Autumn Is Coming Soon

We are approaching the month of September. I just noticed this the other night when at around 8 PM it just seemed so much darker outside. I'm sure you know how light it was in the evenings until much later for so many months. I was just caught by surprise.

This has been a very hot summer. It just seems that we have not had a lot of rain so far and the temperatures have been so much hotter. Oh sure, I know that in the past we have experienced similar weather but it just seems to have been a lot warmer this year than in other years. Moreover, our green grass was before a lot more brown this year than in the past.

I have to admit that I am wondering a little bit now whether we will again have a summer that seems to last much longer than normal. Last year, it dragged on forever before it started getting winter-like. I have to admit that I expected the winter to last longer as well but it didn't. It disappeared quite quickly as we went right into summer.

I know that I speak too much about the weather but it is so strange to me this year. The weather forecasting just appears to be so inaccurate as well. For example on the day that I started writing this article, the prediction was that we would experience rain in late morning and the early afternoon. So far only a few drops and that was it. Again, I just think this happened so many times this summer as well.

Of course, just as our Condo gardeners have finally come here to cut the grass in the late afternoon, it started to rain. Mother Nature knows well how to fool people!

I better just sit down now and begin to write a story. Just one this time for this edition because I expect that we are going to see a lot more like it between now and election day.

WHO WILL BE WINDSOR'S MAYOR

I must admit that I have not sat down and tried to figure out who might be the next Mayor of Windsor. I might just do that between now and election day but not right now. I think what I will do now is write stories on matters that seem to interest me. Here is one of them.

I have to let you know, dear reader, that I was surprised that Mayor Dilkens took so long to announce that he was going to run again. But then, I thought previously that he might have another political job if things worked out in the timeframe that I thought. There was a good possibility to me that we might have seen the beginning of the new Metropolitan Windsor with him as the administrative Head of it. However, that never happened, at least so far. Accordingly, I assume that he decided that he had to run to be re-elected as Windsor Mayor.

To be direct, I believe that his only real opponent is Matt Marchand. He has been well known publicly in the City of Windsor considering his background with former Mayor Hurst (whose name he did not mention when I looked before on his website dealing with "About Matt") and on the Windsor–Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce. He is quite a tough political candidate as far as I am concerned and there is a good chance that he could be elected as Mayor as well.

Unfortunately for him, his background working for ex-Mayor Hurst could well be a big problem for him. I believe that it would be difficult for him to become the choice of Windsor Star Columnist, Gord Henderson, to become the Mayor:

“If Marchand is “uniquely qualified” from his 12 years as a policy assistant to former mayor Mike Hurst, then he must also shoulder some of the baggage from those dismal years between 1992 and 2003, before Eddie Francis took over and started cleaning up the mess.

Would anyone, apart from certain labour leaders, really want to go back to the Hurst era? Back to runaway debt, ever-rising taxes and good-ol’-boy department heads? Back to parking meter employees who had to be begged to come to work? Back to platinum city daycare operations, back to garbage collectors who could hold the city hostage during work stoppages?” (Gord Henderson, Windsor Star, June23, 2018) 

Can you imagine how difficult it would be for me to decide for whom I should vote to be the Mayor of Windsor if I was going to vote in Windsor!

Then, we see news stories that come out that could help us make a decision and also help Matt. Here was a recent CBC exclusive news story that helps explain what I mean:

“Exclusive

Ontario mayor uses alias email address for city business, experts question transparency

Experts question optics, urge further investigation

CBC News has learned Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens uses an email alias, by the name of Andrew Ray, to conduct internal city business.” (JasonViau, CBC News, August 15, 2018) 

I will let you read the stories that will come out about this issue over the next while, dear reader. However, I would expect that this story itself, regardless of the result, will not help Mayor Dilkens in the election.

Let us see what else happens. Who knows, I may have a lot to write about which may help you make an election decision.