Big day in the newsroom. It’s our annual playoff hockey draft. I’d love to share my strategy with my legion of followers, but I can’t. There are fellow newsroom poolies who check out this blog, and they’d love nothing better than to steal my ideas. Forget it. See you at 5 p.m., suckers!
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It would be difficult to understate the dislike between St. Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan and St. Catharines regional councillor Andy Petrowski. They really can’t stand each other. Petrowski’s political philosophy can be summed up, thusly: if McMullan’s in favour of something, he’s against it. As for McMullan, he’s like Inspector Clouseau’s boss in those old Pink Panther movies. At the mere mention of Petrowski’s name, the mayor experiences uncontrollable facial tics.
I mention this in light of McMullan’s opening remarks to council Monday night. He talked about regional council giving the final green light for a new police palace in Niagara Falls. In doing so, he mentioned how expensive the development would be, the number of job losses in downtown St. Catharines the re-location would cause and how accurate the city had been in projecting the real space needs for the project. But what was really “surprising,” said McMullan, was that one of the city’s own regional councillors voted in favour of the project, even though the $83-million expenditure was putting the Region “into a spiral of debt.” It was “the first time I’ve ever seen it happen,” said McMullan of the break in city solidarity over the police accommodations issue. The St. Catharines councillor who did not support the city’s position, the mayor informed city council and the cable TV audience, “was the new councillor, regional councillor Petrowski.”
Ouch.
Over to you, Andy.
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Speaking of the mayor’s opening remarks, Coun. Bruce Williamson gave notice that he’s not exactly up on current events. He asked McMullan whether, in light of the most recent cost and space revelations, any regional councillors had second thoughts about the police HQ relocation. (This was what prompted McMullan’s outing of Petrowski, which, given Williamson’s similar intense dislike of the super pro-tower regional councillor, makes one wonder if the question was a set-up.) In posing his question to the mayor, Williamson framed it as a city/country dispute. As in, he said the choice was between downtown St. Catharines or “a rural, non-urban location” in the Falls.
There was early speculation that the favoured site in the Falls was near Mountain Rd. and the QEW, a location on the outskirts of the city. However, it’s been known for several months now that the selected site is near Highway 420 and Stanley Ave. That’s in the centre of the city. It’s about as rural and non-urban as the Highway 406/Glendale Ave. area of St. Catharines.
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Let’s get back to hockey. I fulfilled a vow to myself and went to an IceDog playoff game Monday night. Two things always are always reinforced when I watch the IceDogs live: 1) what good entertainment value it is for the money; 2) how inadequate Jack Gatecliff is as a spectator facility.
As for my Foster Hewitt analysis of the game, let me just say the IceDogs and the Oshawa Generals appear very evenly matched. Going in, I thought, for no profound reason, that the ‘Dogs would romp in this series. Um, I don’t think so. The local heroes barely hung on to victory Monday. Oshawa is a fast-skating team and the ‘Dogs played scared in the final period. New homer prediction: Niagara in seven games.
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Is it just me, or was NDP leader Jack Layton awful in last night’s leadership debate?
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There are some tough jobs in St. Catharines. Then there are some really tough jobs. Take, for example, the one I saw being done earlier this week while driving from downtown to the Y via Lake Street. Construction is taking place near the wacko intersection of Lake, Welland and James. This is a pain-in-the-butt stop under any circumstance. But because of the construction, the weirdo set of traffic lights at the intersection aren’t working. Thus, some poor sap was out there directing traffic. I drove by at noon. I’m guessing the aforementioned sap had a nervous breakdown by 3:15 p.m.
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New promise to self: Avoid Welland Avenue until May 2012.
St. Catharines
I appreciate the recognition by Mayor Brian on Monday night but it would be appreciated if his comments weren’t so misleading. It’s quite amusing actually that Brian uses any time from his perch at Council to recognize my relentless efforts to save the taxpayers money which is precisely the basis for my decision to approve the Police Master Plan. And isn’t it a bit cowardly to use a publicly-funded institution like our City’s Council Chamber as his stumping post to launch a one-sided commentary against one of his regional councillor colleagues? I don’t believe the Mayor’s chair was ever intended to be used as a bully pulpit?
McMullan and the returning Regional Councillors know better than anyone that the new HQ project has been approved a long time ago. In fact, the majority of the former Regional Councillors entered into a legally binding agreement known as the “Minutes of Settlement” in September 2009. Last week, the new council merely approved in principle the Master Plan which authorizes the NRPS and the Region to move forward on this legally binding agreement before the taxpayers incur even more unnecessary costs. It’s unfortunate that our leader did not highlight on Monday night his role over the past 19 months in trying to delay implementation of this legal agreement which has cost taxpayers millions of their precious dollars in legal wrangling and higher construction costs. It’s ok, the new council doesn’t mind cleaning up your old mess. Your welcome, Brian.
And it’s also not surprising that he didn’t confess to the public that blocking the Master Plan would automatically also delay the long overdue replacement of the shoddy operational building on Church Street which our local detachment is forced to call their home still. Isn’t this downtown investment long overdue?
For the record, I publicly stated last week that it was unfortunate that the current Regional Council inherited this financial hangover from the previous one and although I was reluctant to approve the Plan, I made the point of saying my desire would have been for the HQ to stay in this town. My support for the Master Plan was predicated on avoiding spending any more tax dollars than are necessary to follow through on a legal commitment made by the prior Regional Council which McMullan sat on with the NRPS. Is it really a surprise to anyone that Brian also seemed to forget reminding our constituents that opposing the Master Plan would have triggered a legal challenge by the NRPS which most think would have been 100% successful except that it may leave the taxpayer having to fund a more costly HQ facility (upwards of $100 million to construct the original 274,000 square foot building) not to mention more millions in legal fees and higher construction costs?
Not that this would matter to McMullan apparently who is having his own challenges managing the taxpayers’ money? We all know that cost controls have become an enormous issue with the arts centre, at least one level has come off the parking garage to stay in budget, and the community continues to suffer under crippling tax increases and higher water bills.
Thankfully, our citizens are informed and understand the politics behind the latest statements against me by Mayor McMullan. Maybe next time he wants to give me special attention, he will provide all of the relevant facts? In the meantime, I hope it’s finally reached the point when Brian can put his sore loser attitude aside with this matter.
7 games? hopefully your playoff pools picks are better than your ice dogs prediction but im not holding my breath
What, you don’t think picking three Sabres was smart?