Gord's Hatchet Job

These 2 By-laws may help determine who is our next Mayor and who will be on Council.

Whew, someone was in an ugly mood on Saturday! But there was an ulterior motive to the Henderson column as I am sure my regular readers would have understood.

It is of course expected that Bill Marra has to be destroyed as early as possible since it is clear he will be running for Mayor. Discredit him or force him not to run, it does not matter. Edgar would lose in a 2-person race against anyone credible.

But attacking Drew Dilkens so viciously, Councillor Nice Guy...what the heck caused that?

Gord's memory must be failing or he is suffering the amnesia disease from hanging around City Hall for so long:

• "When front-runner Marra was trounced six years ago by upstart Eddie Francis."

Hardly, Edgar was the golden boy then. Marra was the incumbent, long-time Councillor who had to bear the burden of being called Hurst-lite! The campaign was Edgar's to lose and he almost did with a lacklustre effort after the first week of the announcement of his candidacy.

Do not forget that I was involved deeply in Edgar's first mayoral campaign. But for a couple of strategic errors, Marra would have won. Gord must have forgotten that Edgar only received 53.45% of the vote. Marra would have beaten him easily last time around and would do so today except for the CUPE bump that may give Edgar some help.

As I Blogged previously,

• "HOW MAYORAL POLITICS IS PLAYED
  
  This is how the game is played in the Big Apple according to the New York Times:
  
  "Mr. Wolfson claimed his first Democratic scalp in May, as Mr. Weiner — once a close ally in the Clinton campaigns — dropped out of the mayoral race amid a Wolfson-led behind-the-scenes campaign to force him to do just that.
  
  Working with a local press corps he had cultivated for years, Mr. Wolfson and his team dug up and then pushed a steady stream of politically damaging tidbits about Mr. Weiner, giving the congressman an early taste of what he might face come the fall."
  
  And you wondered why Gord Henderson had been slashing Bill Marra so early on! Now you can understand why that weird term was inserted in the CUPE Protocol re New Beginnings to embarrass Bill. It was a message delivered to Bill and any other possible competitor to our Mayor IF he decides to run for a third term."

Did you like this line from Gord. I almost bust my gut laughing:

• "I'm all but certain that Francis will pack it in next year. But it appears that Marra, in playing dumb games while Windsor is fighting for its life, is trying to goad Francis into sticking around for a 2010 rematch."

We know what this is really about. Gord is trying to get others to announce that they will run, in particular the Councillor formerly known as Councillor Budget, so Edgar can sneak in down the middle. The Councillor is being suckered to run since he said he would run against Marra if Edgar did not. In this way, if Edgar wins, he gets rid of both Marra and Brister.

This line was almost as good quoting Councillor Your arrogance knows no bounds:

• "As for Marra's mayoral aspirations, Halberstadt said he's a "smart enough guy" and well spoken but "a little vanilla. He doesn't want to offend too many people and if you want to get things done, you need to offend some people."

Gosh, using "offending people" as a criterion, Edgar should be the most successful politician in Canada considering how many people are now in the BLOGMeister phone booth.

But Drew Dilkens...Oh my goodness.

• "Coun. Alan Halberstadt, no fan of the current mayor, is still scratching his head trying to figure out how a shakeup approved twice by council, on Sept. 2 and again this week, could suddenly become unacceptable to Marra and Dilkens. "I'm not sure where they're coming from."

DUH...Alan is now suffering from the amnesia disease. Gord has to slap Drew down for daring to criticize the Francis style of running City Hall and not following the Party Line.

Alan does need to tell us when he and his colleagues first saw the papers that had been passed through outside counsel concerning the CAO and Mr. Tyagi. He needs to tell us if that kind of process is acceptable to him considering his Canal remarks. Perhaps then he will understand Councillor Dilkens' concerns re a fait accompli. It's either that or a bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo.

Here are some recent for instances:

Jail

• "council approved by a vote of 6-4 the East Pelton Secondary Plan -- an urban plan that would allow commercial development of an area that includes the proposed location of the South West Detention Centre.
  
  Councillors Drew Dilkens... opposed the motion.
  
  Mayor Eddie Francis supported the motion."

Enwin

• "Coun. Drew Dilkens also favours looking into privatization. Investing the proceeds of any sale of assets may be a strategically better option for the city, he said...
  
  But Mayor Eddie Francis, who chairs the WCUL, and Coun. Fulvio Valentinis, vice-chairman of subsidiary Enwin Utilities Ltd., both caution against readily selling out to the private sector."

Helga

• "Ward 1 Coun. Drew Dilkens agrees that Reidel is "a great choice" for CAO and that that assessment appears to be the consensus among councillors, but said he agrees with Marra that there should have been more vetting in the selection process. Dilkens said council would have benefited by hearing the ideas of other in-house candidates and "learning more about them."
  
  He suggests the criticism being expressed could stem in part from "the larger issue of how things get done" at council. Dilkens said the matter was "sprung on us" without any prior notice at a Sept. 2 in-camera meeting when the mayor introduced Reidel as the new CAO. No other hiring options were put forward and the suggestion that other city hall managers might also be qualified only came up as a result of a question at Monday's closed-door meeting when councillors were asked to vote on Reidel's appointment."

Airport Audit

• "Airport board member Coun. Drew Dilkens said they have been clueless over YQG audited statements of the last two years being incomplete and withheld.
  
  Mayor Eddie Francis, chairman of the YQG board, countered Friday the delay should not be a surprise to anyone."

We'll see what Councillors Marra and Dilkens are made of at the Monday Council meeting when these 2 By-laws come up for discussion.

Will their mouths be closed tight or will we have a nice confrontation or two with the Mayor?