Attended the River Heights by-election debate last night. Some kneejerk thoughts:
- Currier came off stronger in my opinion. Not just on policies, which obviously would appeal to me stronger than Orlikow's brand of working consensuses. Currier had the "voice", which is probably self-evident considering his years on radio, but I just found Orlikow's tone to be far too passive, almost sheepish at times. The only section where I felt Orlikow appeared truly passionate was towards the end when he was discussing traffic issues.
- Currier was unequivocal. He would raise property taxes to afford better service.
- To Marcia, my friend who runs a massage therapy place out of a home on Grant, vote Orlikow. When asked specifically about the uptick of home-based businesses along Corydon and Grant, Orlikow took the position that businesses should be licenced on a case-by-case basis, depending on how they fit the neighbourhood. Currier felt that once you had customers coming to your "shop", that flipped the home to a commercial property and should be zoned accordingly.
- Currier took a strong position that the city should focus on core services. And that if the city isn't looking for ways to provide those services in the most cost-efficient way possible, they weren't doing their jobs.
- Orlikow said he felt that the garbage service south of the river isn't as good as it was a few years ago when he knew his garbageman Jack and that Jack would help him determine what could and could not be throw away. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he knew he specific garbageman, but I know I lived on Mulvey from 2003 to 2005 (pre-privatization) and we lost garbage cans, found litter on the alley and all the other horrible things being said about the BFI service today. And it costs us significantly less today. I would wager with anyone that the vast majority of Winnipeg residents affected have not noticed one single difference in their service and that Orlikow was viewing the past union-ran city service through rose-coloured partisan glasses.
- When asked about keeping the issues the councillor deals with local (IE "Do you feel that a councillor has a responsibility to champion national or global causes), Currier was strongly no, saying that it is not a councillor's place to speak for the city on those stages, but the mayor's. Orlikow took a middle road response that actually wasn't bad either. (Yes, but within context of convincing the city to speak with one voice on the issue.)
- Being the River Heights Community Centre that put on the debate, there was a little too much focus placed on community club questions for my liking. I do not discount the value of community clubs, really I don't, however when I hear club proponents discuss their visions for clubs and how they are the focal points of the areas surrounding them, it just sounds so anachronistic. As if the habits and preferences of people haven't changed over the last thirty or forty years. Most people don't use their local community club. How many people in Winnipeg actually volunteer at least one hour a month to their club? 0.1% (That would be over six thousand Winnipeggers involved with their community club in a volunteer capacity. Could it really be that high? Anyone got numbers on this?) Anyhow, people today just don't have the time - and in many cases, the inclination - to involve themselves with the community club, so councillors have to adjust accordingly methinks. You can't be a community club's are the pinnacle of community planning kinda guy all the time, but of course, that's what community club proponents demand because to them, the clubs are the pinnacle.
- Currier was against privatizing water services. Ditto community clubs. Orlikow actually took the more pro-private direction on the latter. He suggested that if the private sector wanted to get involved in say building a new rink for a club, that was one thing. However, management of clubs should still sit with the public.
- Currier was pro-expansion of Kennaston. I can't remember if I heard Orlikow address that one specifically, though he made a good point about knowing where the cars would go once they hit the St. Jame's Bridge, which lends itself to his likely opposition to a straight ahead expansion of Route 90 south of the bridge. Expanding Sterling Lyon Parkway to Pembina was also discussed, as well as a Waverly underpass.
- Overall, I counted about 50 people including political folks like myself, Dale Smeltz, Winnipeg Citizen's Coalition frontman Liam Martin, Cindy Gilroy-Price, former councillor Donald Benham, Marianne Cerilli and school trustee candidates Gary Brownstone, Barbara Coombs (who I think is involved with the RH Community Club) & Colin Fast with little Cooper in tow. (Oh yeah, Brandi had curling, sure, sure.)
- I'm sure the trustee candidates where looking for pointers ahead of their debate tomorrow night. (That or they smartly used the debate as a good enough excuse to not be door knocking on such a miserable night.)
- Event Notice: [EDIT: TONIGHT IS THE DEBATE. I guess that is relevant information.] Grant Park school, 7:00pm start in the junior gym for those of you like me who can't get enough of this type of thing. If only 50 will come out to a councilor debate and half of them are media/political class types, just imagine how few will come out to a school trustee debate.
- Event Notice Two: The IKEA open house is tonight at J.B. Mitchell school (4:00pm to 8:00pm). It'll be a gong show and I wouldn't miss it for anything. If I'm going to get yelled at by a resident at the Route 90 forum last month, imagine what fun I could get into here!
