Winnipeg Municipal Election 2014

[Boreal]

I am relatively convinced it will be Judy ascending to the Iron Throne at City Hall. I don't foresee many scenarios in which both Bowman and Steeves remain in the race and Judy does not win.

As always, it will be an interesting watch.

[trueviking]

In my circles oulette is the one taking votes away from bowman not steeves. He has become so ridiculous that I think he will continue to fall...my bet is that he is a fringe candidate by the end. JWL has run such a campaign of beige uncommitted uninspiring mediocrity that she has become vulnerable. I wouldn't take my money off bowman quite yet.

[esquire]

JWL is way too concerned with playing it safe. For better or for worse it's typically the left wing candidates that tend to be urban progressives (although they by no means have a monopoly on that - see conservative David Socknacki who just dropped out of the race in Toronto or liberal-ish Naheed Nenshi in Calgary), but JWL is reluctant to say or do anything on that front.

I have to admit I was prepared to vote for her at the start of this campaign, but now she's off the table for me and will be unless it becomes a two-horse race between her and Steeves. For me it's down to Bowman or RFO, but I can't help shake the feeling that a vote for RFO is a wasted vote...

[trueviking]

^ i like RFO, for sure. He is at least bringing big ideas....but he has zero chance of winning.

i wish he had run for council.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

It's an interesting point you raise.

The police HQ fiasco is really the result of Bartley Kives. If any of the councilors were aware of just how out of control things had gotten, they weren't talking.

I think the citizens has a new found mistrust of large capital projects being handled by the city. If the wheels fall off and the paper makes it a point of turning it into a story, it could very easily be the next police HQ.

Who really knows, though...

Based on what we know, it seems pretty clear that at least one and possibly several senior administrators were playing pretty loose with the truth and either lying by omission or outright lying about the Police HQ among other issues related to $$$. I think most people associate that cluster**** with Katz, Sheegl, Ruta, Joshi. These are the guys who kept the rest of council and public in the dark.

IMO, the hiring of a new CAO is just as, if not more important than this election. This city really needs to clean house at the administrative level. I think that would be a huge step towards regaining public confidence. Not having to go through 3 layers of telephone tag to speak to a city department would be good too.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

Based on what we know, it seems pretty clear that at least one and possibly several senior administrators were playing pretty loose with the truth and either lying by omission or outright lying about the Police HQ among other issues related to $$$. I think most people associate that cluster**** with Katz, Sheegl, Ruta, Joshi. These are the guys who kept the rest of council and public in the dark.

IMO, the hiring of a new CAO is just as, if not more important than this election. This city really needs to clean house at the administrative level. I think that would be a huge step towards regaining public confidence. Not having to go through 3 layers of telephone tag to speak to a city department would be good too.

Absolutely. And Joshi and Ruta are still there! I don't know how you just rid yourselves of them. There's nothing that's been revealed that would lead to legitimate grounds for termination with cause, so do we just pay them to go away? These are full-time positions. I don't think there's any doubt Ruta and Joshi are bereft of any credibility, but they may be here to stay. And realistically, it's council's job to keep the bureaucrats in check. It's fair to say that it was either incompetence, complacency, or neglect that kept them in the dark. Council can bring a senior administrator before itself whenever it likes. Not understanding the nuts and bolts of a project is no excuse. If you're voting in favour of funding capital overruns, it's your job to get to the bottom of why they're there in the first place.

I also see another issue. Senior bureaucrats are knowledgeable people. They're running the government day to day. Is a new mayor and a mostly new council really that interested in entering into a government with very little experience? It's questionable. Which is why I'm suspect of any mayor's ability to clean house. You can't just fire thousands of bureaucrats because they've lazily let things happen on their watch. What else did somebody expect? These are bureaucrats for a reason. Management can try to keep a firm grip, but the C-Level and more seniors administrators are so far removed from the day-to-day operations it's nearly impossible to fulfill a mandate, no matter how stringent...

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Absolutely. And Joshi and Ruta are still there! I don't know how you just rid yourselves of them. There's nothing that's been revealed that would lead to legitimate grounds for termination with cause, so do we just pay them to go away? These are full-time positions. I don't think there's any doubt Ruta and Joshi are bereft of any credibility, but they may be here to stay. And realistically, it's council's job to keep the bureaucrats in check. It's fair to say that it was either incompetence, complacency, or neglect that kept them in the dark. Council can bring a senior administrator before itself whenever it likes. Not understanding the nuts and bolts of a project is no excuse. If you're voting in favour of funding capital overruns, it's your job to get to the bottom of why they're there in the first place.

I also see another issue. Senior bureaucrats are knowledgeable people. They're running the government day to day. Is a new mayor and a mostly new council really that interested in entering into a government with very little experience? It's questionable. Which is why I'm suspect of any mayor's ability to clean house. You can't just fire thousands of bureaucrats because they've lazily let things happen on their watch. What else did somebody expect? These are bureaucrats for a reason. Management can try to keep a firm grip, but the C-Level and more seniors administrators are so far removed from the day-to-day operations it's nearly impossible to fulfill a mandate, no matter how stringent...

With information being cloaked by both the CAO and Mayor, I'm not sure what councillors could have done to get the information. The former CAO was absolutely emboldened by the outgoing mayor, and refused to answer to anyone. I guess if enough of them would have walked out of some meetings there wouldn't have been a quorum and no votes would have stood.

As for the remaining senior administrators involved in this whole mess, it should be possible to terminate their employment with the city given appropriate notice. Probably a couple months given their tenure, but it will take at least that long to replace them anyway. I don't believe they are guaranteed jobs for life with the city. I'm only talking senior admin too, won't be thousands of bureaucrats getting the pink slip, maybe a half dozen.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

With information being cloaked by both the CAO and Mayor, I'm not sure what councillors could have done to get the information. The former CAO was absolutely emboldened by the outgoing mayor, and refused to answer to anyone. I guess if enough of them would have walked out of some meetings there wouldn't have been a quorum and no votes would have stood.

As for the remaining senior administrators involved in this whole mess, it should be possible to terminate their employment with the city given appropriate notice. Probably a couple months given their tenure, but it will take at least that long to replace them anyway. I don't believe they are guaranteed jobs for life with the city. I'm only talking senior admin too, won't be thousands of bureaucrats getting the pink slip, maybe a half dozen.

I get what you're saying here. If somebody wants something well hidden, they'll do what they can. And you're right in some respects. But there was just never any possibility this would go entirely overlooked. If a newspaper reporter can get their hands on it, then a member of council can.

But this is really the story of governments and impropriety everywhere, isn't it? Without a relentless and independent media, we wouldn't know a lot of what we now do...

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

But this is really the story of governments and impropriety everywhere, isn't it? Without a relentless and independent media, we wouldn't know a lot of what we now do...

What's scary is that newsrooms in this city (as with most cities, I suppose) have been gutted over the past 20 years... only the Free Press really still a significant amount of local investigative reporting anymore, with the Sun, CJOB, CBC playing supporting roles by breaking the odd story from time to time. The rest of the local media is usless in this regard.

It makes you wonder how much is going on that is unknown to the public because the skeleton staff at our local media outlets haven't been tipped off about it.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by esquire

What's scary is that newsrooms in this city (as with most cities, I suppose) have been gutted over the past 20 years... only the Free Press really still a significant amount of local investigative reporting anymore, with the Sun, CJOB, CBC playing supporting roles by breaking the odd story from time to time. The rest of the local media is usless in this regard.

It makes you wonder how much is going on that is unknown to the public because the skeleton staff at our local media outlets haven't been tipped off about it.

Frankly, I don't even want to know. The stuff the city already gets away with by dressing it up as redevelopment incentives is bad enough. What really goes on behind closed doors must be totally unconscionable.

In other news, it appears JWL has sewn up the much coveted UFFW endorsement. I'm curious who gets the poisonous nod from the WPS...

[steveosnyder]

I don't know if anyone else has seen it, but at the next council meeting Georges Chartier is presenting the "2014 Trends Report" as part of communications. I didn't really know where to post this, so I'm posting it here.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/CLKDMIS/ViewD.../c/2014/a13856

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by esquire

What's scary is that newsrooms in this city (as with most cities, I suppose) have been gutted over the past 20 years... only the Free Press really still a significant amount of local investigative reporting anymore, with the Sun, CJOB, CBC playing supporting roles by breaking the odd story from time to time. The rest of the local media is usless in this regard.

It makes you wonder how much is going on that is unknown to the public because the skeleton staff at our local media outlets haven't been tipped off about it.

Good point esquire, the lack of investigative journalism and tough questions to both civic and provincial politicians in this city from any of the new sources is shocking. There is a reason both civic and provincial politicians are able to get away with so much when no one questions what they are doing.

[esquire]

^ For sure. Back in the 80s the Sun, Free Press, CJOB, CBC and CTV basically had fully staffed newsrooms. The TV stations had experienced people reporting and researching, not just a chain of freshly minted crecomm grads. CJOB was a news heavyweight in the days before it became a place for loudmouths to spout opinions. The papers had several full time reporters covering City Hall and the Legislature.

The erosion of that level of scrutiny has undoubtedly strengthened the incumbent advantage.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ For sure. Back in the 80s the Sun, Free Press, CJOB, CBC and CTV basically had fully staffed newsrooms. The TV stations had experienced people reporting and researching, not just a chain of freshly minted crecomm grads from BC and Alberta who can't wait to return home. CJOB was a news heavyweight in the days before it became a place for loudmouths to spout opinions. The papers had several full time reporters covering City Hall and the Legislature.

The erosion of that level of scrutiny has undoubtedly strengthened the incumbent advantage.

Added a little something there. The turnover among the TV reporters in our city is insane. For some reason they love to bring in people from out of province, as if there aren't enough wannabe journalists in MB. Would be nice to have people who stick around for a few years, hell maybe even their whole careers. Kind of hard to have any "investigative journalism" when stations like CTV and Global are turning over their reporters every 6 months.

[biguc]

Who's lining judy's pockets, anyway? She's been able to afford a couple pricey endorsements. We've talked about the people backing Bowman in specific terms but not Steeves's or Judy's beyond racists (poor) or orange-tinted glasses (also poor).

[wags_in_the_peg]

PLEASE anybody but JWL for mayor...

[1ajs]

lining her pockets no one shes going and talking to people

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

lining her pockets no one shes going and talking to people

Yeah, like, she just went and talked to the UFFW and would you believe it? They saw eye to eye to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in man hours and promotional materials.

[biguc]

Yeah, Judy admitted to paying for the UFFW endorsement when Falcon questioned her on it. The money to do that is coming from somewhere.

[bomberjet]

What a shady business that politics is. Greasy to the core. If I did that at my job, fuckin jail time (well maybe not on CoW projects, as we know how they go).