This week the show was able to get into the field and check out breaking developments on stories the city was buzzing about- the Bomber stadium study, City Hall handling closing community centres, and the Airport vs Taxicabs tussle. While we were at it, the MSM in Winnipeg got some kudos from us to go with the razzberry's.
Monday: The week started with our show having been honoured on Saturday with the ultimate tribute for us in the alternative media: a mainstream columnist took credit for breaking a story we had broken first. Last week you heard it here: Carolyn Brock of Manitoba Justice admitted that there wasn't 5 or 50 kids only recently identified as car thieves, but it was two hundred. Our callers had caught onto the effects of catch and release months ago but the authorities think they have things are improving and "get an immobilizer".
One idea about how to deal with youth crime is via municipal curfew. The ugly spectre of litigation was launched by 2 mothers who are concerned that their kids have rights of free association and are victims of age discrimination. As if. Imagine if cops didn't have the power to tell groups of Jr. High kids 'hangin out' at 3 AM : GO HOME.
Frank the Italian Barber joined us in studio to talk sports and sad to say, he went 0 for 4 on Pro Line but was stiil happy about the NFL games. The phones lit up on our discussion of the NFL playoffs and the march of the Saints to the "Winnipeg of the South" Chicago, and the Colts-Patriots showdown. One caller predicted Colts by 3-6, and Bears by 17. Longtime bomber booster Morris in the Village said the Saints were the Cinderella story and could beat the Bears; we said Grossman plays within his limits and the Bears defence wins it for them. We had so much fun we forgot to mention his Jeep was stolen two weeks ago. Again.
Tuesday: One of our most popular segments so far, when we connected the dots: Justice Fred Sandhu gave a 15 year old girl one years probation and told her to find new friends, when she was involved in 4 thefts and another she tried to pull herself after being shown the tricks of the trade. It got bargained down to one theft and one attempted.
This kind of light consequence for a crime that included driving a stolen truck from Polo Park Mall to the north end, is why there is so little sympathy for the convicted car thief still in the hospital after being louisville sluggered. That, in turn, what led to the creation of a new decal, by artist Travis Blair, being sold at Wild Planet. The artwork shows a man besides a car door and getting clocked over the head by another person wielding a bat.
The text says:
"Auto theft may result in severe death or injury"
The store has had inquiries from as far away as Vancouver.
As a follow-up to last Thursday's interview with Avion Services about their airport shuttle van proposal, Joan Wilson of Unicity Taxi spent some time to explain why this issue is so important, and why cabbies feel they have been put together by dirty dealings.
Wilson pointed out that taxis are $200,000 investments by hundreds of largely immigrant drivers. They pay $250,000 to have pick-up rights at the airport, and not only were there no complaints, the airport authority didn't ask them if the company would add vans to the fleet to respond to this supposed need.
In essence, the airport itself is deciding to start a shuttle van service because Avion (which they own) is claiming the service is needed (no data needed please we're a non-profit). There are 135,000 fares out of the airport every year and the Airport's for-profit subsidiary wants a piece of the action, to help finance the airport's bottom line.
And the Taxicab Board which is supposed to regulate motor vehicles transporting passengers for compensation, refused to force Avion to meet the same standards of qualifying for a licence as do the 409 taxis they regulate, somehow claiming the city had to rule on the matter because the lawyers told them so.
Now this isn't courtesy vans operated by a hotel for customers; this is a private company charging $9 a ride. It gets dumped on the city who are in turn told by counsel that they must refer it the PUB. Government lawyers. Go figure.
Why does it look like the Cab Board didn't want to upset the Airport Authority's applecart, and passed the buck to Mayor Sam Katz ?
Two letters to the Editor in the Free Press caught our attention, one quite negative on the Asper Stadium proposal and another, by longtime Winnipeg musician Dan Donahue that while he liked the plan, maybe the team should have to repay the City the bail-out money from 5 years ago, and then we'd have money to keep Community Centres open. Great idea.
Wednesday: CTV crime reporter Kelly Dehn got us updated on the arrest of the Domo robber/kidnapper, the Mayor's proposed Police Commission, and the first murder of the year. Unfortunately, CBC's newsroom doesn't have a map, and reported that the murder occured in the North End when it was near the Stock Exchange Hotel on the other side of the rail yards. But hey, to some reporters, if it's a murder in Winnipeg it must be the North End.
Our main focus on the show was a fascinating visit to City Hall to watch our Councillors in action. The Executive Policy Committee had to handle the hot potatoe of the Avion shuttle van application, with 70 cabbies jamming into the room.
Taxi industry lawyer Barry Gorlick described the Winnipeg Airport Authority as "the elephant in the room", that Avion was "part of a monolith" and made the point that it was "mischief" to compare the utility or demand for a van at any other airport- only Winnipeg's lay so close to a Canadian downtown at a mere $14.00 ride.
And oh ya, according to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, Avion had misrepresented them as supporting the proposal when they did not.
Maples Councillor Mike O'Shaunessy said he was flabbergasted. "Here's these fine folks don't tell us it's owned by the airport".
St. Norbert Councillor Justin Swandel noted that the contract for Unicity to service the airport happened to be expiring on March 31st.
Transcona councillor Russ Wyatt saw through the Cab Board's position and suggested their legislation need to be 'reviewed' by the province.
Gord Steeves of St. Vital dusted off the Act and read the part about transporting fare-paying passengers, out loud.
Yet EPC still just held their noses, and approved the recommendation to Council, that Avion be able to take their proposal to the provincial Public Utilities Board for a decision after a public hearing would be held ( not that PUB has to acceed the city's condition). Just like the lawyers told them to.
Being at City Hall today gave us the chance to describe to our audience, how the different reporters approached the subjects and how little some of them seemed to understood about what was going on, based on the kinds of questions they were asking about taxis and their biases. We'll be watching the coverage to see if the public is given the full picture.
Today was the 65th birthday of Muhammed Ali, our opportunity to reminisce about his career in the boxing ring and the impact his life had outside of the ring around the world.
Thursday: The North End tied the score as it were, only took a couple of days for a body to be found in a house near Alfred and McPhillips.Other local news we pondered was the Gypsy gang that had tried to rob Zeid's supermarkets a few weeks ago. Arrested in Calgary and with stunning store video of their crime spree on the newscasts, they are claiming asylum as refugees.
With the receiver for Maple Leaf proposing to court that they approve a plan to leave creditors holding the bag for 4.6 million dollars, some of the facts around the Crocus Fund collapse. Our belief is the need for a public inquiry completely overweighed the Premier's assertions that the Securities Commission hearing (now postponed going on two years) and Class Action suit (being fought every step of the way by lawyers for the former Directors and still not even certified as a group) would suffice.
As we expected, the coverage of yestreday's EPC decison was falwed. One outlet didn't even mention the Airport is connected to Avion; two others said it provided services to the airport but again, didn't explain the real question to the public.
Because this is not about free enterprise; if another group came forward with a shuttle proposal, who really thinks the Airport would allow them to pick up passengers when it would compete with their own shuttle?
This divisive proposal, putting 300 visible minority cab owners who count on that extra 30 or 40 dollars a day from airport runs, against the airport trying to capture all the dollars on-site, will ineveitably impact service for the rest of Winnipeg cab users and the economy city-wide in favour of A) tourists and B) the airport's bottom line.
Next segment we got to ask the question, what's nice Jewish boy doing being a wrestler?, when Colt Cabana joined us on the phone from Chicago. Choosing a career of bumps and international travel to the UK, Japan and points in between, Colt was plugging his Winnipeg debut this coming Sunday for a worthy cause, The Children's Hospital Foundation. Colt is a star of MTV's new Wrestling Society X show, and is a mainstay of cult favorite Ring of Honor.
Lastly, we had to ask, does anyone at the Free Press even proofread their columnists, or don't they read their own paper to start with? Gordon Sinclair Junior lambasted Sam Katz and the councillors who vote with him, saying the vote to close Elmwood Community Centre was proof there was no compassion at city hall for kids at risk of becoming car thieves.
His bright idea was for Manitoba Public Insurance to fund community centres instead of prosecutors and more cops on the street.
Well, where to start.
We had made two calls and confirmed that Elmwood - the community centre in 900 block Beach, was not on the chopping block.
So either Sinclair meant Kelvin, and no one at the paper fact-checked the column; or Sinclair made it up as an excuse to continue his unwarranted slams at the Mayor.
His bright idea is for all us insured car owners to pay for community centres to stay open; we say MPI's job is to deliver the lowest rates not be in the social service game.
And we wondered, why didn't Sinclair ask the subject of some of his recent glowing columns, the Richardson family, if while they're kicking in a quarter million dollars for the RWB to perform a specific artsy ballet, and another $250,000 for the symphony, maybe they can pony up to save Kelvin....maybe ?
But no, Sinclair would have none of it. It's the Mayor's fault for being hard on crime, and the councillor's fault for mindlessly voting with the mayor. Sound familiar...?
Well one of the calls we made this morning was to Councillor Lillian Thomas' assistant and went like this.
TGCTS: The paper says Elmwood is being closed.
Assistant: Yes that's right.
TGCTS: Oh, well last week it said...
Assistant: Oh, no, it's Kelvin, that's a mistake.
TGCTS: Oh, Ok, but the paper says Elmwood.
Assistant: Is it Gordon Sinclair's column?
TGCTS: Yes.
Assistant: Oh well I haven't read it yet.
Now how did this fellow know Sinclair was writing a column (that did exactly what his boss did last week- shriek at Mayor Katz and call the councillors 'mindless minions') - if he hadn't read the paper? Lucky guess...?
Either way - concocted story or no proofreading - we said we'd invite Free Press editor Bob Cox to explain how the paper handles these kinds of mistakes and what the editing process entails. He had said in the past he'd cover stuff like that on his blog, but it had been dormant since he went skiing on December 29th.
Friday: We were first in the city to bring you the explanation from Ian Craven of Meyers Norris Penny, author of the Stadium Feasability Study, why there was no calculations included for the value of the existing stadium and how much it's disposal could generate. He spent 10 minutes on the air explaining how he crunched the numbers and the square footage to come up with the $204 million required to build a new "Destination Centre" at the Red River Ex site outside the city beside Headingly.
Then we followed with Red River Ex honcho and former Bomber player and exec Paul Robson.
It was a lively discussion and Paul admitted that if the Stadium gets built on a tract of land elsewhere, his Board had never contemplated moving there to continue the synergy found in the Craven study. He wants this project badly, but if some thing else ie David Asper's plan, is approved, the Ex will still work on developing their own facilities.
After joking with Paul about his playing days and what it felt like to be run over for 8 years by George Reed and Clyde Brock on Labour Day, we wished him well and he was off to speak to CJOB.
As nice and sincere as those men were, we told the listeners, based on what we saw and heard at the press conference where the study was released this was essentially stillborn. The MSM reporters clearly were prepared for this story. Good questions were asked about why there was no estimate of the amount the plan would require from the feds and province; why there was no information made available about the other 12 sites studied; and what took so long to release the study when it could have been put out the week after Grey Cup. Some very pointed reporting was taking place.
The vibe was so sceptical that Leo Ledohowski of Canad Inns, who wants to anchor a $50 million dollar hotel and waterpark to the hypothetical DC, basically lectured the media to get behind this concept which would allow Winnipeg to "leapfrog Regina and Saskatoon".
The one thing we noted at the presser was that the 'V' word - VISION - was not uttered for 45 minutes, surely a record these days.
The buzzword du semaine couldn't be attached to this idea because, besides the Premier and Mayor refusing to support any stadium outside the Perimeter, a Bomber rep told Kelly Dehn the team knew their fans were very negative on the Assiniboia Downs-adjacent locale. A nightmare vision- build it and they won't come.
And our listeners have told us, if there's one thing the Asper plan has, is vision.
Based on our reading, the Bomber proposal would only suck life out of the city, hurt downtown and Polo Park, and benefit the Ex and Canada Inns more than anyone.
To wrap up the busy week, we briefly mentioned the sudden passing of well-known main event wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow whose most memorable bout was a Wrestlemania match against New York Giant's superstar Lawrence Taylor.
We also confirmed we had left an open invitation to Free Press editor Bob Cox to come on the show whenever he was available.
NEXT WEEK: In-studio on Tuesday January 23, Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz taking your calls.
