My Comments On Interesting Topics

There just seem to be lots of interesting topics these days about which I can write. I certainly am not going to write long articles on these topics but rather will try and pick out what is interesting about them and then give you, dear reader, my perspective.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the election that we are going to have later on this year. Here is a headline that should give you an idea of what I mean. Does the story really exist or is it something new for a Councillor who is running first to be elected as an MPP and only, if he loses, will he run presumably another time for his municipal seat:

"Jarvis: Alley lights are the municipal election's sleeper issue" (Anne Jarvis, Windsor Star, May 10, 2018) 

Here are just some of the interesting issues and stories which I have read over the past little while.

MORE MONEY FOR NEWLY ELECTED POLITICIANS

It must be that the City of Windsor has to be getting in more money these days. Whether it is because of higher taxes or Government grants or fees charged, lots of new things are happening in that City these days for which this money can be used.

Of course, there is something that the politicians are extremely interested in having a decision being made even though this is an election year.  It all has to do with a change in THEIR SALARIES! 

Some people who are on Council now or who may be elected to become a Councillor may want more money since what is being received now is fairly low. Accordingly, get a decision made now, before the municipal election in the fall, but have someone other than a Councillor suggest what should be done afterwards. Let those others take the "blame" for whatever decision is being which may give the Mayor and Councillors more money if a larger salary is ultimately decided. And that's quite a good approach don't you think.

Here is what Mayor Dilkens has said as well:

"And he added they aren’t deciding what councillors will be paid. It’s up to council to accept their recommendations or not. “Of course, if they come back and say there needs to be a 50 per cent increase in city council pay, well, council will look at that and decide if it’s reasonable or not.”

This compensation review committee’s mandate is to “examine the current workload and level of responsibility and commitment required,” compare their pay to council compensation in other comparable cities, seek public input and determine the adequacy of the current pay scale." (Brian Cross, Windsor Star, May 10, 2018) 

Gee, do you really think that Council members, especially if they think that they are going to run again and be re-elected, are going to turn down any suggestion that this Committee might propose? I would only think that this would happen only if the increase that the Committee thought should be granted was too tiny or if no increase is given at all.

Seriously though do you expect the Committee members to turn down a significant increase especially because:

"council compensation has been basically frozen for at least a dozen years... During much of that time, council was adamant about holding the line on taxes and controlling costs at city hall."

Could it be that there is a really a very interesting story behind all of this? Could it be that some people want others to run for Council because some of the people who are Councillors now are not very good? Consider this remark that came in the story:

"But now, the review is necessary because the city wants to make sure it’s attracting good candidates.

“We want to make sure we can get good people who want to be part of running a $750-million organization,” the mayor said."

Hmmm.  I wonder who these new people might be and who might be backing them when they run for office. Presumably, these people want more money than is being given out now to elected individuals. Moreover, will we know who they are supportive of having as Windsor Mayor. Just as interesting might be who is NOT going to be running for office and why they are not going to do so.

WILL A NEW HOSPITAL REALLY BE BUILT

Let's get real. I am starting to doubt considerably that we are really going to get new Hospital built in this area.  The best that we are going to get as far as I am concerned now is that the 2 existing hospitals are just going to be upgraded. It is there before the election to have everyone excited but it could well disappear afterwards because there is not enough money to go around for all the hospitals the need to be built in this Province.

I should have remembered this from what was said before but I did not. Oh sure, I have seen a suggestion several times that the proposed new 500 bed hospital in our region should have an extra couple of hundred of them added but this bigger number of beds is not being paid for in the hospital that is being proposed now. At least, I don't think it is.

Here is what I saw recently that was written back in 2016:

"Windsor Regional Hospital President and CEO David Musyj is looking to clear the air when it comes to the new mega hospital.

Musyj says there is a lot of misinformation and he wants to correct it with a new campaign that will include a stronger social media presence, pamphlets and community outreach.

“Inaccurate information; that’s terrible to make a decision based upon that,” says Musyj. “It’s resulted in, historically outside of our organization, some bad decisions.”

Musyj says the most common misconception is that the new hospital will have fewer beds than the current hospitals.  He says that’s false.  The new hospital will have the same 500 beds that are in the city now with a 200 bed expansion also planned." (Adelle Loiselle, Blackburn News, November 4, 2016) 

I would assume that this additional number of hundreds of new beds would take years to be added to the new hospital. I also wonder who pays for these new beds. The cost would be many hundreds of millions of dollars extra. I just don't see Windsor and the other small towns in the area having that kind of cash.

Accordingly, how can those extra beds be built in a reasonable period of time or even during the construction of the new hospital in the first place? If that is true, I do not see how it makes sense to build such a small hospital in this area at all considering that the population could grow substantially and that even the 2 existing area hospitals cannot handle all of the patients properly now.