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MIKAELA MACKENZIE \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham<\/p>\n
A West Broadway landlord was told by the city to clear away the mess left by a homeless encampment at the rear of his riverside apartment building, or have the city use its staff to do the work, adding the cost to his property tax bill.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, homeowners in Bridgwater were told that the city\u2019s hands are tied when trying to deal with a large overgrown plot of land, dotted with garbage, because the property is owned by Manitoba Housing and bylaw officers are unable to intervene.<\/p>\n
So, a problem a landlord didn\u2019t create is his own city-ordered cleanup problem, while a property abandoned by its provincial government owner is \u2026 something neighbours just have to live with. Shrug. (A provincial government spokesperson later told the Free Press the property would be cleaned up within 48 hours.)<\/p>\n
A resident of Spence Street writes to Mayor Scott Gillingham about open drug use, crime and displaced people using yards as bathrooms, and talks about the mayor \u201cshirking\u201d his responsibilities as conditions in the neighbourhood go downhill.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of choosing to be representative of a city is representing all of its citizens, not just wealthy neighbourhoods and suburbs,\u201d the resident wrote.<\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s response? Well, it included that housing, homelessness mental health and addictions are provincial government responsibilities \u2014 and also encouraged the resident to contact the local MLA.<\/p>\n
Writing your MLA, of course, is a little like asking someone in a helicopter to spot the ring you dropped \u2014 they\u2019re so far above specific municipal concerns that the best you can expect is a letter in response. A city spokesperson later told the Free Press that the mayor was not suggesting that residents shouldn\u2019t contact the city about safety, problem properties or a host of other local concerns.<\/p>\n
Sorry to be so blunt about it, but the city motto \u201cWinnipeg \u2014 made from what\u2019s real\u201d seems more like it should read \u201cWinnipeg \u2014 it\u2019s actually somebody\u2019s else\u2019s responsibility.\u201d (Or maybe the slightly more catchy \u201cWinnipeg \u2014 the city of excuses.\u201d)<\/p>\n
We get it. Times are tough, money is scarce and the problems the city is facing with things such as encampments, drug use and homelessness are massive \u2014 and growing.<\/p>\n
We get it that belt-tightening flows downhill, and that federal and municipal governments don\u2019t carry the blame \u2014 or the calls and emails \u2014 from people trying to deal directly with huge problems in their neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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We understand that the level of government responsible for all of the powers that most directly affect our personal lives \u2014 water, sewer, firefighting and fire prevention, police services, ambulances and paramedics, garbage collection, municipal bylaw administration and noise complaints \u2014 fall under the city\u2019s purview, while higher levels of government sit back and call the superseding legislative shots.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a legitimate concern for municipalities everywhere.<\/p>\n
But passing the buck \u2014 whether by making individual home and business owners responsible for addressing the on-the-ground effects of major societal projects, or by explaining in detail why the issues at hand belong to the provincial government \u2014 doesn\u2019t build confidence that the city has the ability to or even an interest in dealing with the actual problems residents face.<\/p>\n
To put it in terms that should have been learned in grade school: we don\u2019t care about the reasons why your city homework isn\u2019t being done.<\/p>\n
We just care that your city homework isn\u2019t being done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why is it always someone else\u2019s responsibility, and not the City of Winnipeg\u2019s problem? More often than not,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-823329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}