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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Katz, Wasylycia-Leis trade barbs

By: Bartley Kives

Posted: 09/4/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Mayoral challenger Judy Wasylycia-Leis is continuing to portray the Sam Katz administration as secretive and ethically suspect, this time by alleging the mayor's office interferes with freedom of information requests.

Wasylycia-Leis said on Friday the mayor's office played a role in the denial of a request made by one of her supporters for information about the Veolia sewage-treatment contract -- and also accused Katz's staff of playing a role in the planning, property and development department's denial of a Free Press request for a draft of the city's new land-use policy.

Campaign loses Sexy appeal

Judy Wasylycia-Leis has failed to land something sexy that already belongs to Sam Katz -- and it has nothing to do with policy.

In a minor gaffe, a worker on the Wasylycia-Leis mayoral campaign inadvertently asked francophone punk band Les Sexy to perform at a fundraising concert planned for later this month.

Unbeknownst to the campaign worker, Katz's communications director, Brad Salyn, plays drums for the band. He declined the invitation. "I assumed it was just a mistake," he said. "They wouldn't have invited me deliberately."

When informed about the invitation, Wasylycia-Leis said she would have liked to see Les Sexy perform. "Even right-wingers can play drums," she joked.

Salyn chafed at the comment, noting he didn't want to embroil his band in this form of publicity.

"The whole point of joining a band was to be involved in something that has nothing to do with politics," he said.

The Wasylycia-Leis campaign is organizing two events featuring live music, on Sept. 15 and Sept. 30. Winnipeg Folk Festival founder Mitch Podolak is helping with the lineup.

-- Kives

"These are simple requests that should be responded to in full," she said in a statement delivered to reporters at her Portage Avenue campaign office. "The actions of the mayor's office have made it clear that withholding information has become the norm at city hall."

When asked to provide evidence, Wasylycia-Leis said her supporter received a rejection letter from chief administrative officer Glen Laubenstein, whom she described as a member of the mayor's office.

Laubenstein, the city's top civil servant, does not work in the mayor's office.

Wasylycia-Leis also said she had been told the mayor's communications director, Brad Salyn, personally responds to some freedom of information requests.

Salyn is the designated freedom of information officer for the mayor's office and routinely deals with freedom of information requests.

Mayor Sam Katz dismissed her allegations as "irresponsible and disingenuous," noting if she understood how freedom of information requests work, she'd know each city department responds to them without consulting elected officials.

He also said he was amazed she did not know the chief administrative officer does not have his own department.

"This just goes to show she's been away from Winnipeg for too long and does not even know how city hall works," Katz said. "But her campaign team is here. I would expect them to be better-informed."

Salyn, meanwhile, noted he hands out a municipal handbook "to visiting schoolchildren or anyone else who wishes to know more about civic government" that illustrates the administrative structure of city hall.

Katz said both of Wasylycia-Leis's press conferences this week -- an earlier one demanded more information about the Veolia contract -- amounted to baseless mud-slinging.

Sooner or later Winnipeggers will demand she present ideas, Katz said.

Wasylycia-Leis said she brought the freedom of information issue to the public's attention because she said Winnipeggers are concerned about secrecy and openness at city hall.

"Everything I've heard from Winnipeggers over the last four months is that they're sick and tired of the secrecy and closed-door approach at city hall and would like to see a light shone on the affairs of city hall," she said.

She promised the City of Winnipeg will comply with information-disclosure legislation if she is elected in October.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 4, 2010 B2

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