TecumsehCityBlog: Time For Some More Articles

Lots of interesting things out there for me to report to you, dear reader. Well, I am at least interested in them and would like you to know about them as well. So take a look at these new items.

SHE SHOOTS BUT WILL SHE SCORE

Truly, it is the most unbelievable advertisement I think that I have seen in a long time. Moreover, it was produced by one of the major political parties in the Province of Ontario.

Clearly, I would have to think that the Party who did it must believe that it will give them support from the people who live in this area and will make sure that they remain as the Government Party in this Province. How else can one explain this Liberal "Ontario Government" advertisement that I have seen online several times:

It is truly unbelievable to me. One site in the ad is Ontario's Parliament Building, while the other half of the ad but the one at the top is… The AMBASSADOR BRIDGE!

Can you believe how the Premier has effectively told everyone that there must be a close connection between the Ontario Government and the Ambassador Bridge Company. Why else would that bridge be published by the Government in the ad that is distributed throughout our area.

The ad calls on people to "share their thoughts" with the Premier of Ontario who will be heading up the big meeting on the 15th. People must believe that the only subject to discuss given the advertisement photo is the building of the new Ambassador Bridge.

She certainly has scored very well for Matty Moroun and the members of his organization!

MAYOR DILKENS REACTS

One has to wonder if Mayor Dilkens will be running for re-election or will he be going somewhere else for a job with the new Mayor in Windsor possibly being the brother of former Mayor Francis who is in Council now.

I must admit that I thought that the Mayor was not going to run again. I figured he was going elsewhere to work with a high paying job. I must admit also that I did not know exactly where he would be going. Not giving us a decision early on just seemed to me to be nothing more than to make it easier for Francis to run and minimize the amount of time that someone could run against him.

However, I also note that the Mayor is talking a lot about his view of Windsor. In fact, he just posted on Facebook a very long letter about Windsor's downtown to counter a letter posted against the downtown. It seems to me that what he did certainly would support him if he was running for Mayor again because it glorifies all of the supposedly wonderful stuff he has done for the Windsor downtown.

Before I deal more with this, there is something going on that surprised me. The number of people who have read that Mayor's piece and reacted on his page as at 2:15 PM on February 2 seems to me to be relatively few:

This low number could well be a negative for the Mayor and may give him encouragement not to re-run.

In any event, this is really what his story is all about. As he wrote:

"It’s easy for many of us to focus on the ‘bad’ things we see while ignoring all the ‘good’ things happening around us. Some are doing just that in the conversation about our downtown."

He then goes through what he believes are the big, good items that should encourage everyone about what is happening in Windsor's downtown. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to read the article and make your own decision about how well the downtown is now OR not!

Are there now many new activities that are helping the downtown to grow? I am really just asking you to decide for yourself whether some of these activities as outlined suggest to you that Windsor's downtown is now starting to boom to make everything so exciting for this City. I must admit that I do not think so but that is just my opinion.

I am glad that Windsorites in municipal Government seem to be improving more now. Perhaps though it is merely because it is an election year and they are seemingly doing more than they have done previously. Of course, the little that has been done until now could well be because of how much money was spent on the huge projects that have also lost a lot of money as well and there is little City money available to do much for a considerable number of years. Nevertheless, listing a relatively few activities, many of which are financed by the Governments at different levels, doesn't impress me all that much.

Could it be as the Mayor described: "Small steps. Big change." Perhaps. However, it might also be considered as an alternative with nothing more than outlining anything just to get some favourable publicity in order for a whole bunch of people to be re-elected.

Here is what may support this comment. No real action, just more meetings during the election year:

"Dilkens said the next step is “hosting a broader community conversation regarding the future of downtown.”

Part of that, he told the Star Friday, is bringing in an experienced urban planning firm to hear from residents and provide direction on how to “make the city more exciting for the people who live here and who visit.” (Doug Schmidt, Windsor Star, February 9, 2018)

POST-STORM PICS

I thought that I would take a few photographs of the storm that hit this area over the last few days. I wanted to do so after our outside firm did a fine job of clearing up not only our street for the local traffic but my private driveway as well.

Sure, we had some huge amounts of snow falling for this area that made everything to clean difficult but our group of snow cleaners made certain that they did so well for us that we could get out from our garage and into our traffic street easily and quickly.

Here are 5 of the photos that I took: