My Next Article

Clearly, I do not write as many articles as I did before when I was writing with an online website.  I do not have the responsibility that I had before to ensure that there are plenty of articles written for our online readers. In addition, to be quite direct about it, there really is not that much new going on involving the governmental parties about whom I used to write so much before.  I must admit I don't know why that is happening although I have some reasons which I believe are the cause. No need though to bore you with them.

Every so often I do find an article that I think is interesting to write about. Here is a bunch of them.

OUR $78 MILLION SWIMMING POOL

Apparently, that is what it cost to build the swimming pool in our downtown. Quite a bit of money isn't it! 

I must admit that a number of decision-makers in Windsor must have made the decision early on to build this swimming building after determining that we were going to make a lot of money with its operation. Unfortunately, that is not happening. I saw this in an Anne Jarvis story in the Windsor Star on June 24, 2017:

"The city had to control the aquatic centre’s costs, it said. Families must be able to afford the admission price, it said. It was like the aquatic centre’s success hinged in part on the lowest paid employees getting even less. 

Since then, the aquatic centre has haemorrhaged money, costing $3.2 million a year to operate. The price of admission has increased. And the city is pumping $200,000 a year into marketing it."

Here are some other figures that you may find interesting that are quite depressing:

"The number of paying customers at the Adventure Bay dropped by 43 per cent from its first year of operation to its third.

Adventure Bay attendance by the numbers:

Year 1: 184,000

Year 2: 128,000

Year 3: 105,000" (CBC News, February 17, 2017) 

I am not going to go into a lot of stories about problems that the aquatic centre is having. That has been reported previously.  Now there is another problem financially for the pool that I found quite interesting:

"The Ontario Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal ruled April 11 that the City of Windsor must pay Shirley Moor, who works part-time at the reception desk of the WFCU Centre, all the money she missed plus interest after the city temporarily reduced wages for about 300 workers in an attempt to offset costs of the new $78-million aquatics complex."  (Craig Pearson, Windsor Star, June 16, 2017) 

Here is what the City is going to do: 

"Even if the pay equity tribunal upholds the decision for Moor, Dilkens said the city does not plan to compensate the 300 part-time employees in similar positions." 

According to the Mayor:

"[Mayor Drew Dilkens said]…we will seek a judicial review of the decision.”

Even if the pay equity tribunal upholds the decision for Moor, Dilkens said the city does not plan to compensate the 300 part-time employees in similar positions. If all 300 received on average the same amount as Moor, the city would be on the hook for $1.2 million."

I must admit that I have to scratch my head and try to figure this out. I wish someone would tell me why the City is not liable to all of these other people. What is so different about their position and that of Ms. Moor? If there is no difference, then why doesn't the City just pay the amounts owing now? Is it going to suggest that 299 other people start lawsuits against them?

WHO WILL RUN FOR MAYOR IN WINDSOR

Oh dear! Has the brother of our former Mayor, Eddie Francis, who is now sitting as a Windsor Councillor going to decide shortly that he better not run for Mayor of the City of Windsor and then will make a public announcement immediately? Thanks so much Gord Henderson for this information:

"Dilkens insists he won’t make a formal announcement regarding a second term until early 2018 but you can bet the farm, nearly three-quarters of the way through his initial term, that he has no intention of surrendering the keys to the corner office any time soon. 

“This is the best job in the world and I now understand why there were 12 of us running in 2014,” confided a happy and confident Dilkens this week." (Gord Henderson, Windsor Star, June 24, 2017) 

Clearly, it must mean that no one of any significance will run against the Mayor because he/she would lose badly. Right?!  Why what do you think, dear reader, after this last paragraph by Gord in his article:

"Dilkens has more than met expectations. But his ace-in-the-hole, leading up to next year’s election, is the booming area economy. With a hot real estate sector, a record low jobless rate and employers wailing that they can’t find qualified workers, pitching the claim that Windsor needs new leadership will be one tough sell."

What Gord did not do is demonstrate to us what the Mayor's actions did to improve our economy so well!

What if the Mayor decides not to run again but not until some time close to election day in 2018? It could be because he receives a very nice employment job at that time from someone.  Who knows, as an example he might become the paid Head of a new organization, Metropolitan Windsor, that would be formed by the Provincial Government combining all of the various governments in this area in a manner similar to what was done in Metropolitan Toronto a number of years ago. He would be our "Fred Gardiner."

Guess who might then decide to run for Mayor and who would have a lot of skill assistants behind him to help him win!

DEPARTMENT STORE STORIES

A couple of interesting Sears stories:

"The Sears Home store in Windsor is one of 59 locations under the axe after the once-mighty retail giant announced Thursday it is shuttering buildings and cutting 2,900 jobs under a court-supervised restructuring.  

The struggling company says it will close 20 full-line locations, plus 15 Sears Home stores, 10 Sears Outlet stores and 14 Sears Hometown locations. Included on the list is the Sears Home location on Legacy Park Drive in Windsor." (Trevor Wilhelm, Windsor Star, June 22, 2017) 

Then this publication from Brandon G. Stranzl, Executive Chairman, Sears Canada on June 23, 2017:

"All of the above being said, Sears Canada has just been through a long decade during which it was not innovating and reinventing its business, not listening to customers and not evolving to serve Canada's needs. This has left Sears Canada in the unfortunate position of having parts of the company that are no longer applicable to our customer needs, nor financially viable… 

in order to continue to serve our customers and chart our path forward, Sears Canada has filed for and obtained protection from its creditors with the intention of further restructuring our business. We are going to close some of our stores, which is in part recognition that many of our customers prefer to shop online, and because we want to be a more focused retailer."

That explains why the Sears outlet in Windsor is going to close.

I wonder financially how that outlet was working out. As an example, was it making or losing money? What will happen now? Will its operation now be taken on at the main Sears store in Devonshire Mall or will that operation be completely ended because it just does not make enough money?

I do not think that there is any easy answer considering the problems that so many organizations are having these days in running their future businesses. So many are going bankrupt now that seemed to do so well in the past because of the way those businesses are running their operations now. Their techniques just do not seem to work any more.

Take a look at this story that shows what Walmart may be doing in the US to deliver its goods to customers at their homes through the assistance of their employees. Clearly, permanent customer truck drivers do not seem to be the way to carry out this activity in an economic fashion:

" In its continuing battle with Amazon, Walmart is testing a new type of delivery service: Employees dropping off packages on their way home. 

The service, which has been tested since April but was just announced Thursday, pays employees extra to deliver online orders headed to destinations along their normal route home. It's the latest example of how the world's biggest retailer is leveraging its large network of stores and 1 million employees to go head to head with e-commerce giant Amazon. 

"Our stores put us within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population,'' Marc Lore, president and CEO of Walmart eCommerce U.S.. said in a blog post announcing the pilot. "Now imagine all the routes our associates drive to and from work and the houses they pass along the way. It’s easy to see why this test could be a game-changer." (Charisse Jones, USATODAY, June 1, 2017) 

I do remember what was happening in my life when I was a child so many years ago. As an example, I remember horse-pulled milk carts that came around every day to our house to offer our family dairy products.  How about Eaton's and Simpsons, the major Department stores in Toronto which no longer exist, sending out their customers' purchased goods to their homes the next day in their motorized delivery trucks. At no increase in price either for the delivery.

Does it really mean not that the major selling companies are doing something new these days to figure out ways to get goods to their customers but trying to remember what they did in the past and what they must do now to duplicate that service to remain in business!