Ideas for Winnipeg’s City Hall (5 of 5)

All week we have discussed ideas on how Winnipeg’s City Hall could be improved. Those ideas included increasing the number of civic wards, accepting party politics in City Hall and eliminating the Executive Policy Committee.

Today we’re going to float an idea that would be much more radical; what if we scrapped the current system and adopted something completely different?

Winnipeg currently operates under a variation of a Mayor-council government model where citizens vote citywide for a mayor as well as a local councillor. This group then hires, on the advisement of the EPC, professional managers to carry out many day-to-day administrative operations.  What if Winnipeg tried something different?

What if instead of electing councillors and a mayor at election time people were asked to vote for a commissioner responsible for a portfolio? A hybrid approach similar to Portland, Oregon where they elect commissioners who are responsible for managing specific job duties. Having positions with a direct correlation to services could attract innovative and highly qualified candidates to the field who could provide Winnipeg with vision and purpose.

Consider this idea like a public job interview for all the important functions of civic leadership. Rather than having an elected official hiring someone to manage the city’s waste management program, the public elects the individual with best credentials and ideas on how that portfolio should be administered. Imagine someone with an ecology background managing the water and waste management portfolio, or an ambitious architect overseeing planning and property development.

Now is the time to start imagining how our city could be better. Some changes could be implemented quickly and with little difficulty. Eliminating the Executive Policy Committee which in it’s current design is prone to corruption and cronyism or embracing a party platform format could see significant improvements on how decision are made at City Hall. Other ideas like adding, and inherently shrinking, electoral wards would provide a better representation of the views of the electorate on civic matters. There are also more radical approaches like scrapping the current system altogether and trying to implement something new and innovative.

Regardless of the type of changes people want to see at City Hall, now is the time to start discussing and planning. For me, I believe it is time for the City of Winnipeg to stop operating like it is a private business burdened by bothersome communities and starts running like a large and diverse community that conducts and supports progressive and responsible business.

Ideas for Winnipeg’s City Hall (4 of 5)

Halloween, an appropriate day to discuss one of the scariest things at Winnipeg’s City Hall, the Executive Policy Committee.

Eliminating the Executive Policy Committee is something often discussed and its dissolution is promoted by many. It would be cost neutral and could have a great impact on civic politics in Winnipeg.

The EPC is a select group of councilors chosen on the whim of the mayor. This group is supposed to be an impartial body that “formulates and presents recommendations to council respecting policies, plans, budgets, by-laws and other matters that affect the city as a whole.”

In its current form, there is nothing to prevent the mayor from filling the EPC with like minded individuals to promote self serving policies that would only require the support of one other member of council. That is to say the support of only one other member providing every councillor is in attendance for the vote in order to pass any motion proposed. An example of the work the EPC currently conducts is that it was through their recommendation that the city hire a Chief Administrative Officer, who was did not have the experience or credentials to match the position and has since been forced to resign because of controversy and allegations of corruption. The EPC also put forth a motion he be replaced by another person linked to and named in the same controversy the previous CAO resigned over. (What!?!)

Without an EPC policy ideas could simply be brought to council meetings by individual councillors and be debated and voted. Part of the advantage of this method is that each ward would have equal representation and decision could then be made based on a citywide perspective. Alternatively we could look to models used in Vancouver, Calgary or Regina who all have a variance of a board style system composed of both councillors and citizens who together make recommendations to City Council. The biggest difference between this board style and an EPC system is that it invites participation and accountability to the people the government is elected to serve.

I believe the idea behind having an Executive Policy Committee is to expedite the policy development process, but all it seems to do is open City Hall to accusations of corruption. What do you think, does Winnipeg need an EPC?

Ideas for Winnipeg’s City Hall (2 of 5)

Yesterday’s piece introduced some ideas on how we might be able to improve Winnipeg’s City Hall. Among the ideas was to increase the number of councillors, and thereby decreasing the size of wards.

Everyone in Winnipeg is currently represented by 15 city councillors. That is one representative for every 44,241 people according to recent census data. That is an incredible amount of people with diverse needs and views. When coupled with a relatively low population density in Winnipeg, the geographic area covered by each councillor is quite large. How can a councillor be expected to effectively advocate for their ward?

For comparison, at the provincial level, the City of Winnipeg has 31 Members of the Legislative Assembly to represent citizens. That comes to 21,407 constituents per MLA, a much more manageable number. A chart depicting cities of similar size to Winnipeg shows the number of constituents per councillor:

City	Population*	Councilors	Constituents/Councilor
Winnipeg	663,617	15	44,241
Ottawa	883,391	23	38,408
Edmonton	812,201	12	67,683
Hamilton	519,949	15	34,663
Quebec City	516,622	27	19,134
Halifax	413,710	16	25,856
Regina	193,100	10	19,310

*2011 Statistics Canada Census Data

Of cities with similar population, only Edmonton has a larger discrepancy of voters to elected civic representatives than Winnipeg. If we were to compare ourselves to our neighbouring capital in Saskatchewan, we see that we have more than double the ratio of Regina.

When Winnipeg was amalgamated under the City of Winnipeg act in 1972, city council consisted of 50 wards. This was reduced to 29 in 1977 and 15 in 1992.

Year	Population*	Councilors	Constituents/Councilor
1976	560,874	50	11,217
1981	564,373	29	19,461
1991	616,790	29	21,268
2001	619,544	15	41,302
2011	663,617	15	44,241

*Historical Statistics Canada Census Data

If Winnipeg were to return to a pre-1992 ratio of about 20-25,000 citizens per councillor it would provide citizens with a greater opportunity to access their local civic representative, better representation of issues important to them and more diversity at City Hall to debate policy issues.

Another advantage to shrinking the physical size of wards would be more inherent accountability. Concerns like the recent boiled water advisory only directly affected a small portion of a ward. If the sitting politician does enough to appease voters in another section of their ward, they won’t be held accountable for inaction and poor management in other areas. Currently it is next to impossible to defeat an incumbent councillor as their constituency is so huge. It is also nearly impossible to canvass an entire ward during an election campaign. As a challenger to the sitting councillor it is very difficult, and expensive, to get your name an views out to voters.

Of course adding wards would be an expensive alteration to city politics. It is estimated that each new ward would cost in upwards of $175,000 annually. No one ever claimed democracy would be cheap. What do you think, would adding more councillors improve City Hall? Share your thoughts and come back tomorrow and Thursday as we’ll explore some inexpensive changes that could transform Winnipeg’s civic political landscape.

Ideas for Winnipeg’s City Hall

With recent troubling news from Winnipeg City Hall surrounding items like the Fire Hall Audit, Boiled Water Advisories, Police Headquarters Cost Overruns and Brown Water Concerns it is time to consider making changes to Winnipeg’s civic political landscape.

There are some changes that could be made that would have a significant impact on how civic issues are addressed like redrawing the city wards or returning to representative ratios pre-1992. The current size of wards makes it very difficult for a city councillor to take a position to advocate for the needs of their constituents.

An easier modification would be to do away with the notion that partisan politics does not belong in city hall. Reality is that the majority of councillors are affiliated with political parties and if people were to run under the banner of a party, voters would have a better idea of where a candidate stands on important issues.

Further changes that can be made to ameliorate the current electoral system in place for Winnipeg would be to eliminate the Executive Policy Committee and treat each elected member equally.

There are other more radical considerations that could be made including adopting a completely new system that could make more democratic decisions on behalf of citizens.

Whether it is smaller and relatively easy changes or significant overhauls of the entire system it is time to start discussing change. The next civic election is scheduled for October 22, 2014 and if we want to see changes that can make Winnipeg a better place to live for everyone, ideas need to be discussed now so they can be vetted and adopted for the subsequent electoral cycle in 2018.

Each day this week I plan to post more on each of these ideas. Please share your feedback and what you would like to see changed at Winnipeg City Hall.