Meeting our MPPs and Cleaning Streets finds Money

Meeting with MPPs

In yesterday’s blog I wondered what our councillors could possibly discuss with our MPPsat a meeting with Sandra Pupatello and Dwight Duncan.  Posted on the city’s website, under Council Communications was a history of attempts to meet with our area MPPs - and in it – an agenda of sorts which include the following items:

In addition, the Clerk is maintaining a running list of items that Council wishes to discuss with the Ministers once a meeting is scheduled and an agenda of sorts for a meeting has been formulated: 

• DRIC process
• Amount of funds and how they’ve been disbursed with respect to “Let’s Get Windsor Moving/Border Infrastructure Funds”
• Tree Preservation in terms of a border solution/route

Other community issues such as:

• Multi-residential rates;
• Infrastructure deficit in Windsor
• COMRIF Funding
• Other

And it would appear, the city may attempt to hold this meeting “in-camera,”  according to administration’s report:

The proposed meeting dates are discussed at the City’s Agenda-Setting Review, and  a meeting notice is issued to Council, scheduling the in-camera meeting for Tuesday, January 22, 2008from 12:15 to 2:00 p.m. in the Walkerville Room.

The meeting on January 22, 2008 was to discuss the city’s Greenlink proposal – hardly grounds for an in-camera meeting, nor do the above items require a meeting be in-camera.

Will our MPPs uphold the spirit and intent of Section 239 of the Municipal Act, as Ministers of the Crown, if this meeting is to be in-camera?

The border is an issue that affects everyone in the community in one way, shape or form.    Heck, the Village of Westport council recently held a public meeting with their MPP and provincial ministers regarding an issue affecting their community.

In discussing the border issue, our MPPs must not be seen as influencing councillors in any manner whatsoever – whether directly or indirectly.  Any information our MPPs may provide our dear councillors, whether willingly or unwittingly, could be used against the province by our law-suit threatening Mayor.

The Municipal Act is pretty clear and I’m almost certain it does not state that meetings with MPPs are an exception to the rule.

City Cleans Streets and Finds Money

Despite Windsor being ranked 27th out of 27 cities in literacy, during 2008 budget discussions, council continued to hack away at the Public Library budget placing further strains on providing this necessary service to the community, which has compelled Mayor Francis to state that “we have a broken system.”

We also heard, for the umpteenth time Mayor Francis state, “”This budget was very difficult.  As you trim more and more every year, it becomes difficult to find the level of savings to keep the tax rate low” (December 14, 2007).

We also had the issue of the $5.4 million operating surplus that wasn’t really a surplus that in the end, council prudently decided to transfer to the shrinking reserves, with a few councillors itching to spend it, which was confirmed by the City’s Treasurer at tonight’s council meeting.

And of course we can’t forget the increased Enwin Utilities dividend paid to the city – “$4 million in dividends to its sole shareholder, the City of Windsor — $1 million more than last year — even as it increases rates to its customers” (Windsor Star, February 14th, 2008).

More importantly, City treasurer Onorio Colucci said the dividend funds are not earmarked in the 2008 budget for any specific purpose and will be lumped into overall operating revenues.

But lowe and behold – MORE money has been found.  Amazing isn’t it? 

The city threatens to cut crossing guards, slashes the library budget, but for the Mayor’ projects, no matter how noble in intent, money can be found in an instant – some $1.9 million to fund a Green City-Clean Street Initiative.

To be clear,  I’m not attacking the reversal of funding cuts of the past, I’m criticizing the process.

According to Administration:

The $1,850,000 in expenditures detailed above represents a significant investment of one time funding for the Green City-Clean Street initiative consistent with our strategic sessions and CSP.  City Council as part of our Capital Budget had included $900,000.00 in 2007-2008 for image campaign funding.  As a result of the development commission’s success in securing partnerships for W.E. and the Windsor Star’s Believe campaign, these funds could be appropriately used to implement the Green City-Clean Streets imitative [sic].  Also I had asked Finance to review some of the our accounts, specifically the capital projects accounts and look at surplus dollars that may be available as a result of projects closed and or with dollars no longer required.  Finance has a report coming to Council in the near future but they have confirmed that there are two additional possible sources for funding the above initiatives bringing the total available to $1,900,000:

• Completed capital projects with a surplus:  $500,000
• Funds from review of open capital projects (2003 contingency):  $500,000

Wow – in just over two short months Mayor Francis has been able to find nearly $1.9 million.

Why wasn’t this money “found” during budget deliberations when the Mayor was threatening to cut crossing guards (Windsor Star, December 6, 2008)? 

More importantly, I believe included in the budget is a 1% Community Strategic Plan Levy to pay for CSP initiatives.

Golly gee darn – the city considers sending our young ones off to school across busy intersections to save a few bucks and all the while we had a $1.9 million  tucked away the Mayor only needed to ask about?  

Now, this is not to say this isn’t a good idea – although with our crumbling infrastructure, lack of sidewalks in some areas, notably under the EC ROW as one delegate pointed out, deplorable bike paths and incomplete projects to date (such as downtown streetscaping – when exactly are they going to finish paving Ouellette Avenue?) I don’t believe it to be a priority at this point in time. 

And it was most amusing to listen to Councillor Jones support this initiative when just last year he denied a similar privately funded initiative for Sandwich Towne:

I think it is a wonderful initiative.  You know, we can’t be talking out of both sides of our mouth.  We have been very very supportive of Greenlink, Your Worship.  And we say to other levels of government, this is what’s best for our community.  When we talk about the health of our young people, we talk about safety;  we talk about security for our young people.  And we say to other levels of government, we’re not going to ask you to do this on the “cheap” – we want you to spend the money that we’re worthy of.   And I think that the citizens of Windsor are worthy of this particular project.  And I hope that it will grow.  I hope we’ll see other parts of the city realize the benefits of this particular program. 

Please – give me a break. 

This “program,”  as per administration’s report, reverses cuts made to the budget that Councillor Jones supported in the past.  And I guess Councillor Jones can talk out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to a private company wanting to green up another gateway to our city in Sandwich Towne.