2022 Winnipeg Mayoral election
 

Gillingham officially in now promising to build on the legacy of Bowman. Not sure that's a good platform to run on with how decrepit the city has become in recent years failing to do basic road maintenance or clearing out vagrants from bus shelters.

In 2014 (Katz's last year as mayor), the City spent $70 million on local, regional, and bridge repair. In 2022 (Bowman's last year as mayor), the City is budgeted to spend $146 million on repairs - that's an increase of 109%. Spending more money fixing the roads is literally the only thing of note Bowman has done. You know how everyone's property taxes go up by 2.3% per year while everyone else's in Canada goes up by 4 or 5%? Yeah, the 2% has gone entirely to roads and filling potholes and the piddly .33% goes to fund BRT P3 payments. While everyone else is out building real transit systems, community centers, addressing homelessness, and building better road infrastructure (i.e. interchanges and overpasses, not just filling potholes).

The City's total budget increased by 1.2% from last year to this year. Consumer inflation is in excess of 5% right now and I'm sure labour and construction inputs aren't far behind. The state of this city hasn't changed much partly because there is no money to do so (people rarely get elected on raising taxes to do good) and the province is uncooperative and more concerned with attracting protein processing plants to rural towns than growing the biggest urban center and economic engine of this province.

Everyone hates the roads right now because of a terrible, long, cold, and wet winter/spring. Now if you can show me a mayor that can control the weather then they 100% get my vote (assuming they will bring in good weather of course, not more winter).

Sources:
2014 Road repair budget found on page 83 of this document.
2022 road repair budget found on page 108 of this document.

wake me up when Glen Murray confirms he is running.

^^^

Will the ridiculously overcrowded field of candidates discourage good candidates, since it makes the outcome much more unpredictable?

There is literally a guy living at the bus stop at Panet and Munroe for the past few weeks. It started with a shopping cart and a shanty shed using a blanket to a full blow camp site with a pitched tent now. :shrug:

...and what exactly is Bowman's legacy? Whatever positives over the past 8 years, are in spite of him. The negatives - indicative of his hands off approach. We need someone with vision and guts.

I can't believe the guy is still there. Living in his tent collecting cans or whatever.

same with Marion / St. Mary's and a few others

They've been there all winter.

He must have slightly moved. Last time I saw him he was set up between the 2 BellMTS cabinets in the north east side of that intersection in front of the stone storel.

Many of these candidates need to run for, get elected to and sit on council if they want to have a legitimate shot to be mayor and a chance to make a difference at City Hall.

I know Shaun Loney. Would be a great political leader. But he has nowhere near the establishment support or name recognition to pull off a win here. He'd be a great councilor, exactly the kind of creative and pragmatic thinking we need. Do that for a term or two and then take a real shot at it.

I don't quite understand the people who are effectively nobodies to the public with no political experience who step up and think "I'll run for mayor" of the largest city for 1300 km in all directions.

Same legacy as Glen Murray's. A realization that any vision is dead without a council that is onside in this city. I realize there's no parties at this level but until more establishment types put some heft behind the fact that any overarching vision needs a solid 9-10 council votes it will be one step forward and two steps back for this municipal government.

The neglect from the Katz years is still being felt and the lack of meaningful property tax Increases by Bowman has made the infrastructure deficit in a terrible state. Couple that with his unwillingness to stand up to the police and fps unions that gobble up so much of the cities resources you are left with a winnipeg that is crumbling and in worse shape than I can ever recall in my 38 years.

Maybe it's just the places I drive to in the city, but to me the all-time low point for Winnipeg road infrastructure was after the winter of 2013-14 - just as long as this past winter, maybe longer, less snow but actually colder..coldest winter in 125 years or something like that.

I remember in mid-April of that year when there was still a lot of snow on the ground, the roads were an absolutely minefield on northern Kenaston, secondary roads like Logan were horrible and had yet to be rebuilt, parts of Portage Ave were in a terrible state, St James St and most of the surrounding streets around Polo Park area were treacherous and required a full rebuild. Most of Ness was horrendous as well and required full rebuilds as well. There was a lot more than that too..just what stood out for me.

That was the end of the Katz era and we have actually seen improvements since 8 years ago just nothing dramatic on a citywide basis in which all roads are noticeably improved.

Saying this year is the worst is recency bias imo. There has been a lot more improvements to the roads in Bowman's term than during Katz's term.

I work in st James and to me this year is the worst my 2nd place goes to 2014. Going down berry and Saskatchewan and brookside and kenaston they are just awful coupled with much more graffiti and panhandling than in the Katz years this just feels worse all around

Yes, you and Danny D Oh raise good points. I've anecdotally heard that Winnipeg's council has above-average influence and say in capital spending and infrastructure projects relative to other major Canadian cities. I don't know how true that is or how one would measure that, but it does seem to make sense intuitively. Too many plans and proposals made by technical professionals and consultants seem to get modified, overridden, or ignored by councilors who seem to have a lot of sway in capital planning. This leads to less-than-optimal outcomes. A small but good example of this is when the eastern leg of Bishop Grandin was constructed. IIRC the original plans called for Lakewood Blvd. and Island Shore Blvd. to be aligned, connecting Southdale and Island Lakes to Bishop with only one intersection. But apparently the local councilor at the time got involved as residents/developers wanted each subdivision to have its own "convenient" access to the "expressway", and thus the plan was modified to make two intersections which greatly reduce the flow of traffic on this heavily used section of road decades later.

That, combined with the fact that getting things done requires many councilors to be on board who often aren't, and you've got a poorly functioning democratic system that is bogged down in drama and petty interference, leading to little progress on major city-building initiatives.

In my opinion, there are too many visionaries with good ideas running for the single spot of Mayor thinking they can change everything with their one glorified vote on council. Too little attention is paid to councilor seats, who have nearly as much influence on council decisions. You could elect the most progressive and talented Mayor in history, only to have them be effectively useless if they cannot get the majority of often childish and incompetent councilors to agree to their plans.

Good mayors have vision and focus on city-building, but too many councilors don't care about city building and are in it just to appease vocal minority residents who care more about if their local park gets an extra garbage can as opposed to making a functional transit system, reducing homelessness, densifying existing neighborhoods, or other city-building initiatives. You need a progressive mayor and a progressive majority on council and a progressive provincial government to make real change. The moon, planets, and stars have to align in Winnipeg for real, tangible progress to take in a 4 or 8 year period unfortunately.

The fact that some councilors run unopposed in their wards while 10 to 20 people can run for mayor doesn't help and shows that most people who want change want to take the easy route and run for the big chair when most change will start by spending a few years in a small chair.

That probably is the case, I'm just talking about the state of the roads themselves. There has been a lot more investment in the roads under Bowman than there ever was under Katz.

Glen Murray or bust for me.

Mayor for 6 years. Was instrumental in the MTS Centre, forced Hydro to move downtown, Provencher Bridge, Waterfront Drive, TIF’s….his accomplishments are much larger than the length of time he was in office.

With all these right wing pothole mayors stepping up I hope Murray is able to prevail.

If I don't get to vote for Murray, I think I'll just bring a die with other candidates faces in places of the numbers and see what happens at the ballot box. That seems to be about as productive a way of separating the rest of them as any.