Haven't read too much into it but is Watson primarily responsible for the LRT mess?
Some 17-18 years ago, when Sutcliff was hosting his show. It was election night and O'Brian was on his way to wining. Sutcliff had a panel on. One guest (an older Franco Gentleman, whose name I have forgotten/ he was big in local politics) spoke about the LRT and uttered these FANATSTIC statements
"we need mass transit in east/west fashion, we could not have that. So, we opted for North/south!!!! and he meant that as a positive. I almost fell off my chair.....
Since then, the city has been under tremendous pressure to have an east/west mass transit system..
They scraped the first system (it was idiotic to prioritize North/South) and focused on an east/west.
All the while costs grew and pressure mounted. Tons of money had already been spent and we were looking like a banana republic.
So, in the same way as Murray signed Bobby R and Dorion traded for the Cat and signed Mat Murray... Watson/ et all, got pushed into unwise decisions.
Politics and sports are identical. Both rely heavily on quality decisions made in the past and both live and die by immediate success.
The Sens got screwed by the poor drafting and deals of 2010-2017
The city got screwed by poor decision from 1990-2005
The Sens need 18000 plus to pack the place to pay bills... The Mayor needs ~ 130,000 votes to secure his/her election
You can appreciate, that forces hands and leads to DBC trades, Matt Murray signing, etc... And to a rushed, done on the cheap LRT.
When this city was doing well financially in the1990's. That was the time for a large scale civil project. That was the time for a slow, methodical mass transit build.... Missed and now we patch holes.
It is only fitting that Jim Durrell left the Mayor's office to become President of the Sens....
Watson was facing a new season with only 5,000 season tickets sold. He needed a DBC trade. (metaphorically speaking)