City hall not exactly an incubator for good ideas

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2019 (1826 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So you think you have a good idea to improve Winnipeg and, best of all, it would cost taxpayers little or nothing.

Who could say no? City bureaucrats, that’s who. Here are four proposals that seemed win-win solid until they entered the red-tape maze at city hall:

 

School-zone lights for free

Chuck Lewis wanted to install solar-powered amber lights at speed-reduced school zones that would flash only during school hours. He would cover the cost.

Lewis told the Free Press he was motivated by seeing close calls at school zones. “What is a kid’s life worth? Can you put a price tag on it?”

As the general manager of Expert Electric in Silver Heights, he has the know-how and deserved to be taken seriously when he offered to buy, install and maintain the lights. Instead, he felt stonewalled.

He said he originally took the idea to the city in 2015, but got turned down. Then, Coun. Kevin Klein raised Lewis’s offer with the public works department as a pilot project, but officials told him they weren’t interested.

Klein continued to push and, on Sept. 4, the property and development committee finally accepted the offer, but set conditions that include Lewis extending his free maintenance to 10 years from his offer of five years. If he agrees, administration says it will have a proposed agreement written up by Sept. 30.

How does Lewis now feel about his attempt four years ago to work with city hall and do a good thing? “We got shot down pretty good.”

 

Making dog owners jump through hoops

Dog lovers who say Winnipeg has lost about one-third of its dog park space in recent years asked city hall for more off-leash areas. The city responded in April with a five-step application process.

Only after the steps are completed will the city allow a public hearing before deciding on the application. One preliminary step is that people who want an off-leash park must demonstrate support from 70 per cent of nearby property owners who agree to offer an opinion on the proposal.

Dismayed dog owners say members of their non-profit groups — they’re all volunteers, after all — would be unlikely to overcome the red-tape obstacles needed to let their hounds bound.

 

Free Wi-Fi in civic facilities

Coun. Matt Allard was a relatively new councillor in 2016, so perhaps he didn’t yet know city hall can be a place where good ideas go to die.

His ideas were to provide free Wi-Fi in civic facilities and solar-powered cellphone charging equipment at bus stops, all at no cost to city taxpayers because a private-sector partner would fund it.

His pitch to the city’s innovation committee was supported by the president of a local company that builds solar-powered charging stations, who said other communities have found private funding for these ideas and the model could easily be duplicated in Winnipeg.

City administration was unenthusiastic. Anticipating the worst if free Wi-Fi was provided at city facilities, one manager said the city is concerned over “how we allow folks to access the internet, what they might be utilizing the internet for.”

Allard’s pitch was “accepted as information.” That’s administrative jargon for “your proposals will never be heard from again, now please go away.”

 

Signs we can all understand

Winnipeggers who care about their neighbourhood often get frustrated when they try to read pages that are supposed to inform them about details of forthcoming construction developments.

The yellow notices — they’re typically taped to fences outside construction sites — are only about the size of a sheet in a school notebook. They’re legally required, but some content is written in language impenetrable to those not in the property industry.

Edmonton does it much better. Its signs outside construction sites are much larger, include drawings of the planned project and are written in language we can all understand.

If you think it would be easy-peasy to make Winnipeg’s signs more like Edmonton’s signs, you’ve never had the misfortune to deal with city hall.

In December 2016, councillors directed administration to develop better construction-site signage, with a report due April 2017.

The department was given several extensions and the report was eventually presented to the committee in September 2018. However, it stated details on the new signage would be revealed in a subsequent report sometime in 2020.

While the bureaucrats dithered, three city councillors decided in April to act. Councillors Klein, Janice Lukes and Sherri Rollins are using their ward allowances for a pilot project to erect Edmonton-style signs at three construction sites.

Thumbs up to the three councillors who, at least on this issue, displayed common sense that is often uncommon at city hall.

 

Carl DeGurse is a member of the Free Press editorial board.

carl.degurse@freepress.mb.ca