Stories Of Interest

I am trying desperately to catch up with items of interest for you. There are so many more items I want you, dear reader, to consider.

MY TWO SENSE WORTH

What a crock!

• "Copies of the 117-page report by Lufthansa Consulting were handed to city councillors Friday.
  
  A special council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m. to have it formally presented by the consultants and discussed."

Get real. "Formally" presented. Do they take us for idiots!

Sure because it has already been presented to Council and in camera a month ago but not at a Council meeting. It was presented at a Windsor Airport Board meeting in Council Chambers where members of the public were kicked out.

Remember my BLOG where I talked about the Don McArthur story that was published online but never made the printed pages of the Star! August 12, 2009, "The Story The Star Would Not Publish"

• "The reporter walked into the public chambers at City Hall shortly after the meeting began about 2 p.m. A host of people who aren’t on the board of YQG — the corporate entity that controls the publicly-owned Windsor Airport — were in attendance.
  
  They included councillors Alan Halberstadt, Fulvio Valentinis and Caroline Postma along with Norma Coleman, Francis's chief of staff...
  
  SEVEN Members of Council, SIX Councillors (a majority) PLUS the Mayor!"

I have a first impression too. And it is not a good first impression either.

My sense is that the decision has already been made, a done deal no matter what is said tonight

• "My impression is that councillors will be behind the idea of exploring it in principle," Coun. Alan Halberstadt said Sunday, noting that federal money may be available to fund a more in-depth study. "If that's the case, I can't see anybody opposing going to the next stage."

My sense is that Councillor Halberstadt can make a big show of him being insulted personally and get mad about the Feds seeing the canal information before the public but since he is now in the loop with the airport, he does not seem so concerned:

• "With other regional airports -- notably London and Hamilton -- actively pursuing the same business, Mayor Eddie Francis said he wants Windsor to move fast on the next phase, developing an actual business plan with an outline of what facilities are required. Not wanting to wait, Francis said the local development commission has submitted a grant request to the province to fund the next phase, expected to cost as much or more as the $220,000 the city paid for the feasibility study."

My sense is that funding it through the Undevelopment Commission before Council "formally" saw it is a way around Council and ignoring Council opinion. Did the WEDC Board agree? Whose airport is it anyway?

My sense is the meeting tonight is a farce. Why bother? It has already been discussed behind closed doors and Councillor Halberstadt was there so he knows exactly what was said.

My sense is that Democracy is dead in Windsor.

WORLD CLASS

I am so sick of that description for Windsor projects and trying to make us something we are not and can never be. The Cargo Village is merely the latest buzz-word for us to be ga-ga over.

It has cost us millions so far, halted development in its tracks, prevented any economic redevelopment with nothing achieved other than disappointment:

• "After all, if you're calling on the feds to come up with a bridge design that will blow the socks off the jaded sophisticates of Paris and the high-octane achievers of Sydney, you can hardly expect it to connect to an expressway through Windsor that looks like something Detroit was building in the early 1960s...
  
  Landmark? Visionary? Exciting? We have that in spades in the GreenLink plan developed by traffic guru Sam Schwartz and the New York-based PB (Parsons Brinckerhoff) engineering and design firm."
  
• "I'm still picking my jaw up off the floor after spending a few days immersed in the urban marvel that is downtown Chicago. It's all too easy, dwelling in the shadow of a dying Detroit, to forget there's a metropolis just five hours west of here that redefines that overworked term "world-class..."
  
  Windsor has so much to learn from these folks...
  
  We're the city that talked endlessly about building a downtown aquarium in the 1990s but couldn't summon the collective will or the leadership to do anything about it.
  
  And now, sadly, we're the city that has trouble seeing value in a canal that could transform a sterile downtown and become a magnet for family friendly attractions, including an aquarium or a children's theme park.
  
  You have to spend money to make money. Chicago, which spent $475 million on a 25-acre park with cutting-edge attractions, learned that long ago. And it's bursting at the seams with visitors in the midst of a brutal recession."

Why can't people be happy that we are Windsor with all of our advantages that we have never exploited properly and build on what we have rather than trying to make ourselves something we are not. I lived through this silliness when I lived in Toronto when we were always comparing ourselves with the great cities of the world. We are a small town of 200,000 souls for heaven's sake!

If you missed this in the Star opinion page, or even if you did not, it is worth reading. It is from historian J.L. Granatstein and fits our situation perfectly:

• "So we can't be a superpower. But don't be too sad. That relieves us of heavy obligations and great power responsibilities for the preservation of peace and, when peace collapses, it saves us in all likelihood from heavy casualties in (some) overseas wars of empire. We are now and will be what we are -- a developed democratic nation-state with a high standard of living, and that is no mean estate.
  
  But if we can't be a great power, can we at least be great? A great nation, in contrast to a state of no distinction, understands its weaknesses and strengths and seeks to maximize its potential. It strives to better the economic and social well-being of its people as it protects them from the threats of others. It jealously guards its sovereignty at the same time as it tries to play a responsible role in the global community. Greatness demands self-knowledge, and this regrettably may also be something that Canadians lack. Too many Canadians trumpet our virtues, real or imagined, overestimate our influence, and despise our neighbours for their success.
  
  Greatness for Canada means becoming both modest and honest.
  
  We need to know what we are and understand what we can be. We must strive to be not more powerful, but better. If we can do that, we can make Canada great."

AQUARIUM

I was so shocked that the Chair of the Board of the University and the head of the Canal Study did not make the pitch:

• "With the decline of its economic bread-and-butter automotive industry, Windsor could redefine itself as the Great Lakes capital, according to proponents of an ambitious plan to see an aquarium built in the city core.
  
  "What we're trying to sell here is that we're at the centre of the Great Lakes basin and there are no other Great Lakes aquaria," said Doug Haffner, acting-director of the University of Windsor's Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research.
  
  "It has lots of potential.
  
  We want to diversify and we're trying to redefine ourselves (as a city) ... this is a good start," said Haffner, who was part of a group that met in Mayor Eddie Francis's office last week to suggest launching a study on the plan."

Hmmm. Where was Mr. Cooke? Did he know anything about it? Was he in support? Did the University authorize the approach? Does the Mayor with his busy schedule just meet with anyone who has an idea about what to do downtown?

Only $70M! I wonder if the Unviersity can afford to pay for the costs considering it has huge amounts needed for its stadium, medical school and engineering complex.

My insiders tell me that the subject had never been raised at a Board meeting. I wonder if any Board members have any knowledge of any University Aquarium proposal or whether the University Administration does. If not, then why is the proposal being floated at all.

SO MANY CANAL STORIES

• "Francis, in a phone interview Monday from Ottawa where he's attending this year's Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, said he's heard "a significant level of interest expressed" for the canal project. He said other proposals mentioned so far to complement that development for the downtown west side include a children's park and a relocated science museum.
  
  The mayor said Michigan developers and out-of-town architects have been among those expressing curiosity about getting involved in the canal proposal, as well as "a group of interested professionals who are currently in the downtown ... a lot of people are excited."

Throw in a ferry terminal and an aquarium and all of these unnamed, curious but excited people and we have a re-election platform!

UNSHACKLED

Just imagine Dwight and Sandra being unchained and in public. Now THAT would have been a real photo-op:

• "Rules have prevented the two local MPPs from discussing the $1.6-billion Windsor-Essex Parkway with council, but the chains are off with final approval announced Monday of the road's environmental assessment by the provincial cabinet.
  
  "We have reached a point where both cabinet ministers can be engaged in meaningful and productive discussions," said Mayor Eddie Francis. "That will be the city's focus for the next several weeks."

Of course, this is all ridiculous because we know that Eddie has met with the Ministers several times secretly. It is another ground for alleging bias in the process that can stall everything.

So why would they meet now? After Cabinet approval has been given, nothing significant can be done or else it has to go through another EA process. It is too late.

• "The approval is final and this design is the basis for what we will build," he said. "There is some room for minor adjustments, but the parkway is what we are proceeding with. The city had some good ideas that have already been incorporated in this."

Oh of course we can now have the posturing for the locals over Greenlink.

Councillor Gignac wants a letter sent to force Sandra and Dwight to be cross-examined in front of Council. Uh-huh.

Councillor Halberstadt is now talking about judicial review. He can take the hit for this instead of the Mayor for the sabre-rattling. As if this will happen before an election in a City with the highest rate of unemployment in Canada.

Can we say that "Council Absurdity knows no bounds!"

So what is this all about. Simple. Just like the overpayment at Brighton Beach, the Province now has to step up to the plate to overpay. How does it do that and not make other Cities and towns upset. Again, the Star tells us in the last paragraph of a story:

• "Among matters to be discussed with the ministers is funding to upgrade local roads that will be used as detour routes during the DRIC project, which is expected to take several years to complete."

You cannot do this kind of horse-trading in public.

FINAL DRIC ROAD COST POOL

The Ferry project cost overrun made me think of this.

We really should try and guess what the final DRIC road cost amount will be since the outrageous tendered cost will provide the justification for building a cheaper solution road and upgrading E C Row.

Start at $1.6B which is not a real engineered cost number but based on MTO guidelines I believe and is based on 2011 dollars.

Nothing will happen until 2011 and with all of these infrastructure programs going on across Canada, consultants and workers will be at a premium so costs will increase as the project is delayed.

Stretch out the road building until at least 2015 since that is now the new date supposedly for the bridge completion. After all, you cannot build a road to nowhere except in windsor before elections. (Forget about those lawsuits that will stretch it out indefinitely unless there is a resolution.)

Natually, inflation will be growing and the cost of money to finance the project will be increasing since money will still be hard to find in the capital markets.

Add in the extra costs for expropriations because of the outrageous Brighton Beach settlement.

Add in the AFP "risk contingencies," transaction costs and all of the mistakes the Ontario Auditor General will find too late especially since this is supposedly the first AFP road project for Infrastructure Ontario.

Add in at least a third more as in all recent Windsor jobs such as the Ferry project where the Feds are balking about putting in an extra $2M.

Then add in the Danish Professor's Mega-Project premium because we have all been told stories about low costs and terrific benefits when the reverse is true.

My number is easily over $3B, closer to $4B. What is yours?