Delay cycling-plan vote: Wyatt

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Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt says a council vote on the controversial pedestrian-and-cycling strategy should be postponed pending an independent review of the consultant contract given to the wife of a senior public works official.

Wyatt said most members of council were unaware Jeannette Montufar, part of the consulting team that worked on the pedestrian-and-cycling strategy, is the wife of Luis Escobar, the city’s transportation engineer and the official overseeing the pedestrian-and-cycling strategy.

Wyatt said he would also be filing a formal complaint against Montufar with the engineering profession’s regulatory body for a series of comments she posted on her Twitter account.

Montufar has defended her actions.

“We need to get some answers as to how the consultant contract was awarded,” Wyatt said. “I’m not saying there was anything wrong done, but there needs to be an independent review immediately before council is asked to vote on the strategy.

“I don’t think members of council were aware that (Montufar), who is a major author into this report, is the wife of the senior engineer (Escobar) who heads the division overseeing this report.”

Wyatt said Montufar was awarded her contract in December 2012 — a period when Sam Katz was mayor and Phil Sheegl was CAO.

Wyatt said in light of the allegations of improper actions by senior administrators during the previous term, members of council need to know all the rules were followed in the awarding of a consulting contract to Montufar.

“There is definitely a code of conduct for senior civil servants, as there is for members of council, and I want to believe that there was an open bidding process, and the selection was done independent of (Escobar), that she did not report to him and there was a proper process put in place to ensure any conflict of interest did not occur,” Wyatt said. “That can only be done through an independent review; it can’t be done internally.”

Wyatt, along with Couns. Jeff Browaty and Jason Schreyer, said last week they would move a series of amending motions at the July 15 council meeting to address what they believe are serious shortcomings with the pedestrian-and-cycling strategy, a mammoth document that commits city hall to spend $334 million over a 20-year period on a network of pedestrian and cycling routes across the city.

The strategy has twice been endorsed by the public works committee and is expected to go to council at the July 15 meeting for formal adoption as city policy.

Montufar, who worked on the report, began posting critical comments about Wyatt on her Twitter account when Wyatt first went public with his concerns in mid-May, and she continued to post critical comments about his objections over the ensuing weeks, including on Tuesday when Wyatt, Browaty and Schreyer met publicly to discuss their next steps.

Wyatt said Montufar’s comments on Twitter were unprofessional and unethical, explaining that, as a consultant hired by the city, she should not be publicly advocating for the project she worked on or criticizing the politicians who will vote on the project.

Montufar, who is an engineering transportation consultant and an engineering professor at the University of Manitoba, said she was involved in developing the pedestrian aspects of the strategy.

Montufar said she posted her comments not as one of the consultants who worked on the report but as an engineering professor and an expert in transportation.

“What Coun. Wyatt is doing, in my opinion, jeopardizes accessibility, mobility and equity for vulnerable users, and I see it necessary to raise that point,” Montufar told the Free Press Tuesday in an email exchange.

Wyatt said he’ll be making a formal complaint against Montufar with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba (APEGM), the regulatory body that governs and regulates professional engineers and geoscientists.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca