The continuation of our interview with St. Vital councilor Brian Mayes has a few surprises for Episode 18.
Part 1- A shout-out to our listeners outside of Manitoba and the readers of Marty’s columns in the Winnipeg Sun. Hear a review of the impact of recent stories about Plan20-50 as an example of the work supported by our sponsors and donors.
8.28 Part 2- Civic issues relating to public information and consultation, and city staff falling far short of their duty:
– Is the city Transportation2050 plan merely formalizing an existing administration practice to “Design streets with emergency vehicles in mind?” Mayes confirms that even as chair of Community Services, he has “no memory of ever talking about that.”
He commits to asking how city staff decided there was not a “significant” delay to emergency service response caused by the Goulet bike lane bottleneck.
14.30 – Mayes says it was a “poor” decision by bureaucrats to give only one day’s notice about pop-ups at local malls to explain Transportation2050 to the public. (Their excuse? it’s not part of the public consultation process so there’s no minimum notice required.)
He agrees that the purpose of those sessions is to give residents a chance to evaluate the plan and then tell their councilors what they think. The limited times and venues chosen excluded too many Winnipeggers.
“You’ll show up at the mall? And nobody will spot that (pop-up)… I feel a town hall coming on.”
Mayes will be focusing on the lack of planning for modifying St. Mary’s Road to manage traffic flow.
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18.00– Hear Mayes describe:
– How planners made assumptions when no money is allotted, wanting to “authorize density on the idea that oh, there’ll be a bridge here (to the U of M)… it just seemed hare-brained.”
– “I voted for a bunch of this stuff under Mayor Bowman’s fairly grandiose plans and the bills are now coming due… I think we’d be better off saying we can’t afford to do a ton of this stuff, let’s revise Our Winnipeg down to a much shorter list.”
– “The disconnect between the planning and the transportation has got to get better.”
– Mayes compliments transit planners for paying attention to residents in his ward
– The city transportation plan was going to be subservient to the Metro region Plan2050, yet city bureaucrats admitted the WMR plan was only ‘alluded’ to in the City plan.
– Mayes has concerns about water and sewage capacity as housing expands in the city and nearby RMs.
“We can all say we want more housing but at the end of the day, we got to have a sewer system that can handle that and I’m not convinced that we do.”
32.00- Part 3- Crime and Public Safety update
We have the latest on the August closing of 3 convenience stores, in EK, St. B, and the West End.
40.25 – You won’t believe the extraordinary measures that retailers are taking to secure snack and grocery items. These closures and security concerns are devastating to the employees and are degrade the quality of life for the community.
– A trio of intoxicated teenage thugs – armed with a machete and an ax – ruined the lives of a 15 year old boy on Selkirk and an 80 year old homeowner on Pritchard this month. The north end wonders, do these kids have a social worker involved? Maybe Nahanni Fontaine can tell them.
The new column in the Sun exposed years of complaints about cyclists and others racing at high speed over the Tremblay bridge into the Archwood neighborhood. Animals have been hurt, and private property damaged.
St. Boniface councilor Matt Allard did what he usually does when aggressive cyclists endanger the public- nothing.
You’ll hear an update from Saturday night about the kind of accidents waiting to happen that were witnessed.