Quick Hits
Downtown to reclaim “City of Roses” (well actually “City of Flowers”) status for Windsor.
Based on the success of the L.E.D. tree lights, the DWBIA approved over $50,000 towards hanging flower planters (includes watering) throughout the entire downtown. Thats gotta buy a heckuva lot of flowers for the downtown.
ENWIN can’t or won’t fix Downtown LED lights.
After months of continuous complaints to 311 and ENWIN, the people from ENWIN have not seemed to been able to find the darn “ON” switch for the lights so they come on at the same time throughout downtown. Tree lights and banner lights within the light posts come on inconsistently and sporadically even though there has been months of complaints. These lights are there to benefit all of downtown. I ask all readers to call 311 or ENWIN to ask them to fix the situation as they aren’t listening to my calls.
One consistent area that won’t turn on at all are the trees and standards in front of my building on the 200 block of Ouellette. (Maybe its not paranoia if they really are out to get you.)
Who are the Artists in Windsor?
I have been having some discussions with people regarding who the artists are in our community. Do the public accept local musicians or chef’s as artists. I believe that both of these groups should be joining the Arts Council and creating the conditions for mutually beneficial support. Any events where all of these different type of artists work together are bound to become more successful and give us that ROI that some councillors inconsistently demand from Artists as opposed to other groups who benefit from taxpayer funds.
Today’s Letter to the Editor from Betty Wilkinson
One of Downtown’s Heroes (I know of no better description) has made a plea in today’s Windsor Star and I can only hope that people and our decision makers are paying attention.
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What a shame. We lost Biblioasis last year, now to lose Works on Paper would be a huge and continued hit. Just further proof that the downtown crowd goes far beyond “hooting and hollering”, and that the antics of those in the “entertainment district” continues to have a real and negative effect on the core.
As long as City Council and the DWBIA continues to advocate for downtown’s continued use as a weekend playground/toilet for out of towners (regardless of if they are from the USA or Tecumseh, Lakesore or even South Windsor) with no stake in the viability of the core, downtown will continue its slide into a one dimmensional place to only eat and drink and will continue to worsen for those who actually call this place home.
It is time for a long overdue change.
I agree 100% Andrew! When will the DWBIA and the city start to look inward and cater to the people who already live in the downtown area or start to try and lure those who want to live there? Don’t you feel like a second class citizen for choosing to live downtown, trying to make a better environment only to be ignored or dismissed outright? I am still wiating for Mr. Horwitz to call me back as I wanted to get on the new downtown task force as he himself asked for residents input.
As I have stated countless times. Cater to your own first before a group tries to cater to outsiders. If a group cannot sell to it’s primary benefactors then how can it sell to anyone else?
Mark, it isn’t paranoia. I know of a few who hav been “targeted” as well. Speak out and trouble will find you in this city.
By the way I called Enwin as well and they didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about. So I explained it in detail and they said “they would have someone look at it.” I called again a few weeks later and they said it was a DWBIA problem. So what in the hell am I paying so much damn money for at Enwin if they can’t even fignure out how to make the lights go on at the same time?
I tell you all, this city gets more depressing by the day. An ANYONE do anything in this city properly or are we just so damn secular we don’t have a clue anymore? No wonder business by-passes us! We look like fools to almost any other area on this planet.
I believe that you are now intentionally trying to confuse having a healthy entertainment district as a “weekend playground/toilet”
The DWBIA has repeatedly tried to get bars closed at 3 am and will likely be paying to bring Peter Belmio back to Windsor April 2nd to try to further convince our city of those benefits. (Its ashame that the DWBIA must continue to use needed resources towards this ends)
It appears that Enwin doesn’t want to listen, much like council when it comes to the downtown! Maybe that is what they are trying to accomplish, get rid of the residents, get rid of the businesses so that there can be total lawlessness! Is the city. After that there is a clean slate so that they can rebuild the core in their own image? If all the stores become empty and the landlords don’t maintain them, it would be a great time for the city to come in, buy those derelict buildings and then hand them over to a friendly developer on the cheap, who would build what the city sees fit for us to have…just a thought! Is council’s do nothing approach to the downtown a form of blockbusting?
With every passing weekend that nothing is done by the city, only reinforces every other citizen’s, not living the core, view of what the core is really like and the city refuses to do anything about this perception, so much for branding! Flowers will be great, so would the lights (if they worked) but that is only window dressing, or extreme make-up on a sad situation, I give the DWBIA great credit in trying and trying to overcome this inertia by council to address the real problem of downtown…the kiddie bars! With the new lights downtown, the core looks pretty good, it is in the daylight that everything else suffers.
I totally agree Mark! Bring in every local artist, local musician(s) (from classical to the latest indie band,) artisans, our great chefs, only in numbers can we survive and act in concerted effort to change things in this city. The passion that goes into creating anything from art, to music, to a presentation of a mouth watering dish, all share the same great human intelligence, passion, and creativity, it is just in a different form of expressions. Yes, by all means, lets get everyone together to see how we can work together for a better Windsor, than we are suffering now. But please keep the mayor and city council out of it, we must demonstrate in no uncertain terms that we can do things just as well if not better than, than guidance from the city’s art/cultural board of directors ( as suggested by the mayor in the Star on the weekend), dictating what and what not can be done. Our artists have always demonstrated the art of independence, but they also have demonstrated over the years that their different expressions have and can work together, we just have to provide venues for them to do it.
Mark, DWBIA needs to go beyond the 3am closing (even though it’s a GREAT start). It needs to get the attention of the police board and set up a system of policing downtown that sends a clear consistent message to the people who are making downtown into a “playground/toilet” that they will be arrested for public drunkenness and spend the night in jail. Period. Yes that will be costly in terms of policing but far less costly than what downtown has suffered over the years from these from the image these bar goers have projected on its behalf. I don’t even care if my property taxes go up a bit to pay for the extra policing. Oh, and congrats on the beautification - that is nice. It’ll be pretty. I wonder how long it will take the drunks to vandalize them though? Grrr
P.O. V. letter from the London Free Press, with all that is and was happening in London, some still have questions! If we can be so lucky in Windsor.
http://www.lfpress.com/cgi-bin/publish.cgi?p=15181&x=letters&l_publish_date=&s_publish_date=&s_keywords=&s_topic=&s_letter_type=POV&s_topic=&s_letter_status=Active&s=letters
No one is asking for anything less than zero tolerance for that type of behavior. DWBIA has never asked for vandalism to be tolerated
However Community based policing does not simply mean putting the burden on police. It means adding public washrooms to deter public urination. It means fixing the damn streetlights on pelissier which is a statistically proven deterrence against crime (and flower vandals)
Great letter in the London Freep. Where are the incentives and reduced levies in our downtown? Where are the developers to build more housing or mid-rise buildings downtown? I guess we don’t need them because Coun. Postma stated that no developers are interested in downtown. Funny that because I know many people would live downtown. how does she know when the RFP was never sent?
Is it any wonder why our downtown lags when even our own councillors state no one wants to do anything in downtown? With that kind of statement who needs bloggers to dismiss Windsor? We have councillors doing it with their own words and actions. London works with their county partners, Windsor wants to sue theirs.
Ever know where the majority of the good retailers went when they left the downtown? Go look at Manning rd. and Tecumseh rd. in St. Clair Beach.
Now do you see the difference?
If you want to get lights fixed, you don’t call 311 - that won’t do jack. You go down to enwin and get their corporate directory to find out who’s at what extension. Then you start making phone calls to LOTS of people in there (even if they’re in the wrong department) and cause a giant ruckus. Eventually, they will get so tired of you that they’ll make it a priority. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease.
Yeah but those corporate places have a way to fight back when people do stuff like that - it’s called the “HOLD” button.
Unfortunately, that is probably true. However, if getting put on hold is enough of a deterrent then obviously it wasn’t important anyways.
As a side note, I notice that the DWBA is only 5 people. The person in charge appears to be Judith Veresuk. Her phone# is 519-252-5723 x25. If the lights are indeed her problem, pick up the phone and complain.
Judith Veresuk quit a while back and has not been replaced.
Well here’s the other 4 people so maybe it’s one of them:
Communications & Marketing Manager
Barbara Peirce Marshall ext. 23
[email protected]
Finance Officer
Arunas Januska ext. 24
[email protected]
Member Services Officer
Agatha Sarafianos ext. 21
[email protected]
Operations Manager
Rochelle Emery-Luckett ext. 28
[email protected]
The DWBIA is working with Enwin to ensure that these lights are functioning. Please feel free to contact the DWBIA at any time if you have any questions.
Rochelle, (I’m guessing Rochelle Emery?) who’s in charge of lights at enwin?
Its not the DWBIA its ENWIN
It’s good to see Mark Boscariol calling for zero tolerance.
But I’m a little confused.
Mr. Boscariol expressed concerns over my policy stance of “zero tolerance” for the core in 2006, citing police costs as one of the reasons he was concerned.
After discussing with him for over an hour at the CAW centre in 2006, I ultimately softened my stance on rooftop patios.
http://www.chrisschnurr.ca/PDF/campaignbrochure.pdf
I honestly think zero tolerance on weekend nights once the bars let out should be mandatory. Everything from littering to public urination should dealt with swiftly.
Without swift action we will never reclaim our downtown.
The downtown issue has been ongoing for over 10 years. If you can solve the problem of littering and public urination, as a downtowner, I would be much obliged. Good luck.. it hasn’t and doesn’t seem to be a priority. Civic pride isn’t somthing that we have bragging rights about. The glass should be half full, but our leaders???? see it always as half empty and a reason for a legal team. Go figure - how hard is it to clean up the house!!!!!!
Zero tolerance is not as simple as you think
One time Councillor Haldberstadt had several more AGCO staff assigned to downtown in order to “crackdown”.
Not one problem bar or bar in a problem area received a single extra citation. However, bars that had never presented a problem in areas that no one complained received several citations
I’ve heard stories of people ticketed for jaywalking across ouellette even though the street was closed to traffic. Sometimes when you call for zero tolerance you have the odd overzealous officer.
I’m not putting blame on officers here. I’m saying that you can’t simply put all the responsibility n the police,
I think that this is a lazy solution. I think that people want zero tolerance because they don’t want the rest of the community to own up to their responsibility.
Example:
If we have a public urination problem, policing is only one side of the equation, public washrooms called for in the Belmio report is the other side
How about zoning massage parlors out of downtown, how about signage bylaws that prevent neon or strobe lighting
What about fixing the broken streetlights on Pelissier?
And here is my most cynical comment to date. Answer this question: Next city council meeting where we have the 3am closing discussed again. How many residents, family and friends of victims are needed to override the presence of the police in council chambers to get councillors to act?
I heard Belmio will visit again April 2nd. Stay tuned for the confirmation