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Your Ideas For Windsor
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October 2009
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Written by Windsor Shadow
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Tuesday, 27 October 2009 01:42 |
Congratulations to St. Clair College and the City of Windsor for coming together on another great project for Downtown Windsor. While the details are yet to be finalized, the new School of Journalism will re-habilitate an abandoned downtown building and provide yet more traffic in the downtown core.
When I first heard about the possiblity of this deal, I took a walk through the area and tried to imagine future possibilities. I've mapped them out below on Google Maps to help people visualize what I'm talking about.
1. St. Clair Centre for the Arts
2. School of Journalism - former Salvation Army building at the corner of Victoria and University Ave.
3. Windsor Star Building - with the current financial difficulties faced by Canwest Media, I could see them being interested in selling this piece of property and consolidating their operations at their printing facilty off Central Ave. It represents the missing piece of the puzzle to link the School of Journalism and the St. Clair Centre for the Arts. Possible uses include a joint Law and Security/Law School and library between St. Clair College and the University of Windsor. You could even incorporate the Fish Market property into the mix.
4. Quality Suites - wouldn't this make a great ready made residence for downtown students? It fits right in with the other properties listed above and could probably be made ready for use with very few renovations.
In terms of future Infrastructure funding applicaitons, I would sooner see a joint City/College/University applicaiton to make something like this happen than applying for funding to dig the big downtown ditch.
View What if? in a larger map |
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 October 2009 01:55 |
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Written by Windsor Shadow
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Thursday, 15 October 2009 00:46 |
Congratulations to Chris Ryan, the new CEO of Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island. I think it's a great choice. Chris is a dynamic individual with proven industry experience in the Windsor area. From what the Star article states, Chris will be starting with a fairly clean slate in terms of staff. A new organization with a focused mandate, a new board and new staff. Chris starts his new job with high expectations from an area desperately in search of good news.
With the Tourism CEO out of the way, we're now left with the Development Commission CEO and Auditor-General as Windsor's two longstanding searches still in progress. A month ago I took a stab at predicting the time-lines for these positions and it looks like things are progressing nicely.
Predictions
1. Tourism Board CEO - October 2009 - completed
2. WEDC CEO - December 2009 - ?
3. Auditor General - March 2010 - ?
Around the same time, I blogged about a strange situation regarding the Auditor-General's position. April's Audit committee minutes would seem to indicate that we have all but hired an Auditor-General.
In a series of motions at the April meeting the Audit Committee received a report from HR regarding the A-G position, approved a term of office of 5 years, directed the Executive Directory of Human Resources to "finalize her process regarding the Auditor General position", authorized the Executive Director to "sign the contract regarding the Auditor General position" and finally a vote of thanks to the Executive Director of Human Resources and the department "for their assistance in selecting the candidate for the Auditor General position".
It's now the middle of October and still no Auditor General. Seven months and no contract has been signed. At the same time, the "Office of the Auditor General" is being used by the Audit Committee to shield the original Dunbar 400 Building Audit from being released to the public. As long as the position of Auditor General remains unfilled, control of any and all documents stashed in the "Office of the Auditor General" remains under control of the Audit Committee. We've been told that Part II of the revised 400 Building Audit may be released in a month, but there were no firm commitments to this timeline.
The question remains - why hasn't Windsor hired an Auditor General yet? The office and budget have been approved by Council and Audit Committee minutes would seem to indicate a candidate is ready. The only outstanding issue seems to be the various 400 Building Audits, both the original Dunbar Audit and the revised audit. The only concusion I can draw from the evidence available is that his whole process is being managed for political purposes. The minute an Auditor General is appointed the Audit Committee, and by extension City Council, loses control of any and all documents held by the "Office of the Auditor General". If you look at the Access to Information battle being fought by Chris Schnurr, the case can certainly be made that the utmost effort is being made to ensure the Dunbar Audit never sees the light of day, despite the fact that both the Mayor and former CAO have already seen the report. We are supposed to believe that it is pure coincidence that the "Office of Auditor General" was created and all Dunbar Audit related files moved into the "office" five days after the City received his Access to Information Request for a copy of the Dunbar Audit.
Let me put on my Shadow prediction hat again. Looking at Council's calendar for the rest of the year, my guess is that Part II of the Dunbar report will be released sometime after the 14th of December, the 14th being the last meeting of City Council for 2009. With Council adjourned for the year and everyone focused on the Christmas Holidays, there's probably no better time, politically at least, to release bad news. If you ever want to find bad news being released by any level of government it's always best to keep an eye on Friday afternoons of a long weekend or just before long holiday breaks when the body isn't holding meetings. It's a classic political move to minimize the impact, hoping that the news cycle on the story will die out and the public will lose interest before the next meeting of the government body in question.
You can expect the Part II 400 Building Audit to be released in conjunction with a report from City Hall of all the actions they have already taken to ensure that the "mistakes" made never happen again. We will be reassured that the appropriate lessons have been learned (again) and that with beefed up internal and external audit resources Windsor taxpayers are properly protected. With Council not due to reconvene until, at the earliest January 4th 2009 and most likely not until January 11th, Councillors can ride out any wave of bad publicity over the Christmas break. Throw in the announcement of a new WEDC CEO and anything else that they can think of and enough distractions can be provided to ensure the 400 Audit story dies a quick death on the local front pages. Once the heat is off Council can then move to announce that the Auditor General's position has at long last been filled.
Time will tell, but time is not on the side of our current City Councillors. There are two Councillors on the Audit Committee, Councillors Marra and Halberstadt. While they face future questions over their role in this whole process, that doesn't absolve the remaing eight Councillors of their responsibilities. We elect Councillors to represent taxpayers. When they fail to do their job adequately, the responsibility falls on all of them, not just a Committee of Council. Election year 2010 is certainly going to be interesting.
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Written by Windsor Shadow
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Thursday, 08 October 2009 12:42 |
I received the following Press Release in my inbox listing the shortlisted companies for the Windsor-Essex Parkway project. The release states that the RFP for the project is due to be released in December. No indication on when the winning bid will be announced.
For Immediate Release
October 8, 2009
THE WINDSOR-ESSEX PARKWAY PROJECT-BUILDERS SHORTLISTED
Project Attracts International Industry Interest
TORONTO - Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation today announced the companies short-listed to submit proposals to design, build, finance and maintain The Windsor-Essex Parkway.
Over the past few months, companies from all over the world participated in a rigorous competitive request for qualifications (RFQ) process that reviewed their design, construction, maintenance and financing abilities to deliver a large and complex project, such as the Parkway.
Following evaluations, five companies met the qualifications criteria and the three highest scoring ones were short-listed for the project. The short-listed companies are:
* Rose City Parkway Group including:
* Aecon Concessions is a division of Aecon Construction Group Inc.
* Fengate Capital
* Dufferin, a division of Holcim (Canada) Inc.
* The Miller Group
* MMM Group Limited
* Macquarie Capital Group Limited
* HOCHTIEF PPP Solution North America Inc.
* Peter Kiewit Sons Co.
* AECOM Canada Ltd.
* H.W. Lochner
* Thurber Engineering Ltd.
* Applied Research Associates, Inc.
* RC Spencer Associates Inc.
* West 8
* Windsor-Essex Transportation Partners including:
* Carillion Canada Inc.
* The Bank of Nova Scotia
* Stantec Consulting Ltd.
* PCL
* Bilfinger Berger Project Investments
* HSBC Specialist Investments Ltd (HSBC Infrastructure)
* John Laing Investments Limited (John Laing)
* Walsh Construction Company, a subsidiary of The Walsh Group, Ltd.
* Parsons Corporation
* Trow Associates Inc.
* Windsor Essex Mobility Group including:
* Dilion Consulting Limited
* RBC Dominion Securities Inc.
* Iridium Concesiones de Infraestructuras, S. A.
* Acciona, S.A.
* Fluor Canada Ltd.
* Dragados Canada Inc.
* Acciona Infrastructure Canada, Inc.
* Hatch Mott MacDonald Ltd.
* AMEC Earth and Environmental, Ltd.
These companies are diverse and their team members include many local contractors and businesses - a criteria of the RFQ. In their proposals, the companies demonstrated a strong interest in partnering with local companies and businesses.
Short-listed bidders will be invited to respond to the request for proposals, which will be released in December 2009. The two remaining pre-qualified companies will be held in reserve to replace any of the short-listed bidders should they be unable to participate. The companies being held in reserve include SNC Lavalin Inc. and WEP Development Partners.
Evaluation teams consisted of professional staff from Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation collectively having many decades of experience in highway design, construction financing and maintenance. The evaluation process was overseen by an independent fairness monitor.
Ontario approved the provincial environmental assessment for The Windsor-Essex Parkway in August 2009 and the required federal environmental assessment decision is anticipated in the coming weeks. A winning team will be selected in 2010 to design, build, finance and maintain The Windsor-Essex Parkway, which will be owned and operated by the provincial government and it will not be tolled.
The Windsor-Essex Parkway is the most significant single highway investment the province has made in Ontario's history and it will provide a major boost to the local and regional economies. The creation of 12,000 project-related jobs, with the majority in the Windsor-Essex area, is anticipated.
Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation are working to develop The Windsor-Essex Parkway, which will remain publicly owned, publicly controlled and publicly accountable. Infrastructure Ontario is a Crown corporation dedicated to managing some of the province's larger and more complex infrastructure renewal projects - ensuring they are built on time and on budget.
Find out more about Infrastructure Ontario www.infrastructureontario.ca.
Explore The Windsor-Essex Parkway at www.weparkway.ca.
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Contacts:
Paulette den Elzen
Infrastructure Ontario
416-327-5764
Heather Grondin
Windsor Border Initiatives Implementation Group
Ministry of Transportation
519-973-7359
Disponible en français
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Written by Windsor Shadow
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Monday, 05 October 2009 21:46 |
It's easier getting rid of bedbugs than a city councillor.
Royson James, The Toronto Star, October 6th, 2009
Note: The Shadow is back and gearing up. Many thanks to all for the kinds words and prayers over the last week.
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Last Updated on Monday, 05 October 2009 21:49 |
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