The Black Rod

The looting of Winnipeg started almost as soon as Phil Sheegl got on the city payroll. And it lasted almost until the day he quit. That's the cold truth you're left with after reading the latest audit presented to city hall, an audit of five years of real estate deals conducted by the city under Sheegl's watch. Phil Sheegl, the best friend of Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz, was hired in April, 2008, as the director of the city's department of planning, property and development. In  November, 2008, he was appointed deputy Chief Administrative Officer, and in 2011 he replaced Glen Laubenstein as CAO. Three months after Sheegl got the planning job, the city announced it was looking for real estate advisors and brokers to "assist the city with real estate transactions".  They eventually qualified five. "In the transactions where an external advisor was retained, there was no documentation explaining the rationale why an external adv...

The blowback came quickly. Only two days after grilling Winnipeg's most powerful civil servant, who is also the mayor's best friend, about the botched construction of a new firehall, protection committee chair Paula Havixbeck found herself out on her ear. Mayor Sam Katz replaced her as committee chairman by somebody he hopes is more compliant, Coun. Scott Fielding, in whose ward the new fire station is being built. Katz didn't even try to disguise his shuffle as anything less than retribution for embarassing his friend and Winnipeg CAO, Phil Sheegl. "...(He) would not respond to questions about whether her criticism of the fire-paramedic station replacement program played a role in that decision," was the way the Winnipeg Free Press told it. "Katz denied Havixbeck is being demoted, but did not answer questions on whether her criticism of a fire-paramedic station replacement program has played a role in the decision....

Did you read that? The revelations by Garth Buchko, CEO of the Winnipeg Blue Gougers, in Thursday's Winnipeg Free Press were stunning, even as they sailed over the heads of news reporters and sports pundits alike. Equally stunning was the extent to which the newspaper went to avoid naming the people responsible for the food-and-beverage fiasco that's come to define the predatory attitude of the Winnipeg football club towards its fans. But let's start with the bombs dropped by Buchko: * the team is crippled by debt, and a hairsbreadth from bankruptcy * the board of directors has executed a silent coup , seizing total control of the football club and turning it into a quasi-private operation  * the harsh no-food, no-drink policy that treats all fans like chiselers was forced on the club by the need to pay off the onerous debt imposed the team by the provincial government as its alleged share of the cost of the new stadium Whew. ...

A confession.... We did our best to ignore the water park story that dominated the news in Winnipeg last week. We didn't read the newspaper stories, watch the TV newscasts or follow the debate on Internet forums. What for? It was just another example of another backroom boondoggle by the most dysfunctional city council in the country. So what else was new? But after a personal request from a trusted reader to try and make sense out of the mess, we started collecting info. Then, on the weekend, the debate lurched from farce into delusion, and we couldn't turn away from the train wreck they call City Hall. So....in no particular order, here's what we uncovered: * the land in question is nowhere near The Forks (or what everybody knows to be The Forks) * CentreVenture may have kiboshed an offer of a better water park three years ago * Admission to the proposed water park would be $35 a head, for children at least * They call it ...

They say animals can detect natural disasters before they happen. Well, we, too, can detect disaster in the making and we say "head for the hills, there's some bad s...t coming." The latest clue is David Asper's op-ed in the Winnipeg Sun telling people to stop picking on his baby sister, Gail, for the debacle known as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/04/11/gail-not-demon-of-cmhr-asper David A. devoted so much space to rewriting the history of the CMHR that it set off alarms that only dogs can hear. It's obvious that there's some very, very bad news about the museum on the horizon and the Aspers want to put as much space between themselves and doomsday as possible. We first spotted this tactic in December when the Winnipeg Free Press, the propaganda arm of the CMHR, published an editorial writing the Aspers out of the museum narrative and replacing them with P.M. Stephen Harper. That's right...