It’s time to enhance city’s image

With new year’s resolutions already shot to hell, Christmas bills rolling in, the flu bug on the rampage and the bathroom scale begging for mercy, it’s little wonder they call January, especially this coming Blue Monday, the most depressing time of the year.

But there’s a fix for all this seasonal gloom that doesn’t involve climbing out on a window ledge, ingesting meds or jetting off to the Mayan Riviera. It’s called daydreaming, or pipe-dreaming in my case, about better times.

In Windsor’s case, the window for fantasizing is closing fast, with 2020 budget deliberations — where an infinite wish list of worthy ideas will crash up against the stark reality of finite dollars — just over a week away.

The prevailing sentiment, and I don’t challenge it, is that any loonies this city can rustle up at budget time must be funnelled into public housing and creating a muscular transit system.

But surely there’s still some room for initiatives that would make Windsor, long derided as an eyesore by many of its inhabitants, a more inviting place to live or invest. Remember the Windsor Beautification Committee? The good news is that it still exists. The bad news is that it’s in Windsor, Conn., where it’s tapping into the massive, non-profit Keep America Beautiful fund.

Here are a few ideas that could enhance Windsor’s image, with input from Mayor Drew Dilkens.

The Ford riverfront lands: The city has been rebuffed twice since 2015 in its efforts to acquire 13 acres of fenced-off Ford property at the foot of Drouillard Road to expand our one great visual asset, the riverfront parks network. But hope springs anew. Dilkens said private interests are exploring a deal with Ford that could, some day, revitalize that reclaimed brownfield site while providing public access to the riverfront.

The Abar’s site: Dilkens believes that property at Riverside and Lauzon, owned by the Ambassador Bridge company, would make a “brilliant” riverfront parks addition but said the city has made little headway in marathon negotiations on an agreement, mandated by the feds, that would allow the company to build a new bridge. A settlement that includes the city gaining that site, said a frustrated Dilkens, would be “a win-win” for everyone.

Windsor gateways: Five years ago, I described the city’s scruffy entrances as screaming “Hicksville.” Dilkens agrees. He said the Dougall Parkway gateway, in particular, is “just a bloody eyesore” and “doesn’t leave the impression I think we should create.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for action.

The city has budgeted $2.8 million in its seven-year plan for gateway improvements, but the first expenditure, a modest $500,000, isn’t slated until 2022.

Jackson Park: When council voted in late

2018 to demolish the antiquated municipal greenhouses in Lanspeary Park and build a state-of-the-art greenhouse complex in Jackson Park, I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a visitor-friendly structure that would be much more than a nursery for potted plants.

What a gift it would be, I thought, if the vast majority of us who can’t afford winter retreats in Florida, could warm our bones strolling through a tropical garden in the dead of winter.

Folks in frigid Winnipeg are awaiting completion this fall of The Leaf, an indoor conservancy in a city park that will feature multiple biospheres, including a tropical one with a six-story waterfall, pond and butterfly garden.

Trees: I suggested that Windsor should join the civilized world this year and enact a municipal tree bylaw, like most larger Ontario cities have, to at least slow the runaway butchering of mature trees on public and private property.

Dilkens flatly rejected that idea. “It’s not a priority for people,” insisted the mayor. Conversely, he said, the city has a huge backlog of calls from residents who want trees removed or trimmed. He said thousands of area residents would be “miffed” if they had to get a permit from city hall. Silly me. I keep forgetting that many of my fellow citizens hate raking leaves but love their sun-scorched open spaces.

On a positive note, Dilkens said the city will eagerly participate, in partnership with the Essex Region Conservation Authority, if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers on his campaign pledge to plant 2-billion carbon-capturing trees across Canada over the next decade.