New mayor faces high expectations

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2014 (3784 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg has elected an energetic, young, progressive mayor with a lot of ideas on how to move the city forward.

His enthusiasm and optimism are infectious, which may well be the very qualities that appealed to a majority of Winnipeggers, rather than his elaborate hodgepodge of policy announcements.

Mr. Bowman faces a long learning curve and he will quickly realize advancing civic interests and getting city hall to work are a complicated business that have frustrated both political veterans and rookies alike.

In the short term, he should implement his pledge to create an executive policy secretariat, a group of policy advisers that serves as a liaison between the mayor’s office and the civic administration. Mayor Sam Katz had disbanded the body, which shifted power to the administration and, in particular, to the chief administrative officer.

Unfortunately, the mayor-elect has promised to curtail his own power by holding council elections for executive policy committee, rather than directly appointing them. Mr. Bowman seems to think this will make the rest of council happy while eliminating secrecy and the perception EPC is a closed club.

In fact, it could merely impair his ability to lead, while weakening the power of the office for future mayors.

The affable Mr. Bowman may find he can work just fine with an elected EPC that owes its loyalty to council, not him. Let’s hope so, because a dysfunctional inner policy group will ultimately hurt the city.

The major issues in the campaign were taxes and roads, neither of which can expect dramatic changes in the short term.

Mr. Bowman has pledged to spend a little extra on road repairs through a combination of efficiencies and modest tax hikes. Like everyone else who has studied the city’s finances, however, the new mayor also realizes a new revenue model is needed for the city to do anything more than tread water.

Like mayors before him, he can wait for the provincial or federal governments to pony up some cash for a particular project or series of road improvements. That’s how a lot of critical infrastructure work gets done in Canadian cities, none of which have the independent political and economic power needed to manage their own destinies.

This will be Mr. Bowman’s biggest challenge in the long term, particularly if he wants to fulfil his signature election promise, namely the completion of five rapid-transit corridors within 16 years. If there was something resembling a vision in the civic election campaign, it was this bold pledge to modernize Winnipeg’s transportation network.

Mr. Bowman said he will revive the New Deal discussions that were launched by former mayor Glen Murray, who led an unsuccessful national campaign for fiscal reform. He’s off base, however, in saying property taxes should be completely eliminated and replaced with a municipal sales tax of roughly four per cent.

Property taxes may be regressive, but they have a place in a city’s fiscal arsenal. Taxes on property help to pay for services to homeowners, including garbage pickup, fire protection, snow clearing and so on.

Municipal revenues should be much more diversified, but it will take more than the affecting appeals of a newly elected mayor to convince Broadway and Ottawa to reduce their powers of taxation. Still, it’s a battle worth fighting, even if it only results in partial victory, such as granting cities the right to tax automobile registrations, liquor and possibly the use of roads through tolls and mobility pricing.

With eight new faces on council, including his own, Mr. Bowman has an opportunity to create a more positive and productive dynamic at city hall.

Good luck, Mr. Bowman.