Finally, Another Story

It is time that I try and write some non-hospital stories! After all, I do not go there right now, or hopefully, I do not have to do so now since my next time to meet the doctor is in May.

My medical program ended several weeks ago but it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 months for my body to repair itself after all that was done in the forty days of radiation treatment. Remarkably, very little of it actually hurts me at all. The big issue that I am dealing with is my tiredness especially after the last fifteen days of getting treatment at the hospital. It had changed slightly over that period of time. Nevertheless, that change did wear me out a lot more than before.

There were some interesting stories that I did see in the media that I want to talk about today. As I am sure that you appreciate, it brings me back to my “past” life now. Here are a few of them which I would hope you will find interesting.

Liberal Irek Kusmierczyk

It should be interesting to see how the career of the ex-Member of the Windsor Council works itself out now that he has been elected a federal MP for the Windsor-Tecumseh riding. Who knows, there might be some positive thinking about him. I just saw that he has been appointed as a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion.

I was surprised by this because he was just elected for the first time federally in an election and he did not win a huge majority either when he was elected. Perhaps the Liberals figured out that he needed some good publicity if he is to be re-elected since another election campaign could take place in a couple of years because of the Liberal Minority government being defeated. That would probably mean calling for one. Nothing better than convincing those voting people to vote for a “Parliamentary Secretary” and not just some MPP.

Interesting, here is his past election history story when he was a Councillor that might even repeat itself now:

“Irek Kusmierczyk returns to council with a firm victory in the Ward 7 race, edging out the next top contender Angelo Marignani.

Kusmierczyk earned 3,761 votes, compared to Marignani’s 2,539 after all 103 polls were in, which is a decided improvement from the 2013 byelection when the two ran a close race that Kusmierczyk won by just 52 votes.

Kusmierczyk had the advantage in this campaign after nearly a year’s worth of exposure on council, but the energetic politician knew early on he could take nothing for granted.” (Derek Spalding, WindsorStar, October 27, 2014) 

Why not do it again would make a lot of sense to him I would think!

I connected myself to his Facebook webpage to see what he will be doing over the next little while from a political perspective. He seems to be doing a lot of very good things right now and we will see what results are achieved by his efforts.

Speaking of local politics on the municipal level, did you see this article some time ago that:

“Municipal politicians across Windsor and Essex County are pleased the province has decided not to force amalgamation on municipalities.” (Chris Campbell, CTV Windsor, October 25, 2019) 

I am surprised that the Government is not still requiring amalgamation as seemed to be what was going on for such a long time. What was interesting in that story was seeing what I think may be a difference between the City of Windsor and one of the suburban areas where I happen to live now, Tecumseh:

“Tecumseh Mayor and Essex County Warden Gary McNamara is glad to hear the Ford government is moving away from amalgamation…

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens points out there are already shared services across the region – highlighting the city's police force taking over patrols in Amherstburg.

"We saved the Town of Amherstburg over half a million dollars a year and we're saving about the same amount as a city," says Dilkens. "So the more folks we can spread the fixed costs across the better it is for folks not just in Windsor but in every town in Essex County."

WHO CARES TO LIVE IN WINDSOR, ONTARIO

You might find that it will be a lot of people from all over the Province! Especially locations where houses are so much more expensive.

It is hardly a surprise to me that Windsor real estate prices are so low in comparison with other locations around Ontario.

When my family first moved down here so many years ago, the real estate market was rising significantly but Windsor’s housing prices at that time were still a fraction of those in the City of Toronto where we were then living. Our new home in Windsor was bigger in size and land space compared with our house in Toronto but our purchase price here was a small fraction of what our sales price was in Toronto then.

Obviously, the move down here was financially better for us. However, one of the concerns that I did have when we moved here was what would happen if we could not stand living in Windsor and had to back to Toronto. Fortunately, that did not happen!

I assumed that prices would rise dramatically here so that Windsor’s prices would be comparable eventually to those in Toronto. Clearly that has never taken place! My old house in Toronto is still worth now many times the value of my place in Tecumseh where I moved in the last few years.

It is interesting to me that the lower prices in our area are not all that bad. If one is living here, and will continue to do so, and if there is a mortgage on one’s property, then the monthly amount to pay out is relatively reasonable. It is certainly a lot less than what the mortgage on a comparable home in Toronto would be as an example.

What is even more interesting is that people from more expensive homes in other areas may well be looking for a cheaper place to live. After all, people who are getting older are seeing their children leave their home to live on their own so that their “big” house is not all that necessary for them any longer. Seriously, who still needs a big three or four bedroom house with lots of grass to cut and snow to remove from the sidewalks and driveways when the kids no longer live there? Oh sure, they can find a cheaper place to live where they now have a new house that is smaller in size. However, the amounts that they still have to pay out in taxes, home insurance, utilities and perhaps even on a mortgage that they still have on their property would be a lot higher than the prices in our area.

There was a very interesting story written about this. Just take a look at the article by Jonathan Pinto, CBC News, August 1, 2019: 

“Yes, Windsor's property tax rate is high — but that doesn't mean we pay more…

With a property tax rate of 0.61 per cent, Toronto ranked as the city with the lowest property tax rate, while Windsor's rate of 1.78 per cent placed it dead last…

Joe Mancina, Windsor's chief financial officer, says comparing cities by property tax rates alone is "misleading."

"You really need to consider the property tax rates as well as the assessment values," he said. "In municipalities that have higher assessment values ... naturally, the tax rate is going to be set at a lower level."

Mancina says that Windsorites actually pay lower residential property taxes on average than other large Ontario cities.”

Accordingly, when someone in a city like Toronto sells their house at such a high price and buys a comparable home, or, even better still, a smaller one in our area at a significant lower price, then that makes Windsor and the surrounding towns a nice place to move to. That family all of a sudden has a nice chunk of money in their bank account down here in a similar residence.

It will be interesting to see if that really happens. One may find that house prices in cities like Toronto do not increase very much in the next while while they still go up here dramatically as people from outside the area, as well as people here still looking for a new place to live, compete financially to buy a place for sale in this area.