Francis Targets Marra

By Robert Tuomi

(WINDSOR, ON) – In the land of the unaccountable the unaccountable smile. They do other things too, like start the election season for the 2014 municipal vote. Chris Vander Doelen, a columnist at the Windsor Star, told us back on February 23, 2012 that we might as well get ready for “a gruelling 33-month-long municipal election campaign.”

Apparently, the campaign began in earnest, at least in the eyes of the mayor of Windsor, an Edgar Francis, when people started questioning why the Auditor General had to go because he was rudely planning to audit things. According to Vander, the mayor personally told him that “several candidates for council have declared an early, early start to the 2014 campaign. Their need to get some muck to stick to him and other incumbents is what’s driving the recent spate of non-scandalous scandal reports emanating from city hall.”

So the games have begun and from the early results it appears that the mayor has identified who he thinks is possibly his most daunting opponent being former mayoral aspirant and current councillor Bill Marra. It is a tactic that may well backfire, if Marra is up to a considerable challenge facing him at the Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital Foundation.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/03/francis-targets-marra/

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Windsor Is Only A Small Town, Really

By Ed Arditti

I know that the Mayor likes to throw around the word “world-class” whenever he has one of his mind’s eye visions. I guess it makes him feel good to do so thinking that he actually might live in a big city rather than in a town with a population that is probably around 200,000 or even less now with all the unemployed people who moved out of here looking for jobs elsewhere.

Of course, when he comes up with one of these ideas, the Star Columnists have to compare us with all of the locations around the world to make us feel good that we are spending so much money on these white elephants rather than using it for silly things like roads and sewers and watermains.

I wanted to do a Blog about why Dwight Duncan, Deputy Premier/Minister of Finance and one of the two MPPs for Windsor, has been invisible on the Auditor General Termination fiasco. Ultimately, whether he wants to or not, he’s going to get dragged into it. I wanted to try to explain why he is not out in front of this matter rather than being forced to react to it down the road.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/03/windsor-is-only-a-small-town-really/

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Where’s The Auditor General And Other Stories Of Interest

Where’s The Auditor General And Other Stories Of Interest

Just a few stores to try to capture your interest

WUC RATES TO BE AT 0% TOO NOW

Where oh where is the Auditor General who should be looking into whether or not our Water Utility is being run properly. Oh, I forgot. We don’t have one.

Oh, is it election time already? I thought the next municipal election was not for a few more years. I wonder why the water rates are now supposed to be kept at no increase when there is an obvious demand for watermain replacement. Just take a look at the photo I posted the other day about the mess at East Gate Estates. Or what took place in front of my house.

Former Councillor Junior will be livid at how this Utility is being run in such a political manner to its detriment. But we know why don’t we. Remember the Inaugural speech from Edgar (aka Eddie) and how it was described by mini-Gord:

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/03/wheres-the-auditor-general-and-other-stories-of-interest/

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TAMA Demands: Open the Books At Enwin/WUC

By Ed Arditti

You have two choices on Saturday morning. Sleep in or join up with your fellow Windsorites. Just keep on reading

Hip, hip, hooray!

The Star finally did an Editorial on the stink that one can smell all over the City. No, not about the Langlois affair and the lack of audit of WUC/Enwin but about skunks. Now that is the kind of hard-hitting, relevant, up-to-the-minute, decisive, public spirited journalism that Paul Godfrey obviously wants for his Postmedia newspapers.

Oh me, oh my. And here I was thinking that I was protected by the Ontario Energy Board who did all these high-priced audits on Enwin according to our Leaders.

Turns out, if one reads Annie and Dave Battagello in the Star today, that this is not so.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/03/tama-demands-open-the-books-at-enwinwuc/

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Why Windsor Does Not Have A 0% Tax Increase

By Ed Arditti

It’s our tax money burning a hole in Edgar’s pocket.

“The five-year plan for the city shows that the “non-traditional” side of the capital budget will have $32.1 million in untethered money in each of the years 2014 and 2015…

“There’s $64.2 million in unallocated funds. That is money that’s available,” Colucci said.” (Dalson Chen, The Windsor Star April 1, 2011)”

Is it really any wonder that Councillors’ role in this year’s Budget process is virtually non-existent.

Given all of the noise about the Auditor General, if the Eminence Greasie was around, the suggestion to the Mayor would have been to REDUCE taxes not hold them to a 0% increase. Even if it was a miniscule reduction, pretend to give the public something to really cheer about.

Imagine the headline that would have created that would have buried all of those negative stories about the firing of Mr. Langlois. Why, without trying too hard, the Star could have written about all of this positive tax news for weeks. I can just imagine what the lob throwers on CKLW would have said every Tuesday morning when questioning the Mayor.

The sycophantic praise would almost have been unbearable after a while.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/03/why-windsor-does-not-have-a-0-tax-increase/

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There Is Only One Person Left To Be Blamed

By Ed Arditti

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Annie has done it now in her column in the Star on March 2, 2012 “Asleep at the switch.” If this slamming of Council does not stick, then there is no turning back.

There really is only one more chapter that she can write in her book about the Langlois affair. I expect that she does not want to write it but she has put herself in the position where she has no other choice but to do so.

I find it very interesting. The Star Editors can write a scathing Editorial about the Ornge helicopter scandal but not a word about the Auditor General fiasco:

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/03/02/there-is-only-one-person-left-to-be-blamed/

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Is There A “Dirty Tricks” Campaign Going On In Windsor

By Ed Arditti

It is no longer about Todd Langlois only. He just happened to be in the wrong place and at the wrong time as far as I am concerned. It would have happened to anyone who was in his position if he/she did the same things. While it is important that we determine truth of what happened so that Mr. Langlois is being treated fairly, there is something even more important at stake: the proper governance of this City.

I am concerned that we are seeing a possible “dirty tricks” campaign. You know the Watergate cliché as well as I do: it is no longer only is there a “crime” but is there a “cover-up” as well.

The phrase “dirty tricks” is defined this way by Wikipedia:

“Dirty tricks are unethical, duplicitous, slanderous or illegal tactics employed to destroy or diminish the effectiveness of political or business opponents. The term “dirty trick” can also be used to refer to an underhanded technique to get ahead of an opponent.”

While such tactics have been going on for hundreds of years and are still ongoing– look at the robo-call scandal involving the last Federal election campaign– most of us probably understand that term from the Watergate scandal.

I was having breakfast Saturday morning and all of a sudden I got very angry. It was even before I read mini-Gord’s column. I don’t like what is going on in the City of Windsor. It is beyond comprehension to me how the Todd Langlois affair happened in the first place and how it is spiraling out of control. Every day it seems we are learning new facts that seem to contradict what was said before.

However, the tragedy is that we have no one who is in a position to take a look at the books and records of City Departments and organizations to protect the interest of taxpayers and we will not be in such a position for who knows how long I would bet. Get real, the City won’t do anything meaningful before the next municipal election.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/02/26/is-there-a-dirty-tricks-campaign-going-on-in-windsor/

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Why Did The Audit Committee Members Need A Lawyer

Why Did The Audit Committee Members Need A Lawyer

I must admit that I found it rather bizarre that the Audit Committee members needed to bring a lawyer to the meeting that they requested with the Windsor Star. Was he there to help them out if the questioning got too tough? In fact, I find it bizarre that the Audit Committee went there at all.

Why didn’t they hold a Town Hall meeting with citizens present to get their story across and to allow taxpayers of Windsor to question them to get answers rather than just go to the Messenger. Why, Councillor Dwight-Lite would have been thrilled to provide the technology for them to do so. After all, according to the Star more than 22,000 callers came to Dwight-Lite’s HUM session. I would bet that the number would increase dramatically if there was an Audit Committee Town Hall session.

Heck, I would have thought that the City Council would have demanded their presence at the next Council meeting so that the Councillors could interrogate them in public in front of the TV cameras almost as well as they interrogated the Senior Level officials during the Greenlink/DRIC road cross-examinations. You remember the masterful job that was done by Council members to make those people look so foolish even though the Senior Levels completely ignored Council and built the DRIC road exactly as they intended.

All we know is what the Star told us went on. I must admit that I am disappointed that the Star, who must have been videoing the session since they posted part of it, has not posted it all online so far. It must be really bad for them not to do so.

I do take offence that the Audit Committee has not seen fit to meet with the Windsor Square Editorial Board but then again, they might not like to hear some of our questions.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/02/24/why-did-the-audit-committee-members-need-a-lawyer/

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Eddie’s Cultural Revolution

By Robert Tuomi

(WINDSOR, ON) – In the land of no accountability, truth is the most cherished lost treasure. Probably a poster on gocomics.com on February 17, 2012 best summed up the situation in Windsor. Commenting on the hilarious Drabble offering of that day in which Kevin Fagan had his lead character proffering life advice to his progeny – like “the loose French fries at the bottom of the bag always taste the best” – Brian D suggested that the most appropriate advice parents can give to their offspring is that you should “never doff your hat to a barber in an alley.”

It is good advice to those living in a city that boasts a most inward and selfish council. It is a council that is blindly supporting its mayor in the imposition on its unsuspecting citizens of a cultural revolution that will rival that put in play in China in the late 1960s by Mao Zedong.

It is yet another example of the mayor of Windsor, an Edgar Francis, playing the ultimate game of one-upmanship. His cultural revolution will be bigger and better in a modern 21st century way than that of Mao.

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/02/23/eddies-cultural-revolution/

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Another Star Whitewash

By Ian Paulson

(WINDSOR, ON) – I wonder if Eddie Francis can feel his house of cards beginning to crash down around him. His intricate plans, that are detailed plans, probably didn’t include a contingency for failure. Looking at his track record of promising big and never delivering, I would have thought that a detailed plan would include provisions for when things go terribly wrong.

And how about Edgar’s cronies? Are they ready to come forward now that Francis has started down that slippery slope toward disclosure and discovery? Are the sycophants ready to reveal their roles in Eddie’s detailed plans in order to save themselves? As far as the Windsor Star is concerned, apparently not quite yet.

No doubt you have read, or otherwise become aware of, Anne Jarvis’ last few columns. On the surface of it all, she looks like a converted believer, appearing to call out the City over the Auditor General fiasco, but, like so many times before, she fell short and failed the readership by not calling for an audit herself

http://www.windsorsquare.ca/2012/02/23/another-star-whitewash/

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