Scoops In Abundance For Chris And Gord

People who have been puzzled by the devotion of Windsor Star columnists Chris Vander Doelen and Gord Henderson to Mayor Eddie Francis and his every idea and whim, scratch your heads no longer.

No it’s not primarily because Star editorial page editor John Coleman is married to the mayor’s executive assistant Norma, as many people charge. It’s because journalists are addicted to scoops.

And in case you didn’t notice, the mayor dishes up scoops to Chris and Gord on a regular basis. He has them on speed dial, as Star Editor Mary Beneteau told the newspaper’s readers a few moons ago.

The latest example can be seen in Vander Doelen’s scribblings on Page 3 today, entitled “Tax plan would lure investors.” Mayor Francis told City Council late Monday afternoon that he was going to introduce a notice of motion for a city-wide Community Improvement Plan at the public meeting that night. He urged Council to waive the procedural bylaw so the plan could be voted on immediately.

The mayor introduced the resolution at the end of the Council meeting around 9 p.m. Familiar with how the Star deadlines work, I know it would have been impossible for Vander Doelen to write a column, detailing the plan, for Tuesday’s paper without having advance knowledge, unlike City Councillors, directly from the mayor’s office.

Many of the columns penned by Chris and Gord are like this. Once in a while they quote Mayor Francis, but for the most part they simply paraphrase his musings on a given issue and claim them as their own.

Chris, when he first took over as the regular page 3 columnist for Gord, was critical about a few of the mayor’s initiatives, notably the downtown canal. Soon, however, the mayor began feeding him scoops which at times wins the columnist above-the-fold, front-page stories with his mug shot attached.

Now we cannot find a cross word for the mayor in any of Vander Doelen’s columns.

Prior to his semi-retirement, Gord was the chief benefactor of this mayoral pipeline, although he still uses this insider information to pen most of his weekly pillars that invariably paint the mayor in a glowing light.

As an old newspaperman myself, I can fully understand the lure of this attachment at the hip to a man who favours them with the filtered, sanitized and spun information that allows the mayor to bestride the City of Windsor.

It’s been proven that Gord and Chris, not wanting this gravy train of exclusives to ever end, will tar and feather any voices of opposition to the mayor on Council, or outside Council.

So what does this arrangement between its opinion leaders and the mayor say about the integrity of the Windsor Star?

Yes, they can thumb their scoop-enriched noses at their so-called competition from the electronic media and various and sundry blogs and print periodicals. But no, they can no longer claim to be a pillar of the Free Press.

Retention Basin VS Canal

I found the choice of a prop interesting this week when Mayor Eddie Francis posed for photo ops with Sandra Pupatello and Jeff Watson to regurgitate the benefits of infrastructure stimulus funding for Windsor.

The prop was the $67-million storm water retention basin, under construction on the riverfront. I did not attend the event since I have many other balls in the air these days, but I now regret it since I missed a great irony.

It was May 1, 2009 when I spilled out the words – “Your Arrogance Knows No Bounds” at Malden Centre after the mayor called a third meeting of Council in about a week to once again try to pressure Councillors into supporting his $40-million plus downtown canal project.

After my outburst, triggered by Jeff Watson’s admission that the mayor had sent him plans for the canal months earlier, while withholding same from Councillors, I am proud to say that I moved the successful motion to apply for the retention basin funding instead of the canal funding.

Here is what Mayor Francis said in the wake of that decision: “Other cities are putting forward massive projects with vision. Today, here, instead of such vision, we have a receptor sewer project … how does that diversify our economy? All we’ve done is remove the opportunity for federal government funding.”

A year and a half later, with an election looming, Mayor Francis seems to have discovered the great merit of the retention basin, which will end sewage overflows into the Detroit River.

The canal, however, has not been forgotten. Mayor Francis has promised to make it an election issue. To that end, I will be asking residents of the new Ward 4 if that project should be one of Council’s priorities among 11 others I will be listing on a survey soon to be delivered door to door.

I invite readers of this site to start weighing in on this issue in the comments section: “Should tax money be spent on a downtown canal project?”