The City of Winnipeg Standing Policy Committee on Downtown Development met in-camera on May 4 to decide whether to go forward with the process to transfer the "historic Gate Lands" to the special interest group that opposed the growth of downtown residential population.
The zombies in Winnipeg's mainstream media blandly regurgitated that the councillors- Pagtakhan, Fielding, Gerbasi, and Steeves - voted to approve the deal going forward to Executive Policy Committee.
BUT a leaked copy of the administration report acquired by TGCTS revealed that the Friends do not want the public to know,
- who has contributed money, and the amount of their donation
- the actual cash amount the Friends have on hand
- how much is outstanding in pledges, or
- the conditions donors placed on their support.
This is significant since the conditions placed upon the Friends by the Committee explicitly stated a schedule of funding must be submitted that would include those details (as well as a business plan and a purchase agreement for the Grain Exchange Curling Club).
"The Public Service engaged the services of Ernst and Young LLP to obtain information concerning various aspects of the pledges, including the amounts, conditons, timing and recognition of the pledges provided."
This was consistant with the expectations of not only the Mayor and councillors but of the public, who are contributing $3 million via federal and provincial government grants, as well as giving up $1.2 M in land for the pet project of millionaires.
But the Friends decided they could not live with the consequences of coming clean -- and the city bureaucrats willingly agreed.
"For confidentiality reasons, E & Y did not provide details of the donors.... The Public Service requested E & Y to provide additional information with respect to the pledges. ON AVERAGE THERE ARE A NUMBER OF CONDITIONS BUT PLEDGES ARE SUPPORTED BY DOCUMENTATION AND THE CONDITIONS APPEAR TO BE MANAGEABLE."
As we asked Councillor Browaty on the air Tuesday, who are these unnamed unelected bureaucrats who deign to accept the loophole of "secrecy" instead of the required transparency, and recommended approval of their cooked report?
Who will be held responsible for the risk that their guess is wrong, that the conditions are not managable, that the pledges will not be fulfilled, and that the project will actually run short of the required private funding?
Most of all, who is being protected by the "confidentiality" relied upon by E & Y-- who themselves are being paid for with our tax dollars? We raised the question, is E & Y connected to this proposal in any way?
They did not even provide a compilation of the highly public donations that the Friends trumpeted in the MSM thru staged radiothons and publicity stunts, used to create the illusion of "grassroots" support.
They didn't need the permission of the Friends for that, they needed a newspaper clipping service.
By what logic are the lauded donations of the rich and famous, as well as of the duped seniors and schoolchildren, now exempt from being itemized on a comprehensive schedule for all to see, before the deal is finalized and title to the land handed over?
Is this secrecy serving to protect the Manitoba Club? The private club, whose property value and membership revenue stand to skyrocket, held a majority of membership on the Friends, with 21 out of the 37 known members enjoying the perk of a dining room that they hope will soon overlook a national park. The Manitoba Club has, by the admission of Dr. Gerry Grey of the Friends, contributed NOT ONE DIME to the project.
The approval of the report by the Downtown Development Committee is an abdication of their responsibility to taxpayers.
So too, is the stunning silence of Winnipeg's media, especially those outlets like the Free Press that also had the leaked report. For reasons unknown, some reporters chose to cover-up the fact that the Friends, which includes among its members FP owner Bob Silver, are skirting the disclosure rules Winnipeggers were assured they had to meet before they got access to millions of our tax dollars.
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Thanks to yesterdays guests, Kelly Dehn of CTV (a diehard Boston Bruins fan), Scott Taylor of Citi-FM (not a fan of NHL commish Gary Bettman), and New Brand Wrestling founder Walter Shefchyk, who reminisced about the closing of the Winnipeg cable-TV staple 25 years ago.
We spoke of the Canadian performers who headlined across the regional circuit such as Chris Pepper, Playboy Doug McColl, Caveman Broda, and Dynamite Dave Petro, as well as the imported touring stars such as AWA meanie Lars Anderson, the master of the full nelson Dean Higuchi, Moondog Ed Moretti, and Ron "Mighty Zulu" Pope.
Walters' kind comments about my own contributions as the play by play voice and about my unremarkable in-ring career were most appreciated.
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Today at 4.45 PM, listeners will have a chance to win 2 tickets to the BS Comedy Players show tomorrow night at the Burton Cummings Theatre, "The Dud, the Bad and the Ugly… And Other Stories".
Established in 2008, the BS Comedy players are a non-profit organization dedicated to staging a political satire comedy revue in the spirit of the now-defunct Winnipeg Press Club's "Beer & Skits." This production is dedicated to the memory of the recently-departed political columnist and B & S veteran, Arlene Billinkoff.
Show tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets, charge-by-phone at 780-3333 and online at http://www.ticketmaster.ca/. For more information on the show, call the BS Comedy Players Hotline at 339-6317, or visit http://www.bscomedy.com/.
