Audio from a shocking incident on a Transit bus transporting inner-city kids after school raises questions about the smoke-and-mirrors approach of City Hall to public safety.
Part 1- Marty Gold recaps his Winnipeg Sun report about a family whose mother didn’t get scheduled for urgent heart surgery.
Debbie’s Law warns surgery patients when wait-time exceeds guidelines
They’ve proposed ‘Debbie’s Law’ that would require authorities to warn patients they will be on the wait list for longer than their doctor said the life-saving surgery is required. Meanwhile, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara floated the most ridiculous excuse in history why the NDP doesn’t keep track of patients who die waiting for surgery.
17.50 Part 2– Police busted 9 criminals in the William Whyte area after a spate of gang-related shooting, robberies and stabbings. Neighborhood Association president Darrell Warren noted:
“A lot of the residents, because of the shootings in the area, are afraid to go out because they might get caught up in the crossfire.”
They won’t even leave their houses, yet city officials think people should risk being shot to come downtown, where the risk to their safety is so significant Mayor Scott Gillingham is spending another $200,000 on a “Safe Winnipeg Initiative.”
He’s hiring yet another advisor, who will hold meetings and “to take what these groups are already doing, bring others to the table, use data, use crime trends and make our city safer.”
This adds an expensive insult to the injury caused by former police chief Danny Smyth’s reign of hugging thugs instead of fighting crime. Smyth was notorious for ignoring data but somehow wasn’t fired for it.
More confusing is why is Gillingham not having the new police chief, Gene Bowers, take the helm on this project.
Isn’t it his job? Why does Gillingham want an appointee to give Bowers direction? Is this a CYA exercise?
The reasoning for the initiative is to help draw people back to downtown. The Chamber of Commerce head honcho said “We’re not asking people to do something they didn’t do before the pandemic,” but that’s a big fib.
It’s more dangerous than ever downtown, and that’s why Gillingham’s Community Safety Officers- paid more than cops- do their patrols with two teams at a time.
33.20- What will the measure of success be for this new public safety advisor? We propose a test – how will they deal with assaults on Transit buses
We have exclusive audio from a Good Samaritan who helped take down a hair-pulling, arm-biting woman and along with another man, got bloodied up for their bravery.
The incident started many blocks before police admitted to the media, with the fare-skipper hurling abuse at junior high students coming home from school before she violently assaulted adults. The transit operator just kept driving.
41.00- Listen to the audio of the wild scene on the 33 bus witnessed by those kids.
Maybe the new guru should meet with those kids and other Transit users traumatized by what they see every day, and show some care for the mental health of the victims and not just the perps.
Our source wrote their City Councilor Sherri Rollins, “I often take the bus with my junior high students and there’s almost always dangerous. aggressive encounters with non-paying riders.”
Will Gillingham’s crime guru decide that fare payments should be enforced finally? That doesn’t take a $200,000 expenditure to figure out.
48.20 There’s a laugh in a sidebar to all of this.
The Free Press looked at the City, MPI and others trying to get downtown workers to return to the office, but never mentions how the newspaper cannot get their own reporters to attend to their desks.
Is it because the Inkster Industrial Park is so dangerous, or something else?
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Today in the Winnipeg Sun: For the proposed four-plex housing rules, someone in the administration decided to give Winnipeg’s 800,000 residents only one Open House to see it for themselves.
They also decided to hold the session downtown, on a weekday, during rush hour.
For the Malls and Corridors zoning changes, four separate Open House events were conducted. These changes are far more extensive and will affect 21 different local area plans. So, why is only one in-person Open House being offered this time?
We know what the excuse was, but the spinners at 510 Main Street dared not admit it to me.
In a Winnipeg Sun editorial on Feb. 26th , St. Vital Councillor Brian Mayes revealed that, “City staff said there will only be one in-person session because of ‘security concerns.’”
When I told Mayes that part was left out of the response from the staff, his observation was, “If you’re going to say it, then own it.”
What the supposed security concerns are, no one will tell me on the record. Off the record, however, it’s been described by City Hall insiders as “The Niverville Effect.”
But the staff didn’t. And no wonder.
It’s fallout from the demise of Mayor Gillingham’s beloved Plan20-50:
Read more – Unfounded ‘security concerns:’ No reason to limit four-plex consultations