "lighthearted, frivolous" represents the ultimate secularization of giddy.”

• It seems that one of the priorities for any infrastructure money that we are to receive from the Senior Levels is to use $10 million of it for the Tunnel Plaza Improvements.

Frankly, I do not understand how it could be used for that purpose since that money was supposed to have been set aside years ago by the City for precisely that purpose. In other words, it ought not to be one of our shovel ready projects.

As you know, that project has been on hold for years while the City has been negotiating forever it seems with the Senior Levels as to who is going to pay for the extra costs that have been incurred. We have never been told what those costs are and the amount is although I suspect they are not only construction costs but also the costs for the expropriation of properties that have skyrocketted.

Moreover, if the Tunnel Deal is dead as the Mayor claimed at the recent Tunnel Commission meeting and there do not seem to be too many backups anymore with the decline in traffic, then why do we need to spend the money for that project at all when there are more important issues like the long-neglected and now closed College Street bridge?

I have a better suggestion for that money, something much more important, something that can impact any citizen at any time without notice and which would clearly cost a citizen money given the City’s position:

• “In Ottawa, the city is experimenting with a mobile machine that can reheat chunks of asphalt to be reused to patch holes.
  
  Palanacki said he has seen those machines at trade shows but Windsor’s current financial situation doesn’t allow for it.
  
  “I saw a recent demonstration of that in Toronto, but right now 16.7 per cent of our roads are considered deficient,” said Palanacki.
  
  “The key is to bolster our road repairs.”
  
  
• “Palanacki said the city does not reimburse drivers for damage unless it can be definitively proven the city was delinquent in fixing the hole.
  
  “We always will deny responsibility because potholes are a natural phenomenon,” said Palanacki.


• Another word that I absolutely detest is the word “engage.”

What does it really mean? It is such a bureaucratic word that means absolutely nothing as far as I am concerned. Just listen at City Council as Members of Council or Administration tell us how they should be “engaged” with citizens of Windsor. In fact, there is one person who probably holds the world’s record for the use of that word when making a comment.

Consider also in the same story “Windsor waiting for infrastructure funding”

• “I haven’t seen this level of engagement before. They’ve been very, very, very good to work with us,” said Francis, who held his third meeting with federal Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities John Baird less than two weeks ago on the day the minister and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty handed Amherstburg a $15.6-million cheque for a new sports complex.”

What the heck does that mean? Have they only been dating up until this point?

How about this:

• “Francis praised the involvement of Baird and Essex MP Jeff Watson in focusing attention on the plight of Windsor, struggling with the implosion of the automotive sector and decimation of its manufacturing base.
  
  “They’re engaged down here and there’s a desire to see things get done down here,” said Francis.”

I know that politics makes strange bedfellows but do we have to wait until they get married before something gets done?

We all know how much the Mayor and Jeff Watson like each other so it is at least encouraging to note:

• “Watson, who has been in discussions with the mayor and the minister, said the Tory cabinet is “very sensitive” to Windsor’s economic situation.”

Hmmmm. No engagement here yet. Maybe only a first date. Probably a blind one too.

Yes we are seeing the Tories' feminine side now, their "sensitivity." Just as sensitive as they have been over the years as they have spoken platitudes about the importance of a new border crossing without doing anything about it.

The fact that the Star has not reported anything until now about the Francis/Baird meeting suggests to me that we may not be getting the amount of money we had hoped to get and in a timely manner. Eddie may have to prove first to certain people at the Senior Levels that he can keep his mouth closed with respect to the DRIC project.

Then he can be engaged with them and giddy too!