Tough-love detour in parkway conflict

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This article was published 02/11/2017 (2908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City councillor Marty Morantz says someone needs to be held to account.

Coun. Marty Morantz is right.

Mr. Morantz (Charleswood/Tuxedo/Whyte Ridge), who chairs the city’s public-works committee, was outraged this week by the revelation that planning for a proposed east-west corridor in his ward had taken an unexpected, and unwelcome, turn since an open house in January 2016, at which three options for the project were presented to area residents.

The infrastructure enhancement, part of the southward expansion of the William R. Clement Parkway, involved a possible east-west corridor linking the parkway to Kenaston Boulevard. At the public briefing last year, the alternatives were discussed, and an option involving the widening/twinning of Wilkes Avenue was overwhelmingly favoured by residents.

After that open-house session, WSP Canada — the engineering consulting firm hired by the city to assist in developing the project — apparently acted on its own initiative in developing a fourth option, involving a southwest extension of Sterling Lyon Parkway that would cut through several rural-like residential areas, and require expropriation and demolition of numerous homes.

Mr. Morantz was not alone in his agitation. Dozens of Charleswood residents attended Tuesday’s public-works committee meeting in a show of solidified opposition to the unexpected endorsement by civic administration of WSP’s fourth option. What they heard from the councillor who represents their area must have been music to their ears.

“I want the individuals from the City of Winnipeg who are on this file, the engineers on this file, to be removed,” Mr. Morantz told reporters during a break in the meeting. “Circumventing the will of council is what’s happened on this file.”

Mr. Morantz added that the unusual turn of events in the parkway expansion project had caused him, and the community he represents, to lose confidence in the city’s engineering team.

The end result of Tuesday’s meeting was that the public-works committee voted unanimously to eliminate the controversial Sterling Lyon Parkway extension as an option. The city’s chief administrative officer, Doug McNeil, admitted that major errors were made in the handling of this project. He also broke with council protocol by directly addressing the Charleswood residents in attendance: “I do truly apologize on behalf of the public service,” he told them.

Given that the meeting ended with residents getting the relief they’d demanded, it would be easy to treat all that has occurred as bygones and move on with exploring the project’s other options. But that would not be enough.

Serious consideration must be given to the manner in which events unfolded between the January 2016 open house and Tuesday’s committee meeting. The notion that this was simply an administrative error or a series of cross-jurisdictional oversights is a bit hard to accept; rather, this looks and feels like yet another manifestation of the eternal power struggle between the city’s administrative and elected bodies.

The expertise of the administrative side is essential to the successful completion of any civic undertaking. But council — and, more particularly, the ratepayers its members represent — must be given due and respectful consideration. The stomach-turning sleight of hand that occurred here cannot be allowed to repeat.

Mr. McNeil would not say Tuesday if he would discipline city staff or dismiss WSP from the project. Mr. Morantz should make it his mission to ensure at least one of those things — the removal of WSP — happens, and should rightly demand that the other be given serious thought.