Windsor's own Star Chamber at work

Fired crime committee chair doesn't know why he was ousted
Sarah Sacheli, Windsor Star
Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

A volunteer removed from the city committee that runs such programs as Neighbourhood Watch and Block Parents said Wednesday he still doesn't know what he did wrong to warrant his dismissal.

Until last week, John Middleton was the chairman of the Windsor Citizens' Crime Prevention Committee, a volunteer committee on which he has served for nearly five years. He said he was summoned to a meeting with city chief administrator John Skorobohacz on April 23 where he was handed a letter saying council had voted to have him removed from the committee.

"It has been brought to the corporation's attention that your recent behaviour directed toward City of Windsor employees contravenes the spirit of the Respectful Workplace Program," the letter said.

While I'm not downplaying the concerns of City employees, basic principles of justice would allow Mr. Middleton to know what his alleged transgression(s) was and be allowed an opportunity to respond - BEFORE he was dismissed.

"Council had some pretty compelling information," said Marra. He said that during his meeting with Skorobohacz, Middleton was not told the names of his accusers, but that there was "a general disclosure of the contraventions."

And, Marra added, "the contraventions were very serious."

All the more reason for Council to have both sides of the story before taking such a drastic step.

Council can spout all the claptrap they want, but look at this if the situations were reversed. What if Mr. Middleton was filing a complaint against City employees? I'm sure there would be a process of investigation involving all parties, mediation, corrective measures etc. Summary dismissal would most likely not even be on the table. Because Mr. Middleton is a volunteer, does he deserve anything less?

The way things look, if I was the Chair of the Windsor Heritage Committee, I would be very concerned. Those pesky heritage people have been getting very vocal lately. That's a big no-no in Windsor.

Procrastinators rejoice!

If you file your tax return online, you now have until May 6th.

You choose

Either our City Administration is incompetent or suffering from political interference on the Arena deal contract.

"Windsor's FOI co-ordinator Chuck Scarpelli said Tuesday that it was "the city's prerogative" to wait until then and that staff is preparing a report to council and a "media package" to coincide with the document's release."

They've had 30 days to prepare to release a contract that they've had since 2006. In those 30 days a briefing for Councillors and media package couldn't be assembled?

"We're not trying to hide anything," said Duben, adding that a Friday release is "so council has at least time to review it."

I'm sure all the Councillors are anxious to view the documents, especially the 7 current Councillors who approved the deal without seeing the actual contract. I wonder if a few of them are sweating things out a little, hoping that there's nothing hidden in those pesky little details they didn't need to see over a year ago.

The funniest line?

Ward 3 Coun. Fulvio Valentinis said council has "a good grasp of what went into it" and that the sooner details are released the better.

"I don't know why it's being held back," he said.

Here's a hint for our esteemed Councillor. Call a special meeting of Council for this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Pass a motion to immediately release the contract. It's what you should have done 29 days ago.

This City Council would put a Maytag washer to shame.

Speaking of wasting time...

Councillor Lewenza was very concerned about "wasting administration's time" as it related to Councillor Dilken's notice of motion last night.

It's a shame he didn't have the same concern about his own request for a report on the benefits of municipal tap water versus bottled water. An eight page report that, as regular Shadow reader Vincent pointed out, required sign off from no less than five different employees of the City.

What Councillor Lewenza is really worried about is the citizens of Windsor finding out how high their fixed costs are for both water and sewer as compared to the rest of the Province. The City sets the sewer rate, the WUC sets water fixed charges and rates.

Councillor Dilkens is to be commended for his leadership on moving forward with an issue that will impact every household in the City. Windsor's reliance on extremely high fixed cost pricing with relation to it's water utility bills is a dis-incentive to both conservation and cost reductions for individuals. I recently spoke with an owner/landlord who now has the water turned off and metre removed from his empty units because it is cheaper. The monthly water costs of empty apartments was eating up what little profit he is able to make on his other units, especially in a City with a vacancy rate of 15%.

Having read both Chapters 7 and 8 of the Watson report extensively, I'm looking forward to seeing both the report from administration and what the WUC will bring forward next year with regard to rate structures.

It's a girl!

Congratulations to my sister-in-law Leanne Synnott on the safe and healthy arrival at Guelph General Hospital last night of my newest niece, Breanna - 8lbs, 11 ounces.

I suppose I should congratulate my brother Derek as well. He had a part somehow in this whole process, or so I'm told.

Let's get on with it

Let it stream!

Councillor Drew Dilkens asked the following at last week's City Council meeting:

CQ41-2008
Asks for a report regarding the feasibility and cost of webcasting our meetings on the City web site.

AF2008 (April 21, 2008)

An excellent idea. The costs can really be as little or as much as we want. As with many other tech related issus today, there is no need to re-invent the wheel. Work on leveraging resources provided either for free or low-cost.

The best case scenario would be for Cogeco to stream the meetings, as they are already broadcasting them live. Many cities that currently stream have their local community cable station handling the job, but unfortunately it seems to be Rogers and not Cogeco. I couldn't find any instances where Cogeco was streaming Council meetings.

If Cogeco does not want to handle this, it could still be easily accomplished with their permission. A PC with a TV capture card could easily pick up Cogeco's broadcast and stream it to the net. All that would be required is the PC, a hi-speed connection and capture card. Very minimal cost if this is handled by volunteers.

A fixed digital camera in the Council Chambers with an input from the Council speaker system is another alternative. Again, connect it to a PC (Firewire) and stream. This method also allows for a digital copy in case there are any issues with the feed.

UStreamTV offers a complete FREE solution to streaming, distribution and storage. They offer format conversion (.wmv, .mov, or .mp4), archiving and downloads. Did I say it was FREE? Their player can be embedded almost anywhere - City website, Facebook pages, MYSpace etc.

Canadian Cities Streaming Council Meetings

1. Oakville

2. Niagara Falls

3. Sudbury

4. Guelph

5. Toronto

6. Ottawa

7. Vancouver

8. Chilliwack

9. Nanimo

10. North Vancouver

I'm sure there are many more, but I only searched Google for about 1/2 hour.

Quick Hits - Monday April 28th

1. This editorial about Essex Council raises is bang-on. Pity the Windsor Star can't raise the same indignation about Windsor City Council back-dooring their $15,000 dollar salary increase through the Windsor Utilities Commission. At least Essex Council conducts their business in public. I believe it was former Councillor Zuk who stated that this raise was a "one-time" thing and would disappear in the future. That was three years ago. I believe the salary paid Windsor Councillors is too low, but in typical Windsor fashion, we're denied the opportunity for any sort of debate or discussion.

2. Windsor 'the most polluted city in North America': RFK Jr. - I guess nobody told RFK about our new marketing initiatives.

3. I'll take whatever I can get.

4. Anti-vomit bylaw questioned - personally, I think we should close off Ouellette every night from 8pm to 5am (May to September) from Wyandotte to University, with the exception of the cross street intersections.

5. I would guess that Guelph is already 3 to 5 years ahead of Windsor.

Downtown debate at Council this evening. Tune it at 6:00 pm.

WE Speak Updates

I had a little bit of time for some tinkering with WE Speak this morning. I've added a new "Stream Local Videos" section in the left sidebar. You can stream the latest CBC News @ Six Windsor broadcast or the latest CBC News Now clip. Hopefully sometime in the near future I'll be able to add a livestream for Windsor City Council meetings. More on that Monday.

In the "Stream Local Radio" I finally managed to get CJAM working.

I've also finally managed to resolve an encoding issue with the template. It is now UTF-8, which basically means you won't see all those funny characters displayed when you use apostrophes or quote marks in your post or title.

The "Featured Video" seems to be working well along with the Video Section. If you have a video account like Google or YouTube that you'd like added to the site, drop me a line. If your videos are already listed on the site, contact me and I'll set you up with a site login so you can add videos on your own. Once you're logged in, the process of adding videos is quite simple. All that is required is to paste in the link to the video you wish to add, check the details and hit save.

I'd like to thank everyone who visits WE Speak every day and those who offer suggestions and ideas. I use WE Speak to test out ideas and once they're working I roll them out on the other Speak sites, London Speak and Guelph Speak. If the stars are aligned right this summer I'll also be rolling out Speak sites in Mississauga, Kingston and Ottawa.

As a friend of mine said online the other day, "I'm not a coder or programmer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night".

A little bit of everything, weekend edition

1. Gee, I wonder why the Windsor Star likes City Hall so much. It couldn't have anything to do with their ad revenues lately, could it?

2. "When it's not too much trouble, Windsorites conserve" - Which explains why we keep electing Federal NDP representatives with large majorities. Deep down we want to conserve more, we just want the government to tell us how and when to do it.

3. Of course, all this is based on the assumption of a down-river bridge, which at this point, still looks pretty remote. The only thing happening on the US side is improved connections to the bridge.

4. “Check Out This Sprawl” - fire up your cameras

5. Nominated for the "Most Self-Serving, Waste of Administration Time, Council Question". Kind of reminds me of Rome and fiddles.

6. Order of Business - Notice of Motion - Councillor Dilkens - is this possibly the first steps towards more of a user pay system for water/sewage services? We can only hope.

Found on Kijiji Windsor

The Downtown Market Exchange

Experience the market with a variety of vendors (Food, Clothing, Arts & Craft & Fruits & Vegetables) at the new Downtown Market Exchange.

Opening April 21 at 10am

Regular Hours
Tuesday to Friday 10am - 6pm
Saturdays 9:00am - 4pm

Located at:
406 Pelissier (the South East corner of Park & Pelissier)

Featuring:

* Organic products
* Ethnic Products
* Plus Size Fashion
* Pasta
* Breads
* Frozen Meals

GRAND OPENING MAY 3 @10AM
Interested in becoming a vendor:
Affordable space from $75 / week.
Call 519-567-9000
or 519-945-9239

Windsor Star Photo Blog

The Windsor Star's newest blog - The Photo Blog

Star staff photographers will post their favourite photos of the week and comment on the shots. We encourage readers to send in their comments too. Tell us what you think about the blog or the photos that are featured. We also want to hear about photographs that appear in the newspaper.

Welcome to the twilight zone

Instead of actually releasing the 400 City Hall Square audit, we get a new media protocol.

What of our elected representatives? Their silence on issues such as this is telling.

With regard to the audits being stalled by the City, we might as well forget about them. By the time they are released they'll be so washed and spun dry as to be devoid of any value.

The real battle facing citizens will be over the creation and appointment of the City's Auditor General. First we must demand that this position be created before the next election. Second, we must be vigilant in ensuring that when this position is created it is truly an independent auditor, free of political control and influence.

This situation fits in nicely with the City's new "We Can" campaign. Council seems to be of the belief that "we can do anything we want and get away with it".

Positive thinking, Windsor style.

Something to wish for

A local paper that breaks municipal stories.

We could only be so lucky.

County Council and Tecumseh join the "naysayers" club

In Windsor, this would be called "naysaying" in the County, it's called effective representation. When the County began asking questions back in November the City hurled all sorts of accusations at them, simply for doing what they are elected to do - protecting the public purse. Maybe some of our own Councillors could learn a lesson or two.

It's certainly interesting, though not surprising to find out Windsor's is the only paid development commission in the Province. Windsor's representation on the WEDC is the un-elected CAO John Skorobohacz.

The WEDC is shaping up to be the poster child for what is wrong with city owned "arms-length" corporations. In the last 5 years we've had four different CEO's and and almost complete turnover of staff, leaving no institutional memory left at the commision. While our Mayor and Council drag out the howitzers to fire at a cash-strapped Library Board (which is the last board in Windsor that is not an arms length corporation), the very organization that is tasked with helping transform Windsor's economy is leaderless for the fourth time in five years.

Taxpayers should be very concerned considering we have recently setup the Tunnel Commission and Airport as arms length organizations with the new Tourism Windsor and Essex to follow.

Remember, it was this current City Council who voted against Councillor Drew Dilken's motion to automatically receive minutes from all boards and commissions.

Accountability and transparency may be the buzzwords of the day to many politicians but the reality in Windsor shows they really are swear words.

Motion Calling for More Transparency from Development Commission Supported at Council Meeting

Some members at the town of Tecumseh council meeting last night feel something needs to be done about the commissions failure to provide information requested at a county council meeting back in November.

County politicians have been calling for information from the Windsor and Essex Development Commission regarding governance structure and bylaws since November 2007. Deputy mayor Tom Burton made a motion that the organization provide public copies of the board's minutes, financial statements, and reports. Burton states, "My understanding is this is the only development commission I'm aware of that's paid. We certainly don't want in-camera information but we certainly do want what the public has a right to know...how their tax dollars are being spent."

Tecumseh town council supported the motion and plans to circulate it through other municipalities for additional support. Burton says, "If we don't get the support we think we should get then we'll have to look at the freedom of information, I guess."

However, two weeks ago the commission stated that while the general public can't see its budget, Burton or any member of county or city counil, can see a copy but must first sign a confidentiality agreement.

2008 Recommended Budget Increases and Reductions

From the City's 2008 Budget documents, here are the recommended increases/decreases by department. Of the 22 departments listed, 12 were to receive increases, one stayed the same and 9 were to be decreased.

At this point I'm working off the recommended documents as the final approved budget documents are not available. When the approved budget is posted I'd really like to find out what the actual line by line reductions are versus increased revenue, revenue projections, increased funding from the Province and the pension obligation reduction.

One thing I've yet to find is the rational behind the Library funding decreases.

There are a few things to note about the decreases:

Transit Windsor - this decrease reflects increased revenue due to the fare increase and a $400,000 reduction in payments required for employee pension plan.

Social Support - this decrease is a result of uploading by the Province

Hospitality and Corporate Facility Planning - this decrease is mainly based on projected savings from electricity purchases

Huron Lodge - the majority of this decrease is due to increased funding from the Province

Licensing & Enforcement - the majority of this decrease was due to the possible elimination of the Crossing Guard Program, which I believe was not implemented.

Engineering and Corporate - the majority of this decrease is related to decreased streetlight maintenance and projected energy savings.

Recreation - this decrease is due to a combination of $250,000 in increased revenue (increased user fees) and an in-camera reduction of $750,000. I'm not sure what was actually implemented here.

Operations - the largest portion of this decrease was accomplished by the reduction of snow removal services

Corporate Administration
CAO's Office - 8.9% Increase

Corporate Services
Finance - 0.1% Increase
Human Resources - 0.9% Increase
Council Services - 4.8% Increase
Legal - 25.3% Increase
Information Technology - 1.4% Increase

Community & Protective Services
Parks & Facility Operations - 1.8% Increase
Recreation - 0.6% Decrease
Licensing & Enforcement - 23% Decrease
Hospitality & Corporate Facility Planning - 39.7% Decrease
Fire & Rescue Services - 4.5% Increase
Building & Development - 2.5% Increase
Planning - 0.0

Public Works
Engineering & Corporate Projects - 2.5% Decrease
Operations - 0.6% Decrease
Environmental Services - 0.2% Increase

Social & Health Services
Social Support -9.8% Decrease
Housing & Children Services -4.0% Increase
Huron Lodge- 4.7% Decrease

Agencies and Boards
Transit Windsor - 2% Decrease
Windsor Public Library -7.1% Decrease

Corporate Accounts
Corporate Accounts - 5.3% Increase

Joint Council/Library meeting

From the sound of today's Windsor Star article, it doesn't sound like there were too many surprises other than the Mayor and Councillor Brister, amongst others, having an increasingly difficult time making this a political issue about Councillor Halberstadt.

Congratulations to the Library Board members for standing up for what they believe in, despite the politics and games. From what I hear, the City would be very happy if the Library Board members all resigned in frustration, thereby necessitating a takeover. (It should be noted that the current Library board was appointed by a majority vote of this council's Striking Committee)

Anyone else notice how it seems to be alright for Mayor Francis to refer ominously to in-camera items like severance and personnel matters, implying that there are dark and sinister activities going on behind closed doors at the Library? I seem to remember the last time a Council member mentioned something from an in-camera meeting we were treated to one of Councillor Lewenza's trademark tirades along with editorials from the Star and musings from "The Cheerleader". Can we expect the same for the Mayor?

Don''t hold your breath.

Library Board member Ray Guillet wins the "Telling it like it is" Award for stating what is obvious to most people, except Council:

"At a joint meeting all the participants are equal," Guillet told councillors at the end of the session. "I did not feel like a joint participant. I feel I have been reprimanded, lectured and talked at."

Don't feel bad Mr. Guillet, the Federal Government, Provincial Government, County Council and numerous other organizations would probably agree with you.

I've got a suggestion. Why don't we compare the performance of the Library Board and the Windsor Essex Development Commission over the last 5 years. Lot's of interesting rumours floating around out there about the WEDC. Hopefully Windsor's future Auditor General will make this dysfunctional organization a priority target.

One final note. I still haven't heard from the Mayor or Council why the Library budget was initially targeted for a 7.1 % reduction. I'll have more on this later. I'm preparing a post demonstrating the various increases and decreases across City departments along with a breakdown (from the City) of the suggested ways the Library could operate with a $700,000 dollar reduction.

Update: AM800 Commentary - Closing a Library - by Teresinha Medeiros (The commentary is also located in the right hand sidebar for your listening pleasure!)

April Bloggers Meet

It's that time again.

April Windsor Bloggers Meet
Wednesday April 23rd
Taloola Cafe
396 Devonshire Rd,
Walkerville

7:00 pm

Details at the wiki.

Bloggers, commenters, readers - all are welcome.

Location, Location, Location

I've always known my neighbourhood to be a high crime area but I was still rather shocked to see it represented on Google Maps.

I was out running some errands yesterday afternoon and when I came home I found a flyer in my mailbox from a U of W Professor.

Dear Neighbourhood Resident;

My name is Alan Phipps and I'm a professor in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Windsor. I'd like to invite you to participate in a research project entitled "Surveys for The Glengarry and Wellington-Crawford Geographical Monitoring Project". In this project, I've computer-programmed Google maps to create internet-based webpages of the locations and timings of crime and disorder offences, house sales, and fires during the years 2007, and 2006, around where you live. You can spend as little or as much time browsing my webpages as you wish, and you can stop whenever you've had enough. The index webpage at http://www.gwc.uwindsor.ca provides more background about the project. A quick look at this may help you decide whether you're interested.

There is quite a bit more info on the handout related to the survey, but the above paragraph gives you the general idea.

I took the survey and viewed the various maps. Although I have a good idea of the rate of crime in this area, I must admit I was still shocked to see it represented graphically.

I remember the Windsor Star doing a piece about 15 years ago showing the worst crime area in the city as a two block area bounded by Caron, University, Bruce and Wyandotte. After viewing Professor Phipps maps, I see some things haven't changed. Seeing as I live right at the NW corner of the worst area, it's not hard to understand why there's never a dull moment around here.

(click on image for full size)


One thing to note is that this area is directly south of the "Urban Village" site. In terms of an area crying out for urban renewal, you're looking at it.

Now that's a real estate deal

Luxury oasis in desert

Windsor family buys Arizona estate in record-setting $14M cash deal

Wayne Gretzky and Claude Lemieux for neighbours.

Joint Library/City Council Meeting Today

It's not exactly the best time, but not much we can do about it:

An open meeting of Windsor City Council
with the Windsor Public Library Board
has been scheduled for
MONDAY APRIL 21, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.
Council Chambers, 3rd floor, Windsor City Hall.
Discussion will include the Library Board's decision
to close the South Walkerville Branch on Tecumseh Road East.