|
Your Ideas For Windsor
|
2010
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Friday, 20 August 2010 04:27 |
Four years ago, (August 17th to be exact), the original Windsor Municipal Shadow was born on Google's Blogger platform. My initial goal was to cover the various races and keep people as informed as possible. I enjoyed following the various campaigns and over the course of the election period began to develop a much greater interest in Windsor as a community. Post election, I decided to keep blogging on municipal affairs. In retrospect I'm glad I did.
The last four years in municipal blogging have led me down many different paths and I'm glad for the experience. I've gotten to know many people throughout Windsor, had opportunities to share my knowledge and most importantly learn just as much from many others. The experience has been rewarding on many levels, certainly peaking with last years founding of Citizfaction and the effort to transition Windsor to ten wards from five. That single campaign was the most satisfying and enjoyable thing I've ever accomplished in politics. It was a true community effort, citizens coming together from all walks of life and political stripes to speak in a loud and clear voice to their representatives. For once, they heard us.
The current election finds me wearing two hats and very busy. While I'm assisting several candidates in Ward races, I'm also continuing with Citizfaction in an effort to provide education and assistance to all candidates on a non-partisan basis. I've received a fair amount of criticism from some people over this approach, but I'm not deterred. I've never hidden my support of various candidates. I believe in our democratic process and have been inspired to do as much as I possibly can. To my critics I simply say, what have you done lately?
My blogging here at the Shadow has been rather sparse over the last while and I'm not sure what's going to happen after this year's election. I'd like to follow through with my original goal of providing a sort of "shadow" council online, providing thoughtful commentary and analysis from a group of people, both as regular contributors or guest bloggers. I believe there is still a want and a need for more voices in our municipal affairs and I'd like to provide a platform if I can.
My journey in municipal politics over the last four years has been immensely rewarding. I'd like to thank each and every person I've met in this adventure, friend and foe alike. Because of each one of you I've developed a greater interest and passion for the city I live in. You can't ask for much more!
65 days until the next Municipal Election. Get involved, or at the very least, get out and vote and bring two or three people with you!
|
|
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 04:59 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Tuesday, 17 August 2010 18:36 |
The Citizfaction Municipal Election Toolbar is now ready for download. We will be tracking the Mayoralty and Councillor races in Windsor. The toolbar includes links to every active website of current candidates and regular updates via RSS feeds. In the works is the addition of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube tracking as well.
The toolbar has versions for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari on the Windows, Linux and Mac platforms.
Cross posted from Citizfaction
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Thursday, 08 July 2010 14:20 |
Wednesday's show covered a review of the new Ward 8 and a discussion on the upcoming vote on outsourcing the City of Windsor's garbage collection and recycling pickup. Host: Kieran McKenzie with Chris Holt, Ryan Solomon and myself.
Rose City Politics
In the discussion on outsourcing, we tried to determine what the eventual vote would be by various Councillors. I'll post my predictions here and invite others to post theirs in the comments. Next Tuesday we can come back and review the results. (You can count on the "winner" being revealed on next Wednesday's show!)
My predictions:
Councillor Brister Yes
Councillor Dilkens Yes
Councillor Jones No
Councillor Postma Yes
Councillor Valentinis Yes
Councillor Halberstadt Yes
Councillor Lewenza No
Councillor Marra Yes
Councillor Gignac Yes
Councillor Hatfield Yes
Mayor Francis Yes
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 28 June 2010 06:00 |
1. Great coverage of last night's west end fire by Windsorite.ca
2. In the category of "don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel", some people never learn. Pay particluar attention to the first 30 seconds or so of the video. The implication seems to be that if the CBC wasn't there asking questions he would have told the Windsor Star reporter to go get stuffed!
3. On the Agenda this week at Windsor City Council. Last Council meeting before they move to the summer schedule of meeting only every 2nd week. Communications for this week.
4. Several new candidates are now officially in the hunt for a City Council seat. Check out Citizfaction.ca for all the most recent info.
5. I'm participating in the City of Windsor website focus group today from 10am till noon. If you have any ideas, post them here or email me.
6. Citizfaction's Social Media and Politics: More Than Just The Message. July 22nd at Milk.
7. Great article from New York on their Open Data initiatives. (H/T Mark Bradley)
8. A frank admission from Transit Windsor's Director of Operations. Hopefully it leads to a wider discussion on what Transit Windsor does/doesn't offer to it's customers.
9. Citizfaction appears on Rose City Politics each Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 pm, CJAM radio 99.1 fm. Tune in or stream it live.
10. Windsor's Downtown Farmer's Market is off to a roaring success. Have you visited yet?
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 28 June 2010 07:00 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Sunday, 27 June 2010 17:18 |
Well everything has been running for over 48 hours now and (fingers crossed), there doesn't seem to be any major issues. I'm very happy with this new component. The CRON job is purring away every 1/2 hour, checking for new content. Due to the simplicity of this component, the speed of the feed processing has been greatly increased and the load on the server has been greatly reduced.
After some cut and paste hacking and tweaking I was able to get the blog names appearing in the feed link again. This wasn't included in the actual component and was a feature requested by many users after they saw the initial results of the upgrade. I was happy that it actually only took a couple of hours to figure out. The longest part was searching through all the various component files to figure out how the feed link was being created and then how to modify it with the text that I wanted.
I still have some tweaking and tuning to do with individual feeds. This component doesn't truncate feeds after a certain amount of characters or words so I'm running every feed on WE Speak through Google Feedburner to accomplish this (most feeds will be cut off after 200 characters, some after 150 due to Wordpress plugins).
The WE Speak feed is also through Google Feedburner now and offers the opportunity for email updates, if desired.
Subscribe to W.E. Speak by Email
One new feature has been added to the #wespeak Twitter feed - weather updates. I took the Environment Canada RSS feed for Windsor, ran it through Google Feedburner and then linked it to a Twitter account and appended the #wespeak hashtag on the end. Now whenever Windsor forecasts, warnings etc are posted to Environment Canada they will automatically be displayed on the WE Speak feed. Google Feedburner is a great free tool. They've recently added the Twitter account link for feeds and plan on adding more social media links in the future.
That will probably be it for updates and changes, at least for the very near future. I have a couple more things planned for the Municipal Election but won't be implementing them till around August. Now that everything has been confirmed working at WE Speak, I have to spend some time doing the same upgrades to London Speak.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Thursday, 24 June 2010 05:46 |
While Ottawa , Toronto and other Ontario cities benefit from regular City Auditor General reports Windsor has an office that posts a surplus due to the fact we can't seem to hire anyone to fill it.
Progress, Windsor style.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Thursday, 24 June 2010 04:50 |
I've finally completed a major updated to WE Speak that I've known for a while needed doing but have been putting off. All of the feeds have been setup in a new system. So far, everything seems to be working ok but I'm assuming it will need some tweaking over the next few days. The aggregator has now been set to check feeds every half hour. If you notice any problems with your posts or don't see your posts appearing, please let me know.
In addition to the upgrade I have added the Windsor Municpal Election 2010 section. This will include feeds from all candidates websites. The video section was remove as it received very little traffic as well as requiring manual updates in order to maintain fresh content. I will probably revisit this section again some time in the future once I can find a reliable program that will automatically pull the appropriate content.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Sunday, 20 June 2010 20:27 |
I have been using #windsorelection as a Twitter hashtag for the 2010 Municipal Election but I have been thinking lately that it might be too long. I've come up with a couple of other suggestions and decided to post a poll to see which one was the most popular, along with soliciting some other suggestions. You can suggest your own idea and it will automatically be added to the poll.
Whatever option wins the most votes will be used by Citizfaction as well as being integrated into W.E. Speak for the duration of the 2010 campaign.
Re-posted from Citizfaction
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 14 June 2010 01:16 |
The City of Windsor website now has two RSS feeds published for information:
I'm not sure when these feeds were implemented, but I just noticed them on Saturday evening when I was surfing the City website for some information. My post on Open Goverment on Friday decried a lack of feeds on the City website. My apologies to the city staff for not having noticed that feeds had indeed been implemented. This is a step forward, albeit a small one, in terms of providing information to the public in Windsor. It should be encouraged and applauded.
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 14 June 2010 05:24 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Friday, 11 June 2010 03:17 |
Government 2.0 or Open Government in Canada.
The Library of Parliament recently published two excellent reports on the status of open government initiatives in both Canada and the rest of the world.
Government 2.0 and Access to Information: 1. Recent Developments in Proactive Disclosure and Open Data in Canada.
Government 2.0 and Access to Information: 1. Recent Developments in Proactive Disclosure and Open Data in the United States and Other Countries.
From Wikipedia:
Open Government in Canada describes the capacity for the Canadian Government to provide online access to internal data in a standards-compliant Web 2.0 way.
Government 2.0 is a way to engage individuals and businesses in government decisionmaking and services. Integration of tools such as wikis, development of government-specific social networking sites and the use of blogs, RSS feeds and Google Maps are all helping governments provide information to people in a manner that is more immediately useful to the people concerned.[1] There are also aspects of improving Freedom of information in Canada but the main focus of Government 2.0 is citizen engagement.
A number of efforts have been made to expose data gathered by Canadian governments of all levels in ways that make it available for mashups.
Municipalities across Canada are realizing the benefits of releasing public data in machine readable formats. Nanimo, Vancouver, and Toronto are leading the way. The City of Ottawa recently adopted an open data policy combined with a $50,000 dollar app contest to help spur development. Washington DC lead the way in this regard with their 2008 "Apps for Democracy" contest which produced 47 apps in a contest for $50,000 in prize money. These applications returned an estimated value in excess of $2.6 million to the City. Their 2009 contest built on this sucess and the winning entry produced an IPhone and Facebook app. Utilizing the city's 311 API, the Facebook or IPhone apps allows citizens to submit 311 requests through either Facebook or their phone and view a history of all submitted requests.
Windsor has a long way to go if we are to be considered a leader in this initiative and to demonstrate that we really do believe in establishing this area as an innovative technology centre. Currently our City website doesn't even offer RSS feeds for delivery of things like News Updates or Council Agendas. All of our reports, minutes and agendas are documents that have been printed out and then re-scanned back into .pdf format, rendering them into unreadable picture formats instead of easily readable machine format. Interested people, such as myself, are forced to spend time scraping feeds together and finding other work-arounds to obtain data on a regular basis (eg. Current Council Agenda or the Communication Agenda - which is only available from Friday through till Monday).
While a recent announment by the Windsor Police Service to begin mapping data and releasing it represents a small step forward, releasing the raw data set to the public domain could potentially do a lot more. Windsor developers could be creating their own applications and as a result, producing high tech jobs of the sort communities proclaim they wish to persue. While the cost to taxpayers of purchasing this service is only $2400 per year, this is money that it going to an American company and stimulating jobs in their region, not in Windsor.
We need to begin harnessing the talent that is in our area and providing students graduating from St. Clair College and the University of Windsor a reason to stay in Windsor.
Cross posted to Citizfaction
|
|
Last Updated on Friday, 11 June 2010 04:00 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Friday, 28 May 2010 02:36 |
rant
1. In most places, this would be called "Jumping the shark", if it hadn't already happened 20 or 30 times already.
2. With Ronald (Ron) Jones entry into the race, the candidate count now stands at 26 with more still to come.
3. Phog Philanthro-Pasta night, June 3rd. $5 donation for a Pasta meal and a chance to support the local art community in a unique endeavour.
4. Ban Big Trucks from Wyandotte St. Sign the petition and let your Councillor know what you think.
5. Here's your chance to have your say about issues in your neighbourhood, your ward or your city. Looking for ideas for Wards 1, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
6. Smartest thing CUPE has done in Windsor over the last year - let Jim Woods be the spokesperson. Just saying...
7. What he said. Only 150 days left until the next Municipal election. After that, you're stuck with them all for the next 4 years.
8. Bravo Zulu to the Windsor Star for finally implementing mandatory registration for their comments section. It doesn't eliminate anonymous postings but it certainly has cut down on the garbage. Here's looking forward to better things.
9. "A penny for your thoughts" soon to be a nickel. While many will wax nostalgic, the time has come to get rid of it.
10. Ok, I've been patient. We've been through the studies and restructuring. Now more than ever this region is ready for change. Can we PLEASE get a local tourism site that doesn't look like it was designed in 1995? Microsoft Frontpage was basically shelved in 2003 and hasn't been supported since December 2006. It's 2010, let's get with the times instead of letting other regions eat our lunch. Windsor has an abundance of designers and developers capable of delivering a superior product at very little cost in a short period of time. What are we waiting for.. the next decade?
/rant off
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Tuesday, 18 May 2010 03:08 |
Download the petition or Sign online
To Windsor City Council:
Your report on truck traffic on Wyandotte St. concluded that if large trucks, including transports, were prevented from using this artery, they would travel down Ottawa St., Riverside Drive, Giles Blvd., and other narrow east west arteries. Construction at Wyandotte and Walker has prevented transports, etc from turning onto Wyandotte from Walker for months. Trucks are not using Giles, Ottawa, etc, as truck traffic is not allowed on these streets. They are using E.C. Row and other more appropriate east-west routes to get to the Detroit/Windsor tunnel, bridge, etc.
The undersigned urge Windsor City Council to do the right thing and ban these dangerous, noisy, polluting, and heavy rigs from this narrow business/residential and historically significant street ASAP. This ban would not include delivery trucks or emergency vehicles.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 17 May 2010 05:00 |
1. Llyod Brown-John weighs in in favour of the status quo in Windsor Municipal politics. His "advice" reads like a list of reasons why people shouldn't even bother running. While he has some valid points, there are some factors he fails to take into consideration.
a. name recognition is definitely a leading factor, but the ward re-distribution in Windsor changes things somewhat. While Councillors have some parts of their old wards in the new system they also have significant new areas. Traditional power bases have changed along with the size of the wards. They can not count on traditional voter blocks as they have in the past.
b. Challengers who work hard have an opportunity to overcome some of the name recognition advantage. The key is WORKING HARD. There should be no reason why a candidate can't canvass the entire ward at least once, if not twice before the November vote. Combine that with an agressive Voter ID and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) strategy and you can have some competitive races.
2. Citizfaction - Social Media and Politics - More Than Just The Message. Thursday July 22nd, 7:00 pm, Milk Coffee Bar
3. Monday's Council Meeting - Daycare outsourcing issue revisited - Council Communication from those in support of keeping Municipal Daycare, another Day Cruise line to take a crack at the Windsor Market. Order of Business for Monday's meeting.
4. Meeting Attendance by City Councillors - in case you haven't seen it as yet, you can find the lastest stats on the City website.
5. No City Council meeting on the 24th of May or the 31st. The next meeting isn't until June 7th. Is it not possible to hold a Council meeting on Tuesday night when Monday is a holiday?
6. WEPayItForward.ca - a great idea. Visit the website and sign up to be a volunteer. The success or failure of the pilot project will determine whether or not this initiative continues. Salvage effort proposed for buildings in DRIC's path
7.
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 17 May 2010 05:56 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Wednesday, 05 May 2010 22:30 |
Registration is now closed for the Windsor Essex Changecamp, but that doesn't mean that you can't attend. The registration was for the purpose of ordering a free lunch for participants.
You can and should still attend the Changecamp on Saturday at the Windsor Public Library.
What's truly disappointing is the absolute lack of current Councillors or Council Candidates who have registered to attend, along with many others in the general public. This is a unique opportunity to discuss whatever it is that you want about your community.
IT'S NOT TOO LATE
Date: Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Time: 9:00 am - 4:30 pm
Location: Fred Israel Auditorium, Central Branch, Windsor Public Library.
Update: one candidate, Rino Bortolin in Ward 3 has registered. Hopefully many more will attend.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Saturday, 01 May 2010 19:43 |
1. Phog Philanthropy Night - a fantastic idea in micro-financing for artists.
2. Local food ordering and deliver now online courtesy of Windsor Eats and Trusty Food to You.
3. City Council Agenda for Monday - Items to watch for - Museum Feasibility Study, Municipal Cultural Master Plan and Emmission of Amplified Sound Policy. Large delegation list so bring an extra coffee.
4. Chime in with your ideas for Windsor or your ward
5. Go Spits! Windsor Star Live Blog
6. Interesting commentary - Council Control (Wednesday)
7. An interesting ruling by the Canada Revenue Agency regarding free TTC passes given to Toronto City Councillors. The ruling will have implications for municipalities throughout the province. Not yet ruled on is free golf games, ski passes and tickets to the zoo. Strangely, free parking was ruled not to be a taxable benefit. When you're charging the general public and employees for a service and then providing it for free to others, whether elected or un-elected officials, it certainly should be a taxable benefit.
8.
9.
10.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 26 April 2010 01:45 |
1. Great job Spitfires - next stop Barrie.
2. Agenda Light - City Council meeting tonight should take about 20 minutes.
3. Tweets, Beats and Eats - tickets going fast!
4. Congratulations to the Friends for Atkinson Park and Pool. Great example of what you can do for your neighbourhood.
5. The candidate list for the Windsor Municipal Election 2010 continues to grow. Are you next?
6. Do you have an idea or issue for your ward for the upcoming election? Let the candidates know what you think.
7. "Keep It In The Core" - sign the petition to keep the Windsor Essex Development Commission and the Windsor Essex Tourism Board in the Downtown core of Windsor. Share the link with all your friends, family and co-workers.
8. Creating pedestrian and bike friendly places in the downtown. Too bad it's not in Windsor.
9. Sometimes it's the small things that count. Broken City Labs "Save the City" project.
10. Got a link or story - leave it in the comments.
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 26 April 2010 04:34 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Wednesday, 07 April 2010 03:31 |
From last night's labour sponsored meeting at the Caboto Club:
Labour council president Dino Chiodo echoed that sentiment. "Our message is that we're not a militant union town. That's not the case at all. Union and non-union alike, we are one. We're one complete group trying to join union, business and politicians."
But privatization of city services figured prominently in the discussion. Sponsored by the Council of Canadians, the labour council and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the event brought together CUPE economist Toby Sanger and former chief administrative officer Hilary Payne, who argued that contracting out public services won't save the city any money.
CUPE Local 82 president Jim Wood encouraged residents to write to their councillors and urge them to support public service jobs. As the fall civic election looms, Wood said it's not too late for incumbents to save their own jobs. "If they start turning things around now, things could change. They might get re-elected," he said. "But if they don't want to change, we'll have to make the change during election time, and they won't be around anymore."
The battle lines for the election are starting to be defined.
|
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 April 2010 03:37 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Tuesday, 23 March 2010 02:49 |
Yet another crucial vote for residents of the current Ward 2 (soon to be Ward 3) and Councillor Postma seems to be missing in action again. With her vote (assuming she would have voted against), the vote still would have been 6 to 4, but that one vote might be the difference in a future OMB hearing. No offense intended against the current owner Mr. Van Aspert but the issue isn't his well intended actions, but what will happen one, three or five years from now when he sells the property, or someone else takes over. This vote represents the creeping destruction of an important heritage neighbourhood no different than creeping ivy looks good when it first starts but eventually leads to descruction and decay of the underlying infrastructure.
You really have to wonder how the vote would have gone had the address been 277 Prado Pl, 477 Greenpark or 577 St. Mary's Blvd.
Now that the WFCU Centre has been built on Lauzon Rd, I'm sure there are opportunities for rooming houses galore in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Imagine rooms rented by the day, week or month to travelling teams of all ages. If Mr. Farhi begins developing the former Lear lands as a hotel and plaza as anticipated, I'm sure there are at least a couple of years worth of rooming house rents available to anyone willing to rent to the surge of transient construction workers who will come to Windsor in search of jobs.
Now that our Councillors have seen fit to establish a precedent, I'm sure it will be applied equally throughout the entire City, regardless of the neighbourhood affected.
The same Council that has spent millions fighting the Bridge Company, DRTP and even the Province seems to cower in fear of a potential OMB hearing that would cost pennies compared to their own legal extravagence.
216 Days until the next Municipal Election. Are you ready yet?
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 03:12 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 21:20 |
 Jason Clemens - The Canadian Century: Moving out of America's shadow Type: Education - Lecture
Date: Thursday, 18 March 2010
Time: 16:00 - 18:00
Location: Odette Building, Room 212
University of Windsor alum Jason Clemens is Director of Research at the Pacific Research Institute and co-author of the upcoming book The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America's Shadow.
Join us for this unique event and learn why the 21st century will belong to Canada and how our relationship with the United States will change. The talk will be followed by discussion and a wine and cheese with Mr. Clemens.
This event is organized by the Institute for Liberal Studies with the support of the Odette School of Business and the University of Windsor Political Science Department.
|
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 March 2010 21:27 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Tuesday, 16 March 2010 20:49 |
An idea that's been kicking around in the old noggin' for a while.
What do you think of:
1. The name
2. The logo
3. The cause
Edit - for those with a Facebook account, you can also join in here and here. Send the link to this blog post to your friends, or share the Facebook links with your Facebook friends. The idea is to generate as broad a discussion on the issue as possible. With this being a Municipal Election year, there may be no better time to have an open debate on the issue. If not, it might be another four years before it can be dealt with. Whether you're for or against the issue, an open airing of this topic now will save everyone a lot of grief, and I suspect the Windsor taxpayers a lot of money on uneccessary studies.
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 March 2010 22:52 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 22 February 2010 03:54 |
1. Phog rocked the country by winning CBC Radio 3's "Best Live Venue" contest last year and they did it with your help. Now FAMFEST needs your help to win this year's version of the contest for the country's "Best Musical Festival". Visit the site, register and vote every day.
2. Welcome to the newest blogs on WE Speak:
Work and Play
Downtown WO
Windsor Blogger
3. Welcome to the newest candidate for Council in this year's Municipal election and congrats for managing to generate some press. Not an easy thing to do as an unknown candidate. The race is on in Ward 7!
4. Hottest rumour to date regarding the next Municipal Election - will Sheila Wisdom jump in and make the Mayor's race interesting? Unlike a sitting Councillor who might be wary of declaring now and beginning a campaign, were Sheila to do so now she would have an open field to campaign, forcing the Mayor and other potential candidates to either declare or cede the early campaigning to her.
5. Interesting article in the Globe and Mail on Windsor real estate.
6. This is one I didn't hear about last week - Google Street View Removes Windsor Murder Scene
7. It's certainly not Heart Smart but it is lip-smacking good - Phog's new All Poutine menu! Served Tuesday thru Saturday, 5pm to 10pm. Options available for both vegetarians and meat lovers.
8. If you're not afraid to expand your horizons a little bit, make sure you stop in Scaledown to catch Mark Bradley's News for the week.
9. Demonstrating what can be done with some simple Web 2.0 tools, my fellow Torch blogger (and blog founder) Damian has an interview from Kandahar with the Commanding Officer of the Canadian Helicopter Force (Afghanistan), LCol Smyth. (inteview conducted by Skype and posted on YouTube)
10. What's your story for Windsor/Essex today? Leave a note or link in the comments.
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 22 February 2010 05:13 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Saturday, 20 February 2010 03:44 |
Hold the phone, a monumental event has occured in Windsor. I'm currently awaiting a call back from Environment Canada to see if the reports are true that Hell has frozen over.
It's only taken twelve years, but Windsor Star columinst Gord Henderson has actually almost, kind of, admitted that he might possibly, once, have been wrong.
Health care is a provincial responsibility
We've been down this road before. In the spring of 1998 I was among those who were urging councillors to ignore the public hysteria and approve a $14-million levy (a surcharge of about $25 annually on an average property tax bill) for the much-needed expansion and renovation of area hospitals.
I conceded at the time that I "wasn't thrilled by the concept of compulsory giving" and hoped it wouldn't become "a handy tool to raise funds for every worthy cause under the sun."
I clearly remember this being pitched as a one-timer, an unprecedented and not-to-be-repeated emergency funding tactic to help bring Windsor's hospitals out of the Dark Ages at a time when the Mike Harris government was perceived as giving this Conservative wasteland the back of the hand.
Wrong, shouted older and less naive critics. The levy, they warned, set a dangerous precedent and it would be only a matter of time before some well-meaning group with a mom and apple pie cause would be back at this tantalizing trough.
How right they were.
I'm heading out early tomorrow with my binoculars to watch the unheard of spectacle of pigs flying throughout the Windsor region.
PS. A suggestion for Council when they consider this and any other requests. Insert an option box on this years final tax bill offering taxpayers an option to contribute $25 dollars per year towards a fund that will go to community initiatives such as the requests from Hotel Dieu, Windsor Regional and the McGivney Centre. Many will argue that it's a worthy cause and it is. If the County wishes to contribute taxpayer funds, that is their right and they will have to face their electors this year to explain their decision.
In Windsor, let's give taxpayers a choice. Those that wish to support this would simply have to check a box on their tax bill, those who don't won't be forced to contribute, or at least will have the option of contributing directly to the charitable foundation and reaping the benefits of a tax deduction.
Municipal governments should be focused on running and funding the services and infrastructure they are mandated to support. The remainder should be quickly and loudly rejected back to the appropriate level of government to fund.
|
|
Last Updated on Saturday, 20 February 2010 04:01 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Friday, 19 February 2010 23:30 |
It's certainly been a long week. For those that noticed WE Speak and the Shadow down this week (amongst others) it was because of a rather catastrophic failure of the server. For the geeks, the server was using RAID 5 and when one drive went, everything was switched to a second drive which promptly failed taking the whole server and all of it's data with it. A new server using RAID 10 was put in place and a long and painful backup process began. The deep backup software being used has some drawbacks, one of which was a very long restore process. The whole process took approximately 30 hours. Fingers crossed that this is the last of my server problems for a while. I've got more than enough on my plate without having to deal with this kind of stuff.
Over the weekend I hope to catch up with posts here and begin moving forward with some stuff on Citizfaction. A Candidates Info night has been booked at Phog for March 31st, starting at 7pm. Once I have all the presenters finalized I will be publishing all the details. I had a quick chat with Chris Holt this evening and Citizfaction and Scaledown will be working together to present Town Hall/Candidates nights for all of the various wards in the city. Ultimately I would also like to do one for the Mayor's race, but that is a somewhat bigger project and I would like to stay focused on the Wards to begin with. Anyone interested in helping out with Citizfaction during the campaign,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
and we'll chat.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 00:24 |
 Congratulations to Rino Bortolin, owner of the Black Kettle Bistro on his decision to run for City Councillor in Ward 3. I'll personally be supporting Rino and doing everything possible to help in his election campaign.
Slowy, but surely, candidates are beginning to step up and register their intent to run. As yet, we haven't seen any of the current Councillors register. Often, this is a strategy used by incumbents to discourage other candidates from running. A strategy such as this worked much better under the old five Ward, two Councillors per ward system. With the new smaller wards incumbents now risk giving newcomers a chance to define both themselves and their opponents on the doorsteps. An energetic candidate should be able to canvass the entire ward at least once, possibly twice if they start now. That kind of work can go a long way to erasing any name recognition advantage that an incumbent has.
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 09 February 2010 00:43 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 08 February 2010 23:46 |
From the article discussing possible uses of the old Maidstone Landfill:
Nearby Hydeaway Golf Course owner Nick Panasiuk likes the idea — except for the golf part. With the slumping regional economy, there’s already too much competition between area golf courses, Panasiuk said.
“There’s too many courses right now,” Panasiuk said.
Just to hang onto to his own business in 2009, Panasiuk said he adopted what he calls a “flexible pricing strategy.”
With all the competition here and in Michigan, Panasiuk thinks city and county residents probably enjoy the cheapest golf in Ontario.
|
|
Last Updated on Monday, 08 February 2010 23:50 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Wednesday, 03 February 2010 10:20 |
Much has already been said about this issue and I'm not going to repeat it here. One thing I would like to draw attention to though, is the motion for deferral that was defeated.
Councillor Lewenza moved a motion to consult with daycare workers, parents, the County, the Provincial government and the Official Opposition. This omnibus consultation motion had no time line attached to it. I believe that it was Councillor Dilkens who stated he was willing to support a motion to defer, but not one as broad and vague as this one.
Had Councillor Lewenza moved a motion of deferral with a two or four week timeframe attached, the motion might have passed. By trying to delay an important issue for months with his vague motion, Councillor Lewenza ensured it's defeat. Once the deferral motion was defeated, Council had no choice but to move forward.
Sometimes it's easy to point fingers but difficult to ensure they're pointing in the right direction.
|
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 February 2010 13:03 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Saturday, 30 January 2010 07:09 |
|
The phrase pops to mind whenever the Windsor Utiliities Commission and it's Chairman are mentioned. I couldn't have picked a better time to get back into the blogging swing of things. I'm going to be putting together some comprehensive blogs on this issue. In the meantime, a few things to consider:
"WUC chairman Coun. Ken Lewenza Jr. said that even when the 86 per cent increase was approved it was indicated at that time the utility was still $6 short on the average homeowner's bill for what was needed to support infrastructure efforts.
He said the utility needs $25 million per year to do the necessary capital improvements over the next 30 years according to its consultant Earth Tech Watson."
After reading that quote the question I have is where has the Windsor Utilities Commission been for the last 3 years? If they knew then that they still had a significant shortfall, why were they not consulting with the community?
Another WUC Commissioner, City Councillor Ron Jones:
WUC commissioner Coun. Ron Jones acknowledged that anger still lingers from the hefty rate hike a couple of years ago.
"The infrastructure has to be replaced, but the question is does it have to be right now?" he said.
"Public consultation is vital. The old premise of 'pay me now or pay me later' is going to come into play, so this is a decision that has to be vetted by the ratepayer."
I agree with Councillor Jones, but once again, where was this decsion and vetting since the last rate increase? Why has the WUC been sitting on their hands? Could it be because it was politically unpalatable for another increase in 2008 and 2009 after the whopping 86% increase in 2007?
Notice the highlighted name above - Earth Tech Watson. Here's their report from 2007. Make sure you read Chapter 8, Analysis of Water Rates and Policy Matters. Pay particular attention to the charts on page 8-2, labelled as Option 1 - Low Debt and Option 2 - High Debt.
People should also be asking their Councillors questions about the ongoing development charges study and what effect they have on utilities, present and future.
|
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Thursday, 28 January 2010 03:01 |
In case you missed it, Ann Jarvis has a great article on the subject (of which I get a line or two!).
I just wanted to take this opportunity to once again state my prediction that we'll never see an independent audit from a Windsor Auditor General before the next election. (How very convenient!)
You will hear plenty of mealy mouth excuses from our Mayor and Councillors as to why we don't have an Auditor General as yet, but the fact remains, they've had four years and still haven't managed to fill this position.
From a city that's endured MFP, the Canderal debacle let alone the 400 Building circus, you would think this would have been a priority with our elected representatives. Instead we pissed money away on the political football position of Integrity Commissioner and delayed hiring the one position that could deliver value for money for Windsor taxpayers.
270 days until the next Municipal Election day. Has your councillor really been representing you?
PS. If the City of Windsor ran as lean and mean as the Library does, taxpayers would be cheering in the streets. Is it coincidence that this is the only board/commission/committee not Chaired or controlled by the Mayor? Shame on Councillors Valentinis and Marra for being such blatant shills. Windsor politics at it's best.
|
|
Last Updated on Thursday, 28 January 2010 03:23 |
|
Written by Windsor Shadow
|
|
Monday, 25 January 2010 21:04 |
It's been a while since I've been blogging regularly. Blame it on work and personal life. Time to get back into the swing of things! Let's have at 'er.
1. New Blogs added to WE Speak
Windsoriste.ca
Bikini Birthday
Windsor Blogger's Blog
Stroller Coaster
Schmidt City
Our West End
Tsunami Glassworks
2. Stay Tuned to Citizfaction.ca - changes, events and more coming soon!
3. If ever - do you think we'll see an independent Auditor General before the next municpal election? Odds are 45 to one and clibming!
4. Only 271 days until the Windsor Municipal Election - are you involved yet?
5. Mentioned above is Doug Schmidt's new blog - Schmidt City. Doug now has the Municipal beat for the Windsor Star. Given the very short life of our two previous Municpal blogs by Roseann Danese and Dave Battagello, the oddmakers are already taking bets on the demise of Doug's effort. Here's hoping we're all wrong.
6. Black Kettle Bistro Cooking Classes - if you haven't already attended one, you should really consider it. Chef Rino provides a fantastic experience in a comfortable setting. I attended the initial Soups and Pasta class and will be attending Pasta night next. A great way to spend a few hours on Sunday night.
7. Funny Pic of the Day - fall down on your ass kinda funny - Hello? Who's this?
8. Worthy of more debate and comment. Where I come from it's three strike and you're out.
9. Also mentioned above, but deserving of further recognition - Welcome to Windsorite.ca. Best wishes to Owen and company on their new venture.
10. Buried in Next Weeks Council Agenda - Integrity Commissioners Annual Report. At $42,997.00 for 14 pages it works out to $3071.21 per page. 15 complaints submitted deemed either frivoulous or outside the scope of the integrity commissioner, 2 completed investigations, and six outstanding. The "Leak" investigation has been released to the public and the "Ron Jones Phone Usage" investigation is currently in Council's hands awaiting release. Value for money or waste of time?
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 January 2010 07:30 |
|
Election Countdown
left until the 2010 Windsor Municipal Election
|
