Winnipeg - Of Interest

[wags_in_the_peg]

City's plan to create water and sewer utility moves forward
By: Bartley Kives

Mayor Sam Katz’s cabinet has approved a plan to explore the idea of creating a new water and sewer utility that would replace the city's water and waste department and possibly sell services to neighbouring municipalities.

City council’s executive policy committee voted this morning unanimously to approve the plan during a morning meeting that saw opposition councillors, the largest union representing city workers and a new centre-left political group all raise concerns about a stand-alone city utility.

Mike Davidson of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500, St. Boniface Coun. Dan Vandal and Liam Martin of the fledgling Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition all implored EPC to hold off on making a decision about the utility, raising fears about the possible privatization of city services.

Vandal and Martin wound up annoying St. Norbert Coun. Justin Swandel, who dismissed their delegations as ideological and unprepared.

But EPC did amend the wording of its utility motion to reflect the fact the plan is merely being explored at this point.

The plan calls for the city to spend $4.25 million next year to explore the idea, although $3 million of that sum will be recouped as part of the process of finding a private partner to design, build, finance and maintain some of the coming upgrades coming to two city wastewater-treatment plants.

The utility plan still requires the approval of city council as a whole on Nov. 19

[1ajs]

interesting move

[sledhead35]

welcome to winnipeg: where we expand our services to encourage sprawl while our core rots. ugh

[DowntownWpg]

Reminder: check out NBC's "The Office" this evening, where the main character Michael visits Winnipeg.

NBC & Global: 8pm.

[nordique]

ooh, thanks for the reminder!

[dennis]

Most of you must already be familiar with Al Golden's criminal past. Apparently his son got into a little trouble.

Golden Free Pending Appeal
CJOB's Jeff Keele reporting
11/13/2008

A Winnipeg man who was sent to prison last week for luring teenage girls over the internet is free pending an appeal of his case.

A Manitoba appellate court judge is allowing Brock Golden's appeal of his 30-month sentence to be heard in the province's high court. The judge also granted Golden's request to be released from prison with a curfew pending the outcome of the appeal.

The 27-year-old pleaded guilty to luring three teenage girls over the internet to a hotel room where he had sexual contact with two of them. Investigators found several pictures of the teens taken in the hotel room on Golden's computer.

[1ajs]

speaking of that sorta stuff today was a cross city campain to stop child prostitution

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by DowntownWpg

Reminder: check out NBC's "The Office" this evening, where the main character Michael visits Winnipeg.

NBC & Global: 8pm.

watched it last night and surprinsingly it didn't make fun of Winnipeg as much as I was expecting.

[Keng]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

watched it last night and surprinsingly it didn't make fun of Winnipeg as much as I was expecting.

Probably, because they judged the city on merit and a more objective viewpoint, not the preconceptions that too many people seem to have about our city. Although the fact that they choose Winnipeg in the first place may say something different.

But it was free promotion, I guess...

[drew]

It has seemed that as of late Winnipeg is starting to get some more media exposure...

Winnipeg plays itself
The prairie city plays a starring role in two new sitcoms
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/st...ys-itself.html

By Alison Gillmor, CBC News

The Winnipeg-based comedy series Less Than Kind stars (left to right) Maury Chaykin, Wendel Meldrum, Benjamin Arthur, Jesse Camacho and Nancy Sorel. The Winnipeg-based comedy series Less Than Kind stars (left to right) Maury Chaykin, Wendel Meldrum, Benjamin Arthur, Jesse Camacho and Nancy Sorel. (Citytv)

In film and on television, the city of Winnipeg usually stands in for some place else. A favourite of production crews looking for guaranteed snow between November and March, the city often pinch-hits for the American Midwest — like quietly prosperous Kansas in Capote or sleepy, slow-growth Kansas in The Lookout.

Less Than Kind and House Party suggest that Winnipeg is ready for its close-up, but it’s not exactly a glamour shot.

The outside world occasionally recognizes Winnipeg as Winnipeg, but this can be a double-edged distinction. Michael Scott (Steve Carell), an inept manager at a Scranton, Penn., paper company on the NBC sitcom The Office, was recently sent to the Peg on a weekend business trip, a move that stamped the town as the Scranton of the north. To add injury to insult, the episode was filmed entirely in L.A.; attempting to supply some local flavour, the Destination Winnipeg tourism agency shipped down bags of Old Dutch potato chips.

Winnipeg finally gets to play itself in the new City TV comedy drama Less Than Kind, which was shot last winter in minus-30 temperatures, as well as in House Party, which premiered last week on the Comedy Network (where it is available for download). The sharp-edged Less Than Kind centres on a wildly dysfunctional Jewish family that runs a failing driving school, while House Party is a raunchy, six-episode series that covers a one-night house party from five different perspectives. (Think Rashomon with porn-themed drinking games.)

These shows suggest that Winnipeg is ready for its close-up, but it’s not exactly a glamour shot. The two series position Winnipeg as a town out of time, sort of the basement rec room of the national consciousness. The Blecher family on Less Than Kind lives in a house that seems to have been decorated with a brief surge of optimism in 1972 — a riot of shiny wallpaper and avocado accent walls — and then left virtually untouched. Marvin Kaye, who created the series with Chris Sheasgreen, drew on his childhood memories of ‘70s-era Winnipeg and transposed the story to 2008, with remarkably few changes.

At first look, House Party is more obviously contemporary. The cheerfully filthy dialogue is aimed at a young demographic, as is the anarchic premise. Nice, nervous Adam (Michal Grajewski), taking advantage of his parents’ weekend getaway in Fargo, N.D., plans an intimate affair that turns into a big, out-of-control bash. Adam’s vain attempts to keep coasters under drinks and feet off coffee tables are intercut with flash-forwards that suggest catastrophic levels of property damage.

The story may skew toward 21st-century teen comedy, but the production design is strictly old school. Again, we have a classic suburban split-level awash in mid-century-modern teak shelving, Harvest Gold kitchen appliances and adorably old-fashioned technology. An ancient top-loading VCR foils the partygoers’ attempts to watch porn DVDs, while the family’s outmoded turntable and polka-friendly record collection hamper the evening’s music mix. (“Who doesn’t love Let’s Clarinet?” jokes one of Adam’s friends.)

This sense of Winnipeg as comically out of date is partly the result of the city’s creative diaspora. The Peg breeds smart, funny people — those long, harsh winters hone humour as a coping mechanism — and then sends them out into the wider world. For these exiles, Winnipeg becomes frozen in time, along with memories of awkward adolescent kisses, wood-panelled rec rooms and frigid bus stops. These hard-wired emotional associations persist — despite evidence that many present-day Winnipeggers own SUVs, Italian couches and flat-screen TVs.
Young Winnipeggers find ways to stay warm in the raunchy six-part series House Party.Young Winnipeggers find ways to stay warm in the raunchy six-part series House Party. (The Comedy Network/CTV)

It’s easy to see how the pull of nostalgia works on Winnipeg ex-pats. Less Than Kind’s Marvin Kaye moved away as a young man, attending McGill University and later studying drama at Vancouver’s Studio 58. But even those stalwarts who stay put, like House Party creators Sarah Constible and Matt Kippen, seem captivated by Winnipeg’s retro vibe.

House Party’s opening credits unfold on cheesy old album covers. This simple visual device encapsulates the salvage mentality that animates not only Winnipeg’s legendary garage sales, but also much if its art. Many Winnipeg artists seem to have a Value Village aesthetic, finding meaning and beauty in the old, the discarded and the undervalued. Cult filmmaker Guy Maddin pines for archaic movie styles and for a Winnipeg that has ceased to exist (and perhaps never did); multimedia artist Daniel Barrow is inspired by lost 1980s public-access television shows; while the film collective L’Atelier National du Manitoba takes a neo-ironic look at a town haunted by the ghost of a dead NHL hockey team.

Less Than Kind, which has already been picked up for a second season, works because it integrates Winnipeg’s crowded past with a fierce, funny and generous look at a timeless situation. Fifteen-year-old Sheldon Blecher (played by the tremendously appealing Jesse Camacho) is an old soul in Husky Boy jeans; he’s the only grownup in a completely loopy family. Father Sam (played by Maury Chaykin, once again proving he’s Canada’s best character actor) is perpetually furious, constantly scheming. Warm, well-meaning mother Anne (Wendel Meldrum) handles her stress with a touch of pyromania. (When Sheldon wants to calm her down, he turns up the hypnotic blue flames on the gas stove.) Sheldon’s older brother Josh (Benjamin Arthur) is a narcissistic ninny who briefly escaped Winnipeg, a town he despises, when he got a beefcake role in a TV series called Thunder Bay O.P.P. Josh is back home now, and his habit of wearing a thin, hip leather jacket in the teeth of a Winnipeg winter is his way of pretending the arrangement is temporary. When Sheldon wants to torment his brother, he intones, “You were born here and you’re going to die here.”

With lines like this, it would be easy to view the series as anti-Winnipeg. It’s not. Like its opening theme song — the Weakerthans’ One Great City, with its plaintive “I hate Winnipeg” refrain — the show takes complaints and carping and turns them into anguished love. The production is unsparing in its depiction of Winnipeg’s winter weather — most scenes open with glacial establishing shots — but there is also real affection for a place where memories linger and connections run deep. The plot twists on Less Than Kind rely on coincidences that are perfectly believable to Winnipeggers, who constantly see evidence of the one-degree-of-separation rule. For example, Sheldon’s gawky gal-pal turns out to be the daughter of the Revenue Canada accountant who’s auditing his dad. The show’s attitude is typically Winnipeggy: sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes chippy, always funny. (Here’s how Sam talks up his hometown: “Winnipeg has great parking. You can park anywhere.”)

House Party also develops a sure sense of place, setting a tone of prairie fatalism when the first party guest slips on an icy sidewalk and crushes his two-four of Moosehead beer. The show’s obvious subject is twentysomething confusion, but underneath this specific theme runs the feeling that there’s nothing like a Manitoba house party, where the contrast between the warm, bright inside and the cold, dark outside is almost primal.

Neither Less Than Kind nor House Party make extravagant claims for their city — kind of the opposite, really — but they do make it clear that it’s not the Scranton of the north. When Winnipeg finally gets to represent itself, it turns out to be prickly, eccentric and ruefully proud.

Alison Gillmor is a writer based in — you guessed it — Winnipeg.

[1ajs]

oo so that was the random show i found on city tv the other night absolutely funny winnipeg just keeps on doing its thing as always we are Winnipeg not calgary not new york but winnipeg

[Only The Lonely..]

Chief says crime dropping in Winnipeg
CJOB's Barry Burns reporting
11/17/2008

Winnipeg's Police Chief says despite what some people think, crime is actually going down in the City.
Keith McGasill tells CJOB although citizens hear about robbings, beatings and even murders, you have to look at the Numbers which show the number of major crimes in Winnipeg are dropping.

McGasill says gangs are still a problem in Winnipeg, but they are working to disrupt their activity.

[rrskylar]

Free Press columnist Gordon Sinclair confessed Saturday that there was a small problem with his story about the poor single mother who was desperate because she expected to be evicted the very next day for non-payment of two months rent. The problem was that it wasn't true.

The woman wasn't facing imminent eviction, as he wrote, which means the nearly $6000 in donations she received was nothing more than free money.

Sinclair found that out when he finally spoke to her landlord, something he neglected to do before writing his first story about the woman---or his second.

Damn. There's nothing that spoils a good sob-story faster than the facts.

Someone spotted the happy woman, newly flush with thousands of dollars in donations, celebrating with drinks at a downtown bar and a shopping spree the next day at high-end Polo Park stores.

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Free Press columnist Gordon Sinclair confessed Saturday that there was a small problem with his story about the poor single mother who was desperate because she expected to be evicted the very next day for non-payment of two months rent. The problem was that it wasn't true.

The woman wasn't facing imminent eviction, as he wrote, which means the nearly $6000 in donations she received was nothing more than free money.

Sinclair found that out when he finally spoke to her landlord, something he neglected to do before writing his first story about the woman---or his second.

Damn. There's nothing that spoils a good sob-story faster than the facts.

Someone spotted the happy woman, newly flush with thousands of dollars in donations, celebrating with drinks at a downtown bar and a shopping spree the next day at high-end Polo Park stores.

man hes gulible... do yer reserch gord...

as for the conartist hahaha how stupid are you u don't go spending the money localy like that

[1ajs]

anyone who cares the freepress has hired dan harper on as a photographer apaerntly should be interesting

[newflyer]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

anyone who cares the freepress has hired dan harper on as a photographer apaerntly should be interesting

Wow.. thats great news.

Dan Harper is a very talented photographer.

[MooseJets]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Someone spotted the happy woman, newly flush with thousands of dollars in donations, celebrating with drinks at a downtown bar and a shopping spree the next day at high-end Polo Park stores.

This pisses me off to no end. What a joke.

[Only The Lonely..]

And just when my faith in humanity was about to be restored..

[Only The Lonely..]

There's more to needy young mother's story

Gordon Sinclair Jr.

Updated: November 15 at 02:50 AM CST | Winnipeg Free Press


I felt obliged because of what's happened since last week's column about how Winnipeggers opened their hearts and their cheque books to Chantel Henderson.

More than $2,000 arrived for Chantel and her 12-year-old daughter Caley within a day of my initial column.

And the cheques and hampers and gift cards kept coming this week.

Another $3,750 worth by Friday.

But there have been charges from the blogosphere that I misled readers about the 26-year-old single, working mother who told me she was on the brink of being evicted from her tiny West End home after falling two months behind in her rent.

It was asserted that my columns on Chantel had left the Free Press "facing a crisis of public trust."

But there was more to it than that.

Chantel also became a target.

And the bloggers weren't the only ones dumping on Chantel.


"ö "ö "ö

I first heard about Chantel, not from Chantel, but from a sympathetic next-door neighbour, who sent an e-mail looking for help for the young mother.

So I spoke with Chantel and wrote the column.

What readers liked about Chantel was her courage and commitment to her child.

Chantel was a mother at 14, but that responsibility had motivated her to continue in school and try to be a role model for her daughter.

"You want to set an example," she told me last week. "Be someone she would look up to."

A heartwarming and uplifting story, I thought.

Especially against the horrific backdrop of the Phoenix Sinclair murder trial.

But not everyone saw it that way.

The blogosphere started after her, me and the Free Press.


The suggestion was Chantel was spending some of the money she had been so generously given in ways the donors would not approve. Chantel and her daughter were reportedly seen walking out of a Gap store, their arms full of shopping bags "from high-end stores."

There was another report, laced with innuendo, that Chantel was spotted in a pool hall "enjoying some liquid libation."

Chantel says neither story is true.

She says she did go shopping, though.

At Wal-Mart.

But then one of her family members also wanted to take a swipe.

A cousin who's about the same age and a single mother of three wrote me an angry e-mail suggesting that Chantel was undeserving of the donations.

"Saturday," Camille Henderson wrote, "the day after one of her co-workers drove her to pay her rent, she was out partying, (and) called my younger sister to come and drink with her."

Chantel confirmed calling the other sister early Sunday morning and asking her to join her for drinks.

She said she called from her mother's house where she had been drinking.

Caley had been left home that night.

Then again, Chantel is old enough to drink, Caley is old enough to be home alone, and there was reason to celebrate. So what's the point.

Optics, of course.

This week, I asked Chantel what she has done with the money I gave her last week.

She said had spent $1,500, most of it paying off debts, including money she borrowed from her mother.

It's not my role to sit in judgment of her and how she conducts her life.

Those who have donated money to help her and Caley may have a different view.

But, I share this story about Chantel, who was taken into care by Child and Family Services when she was 10 and a mother, I remind you, four years later.

On the night I drove to her house to deliver the cheque to cover her rent, there were sled tracks leading to the door.

Chantel said she and Caley had been out delivering flyers.

And when I phoned her on the evening Remembrance Day, she was excited for her daughter.

Caley had been at the Minto Armory ceremony that morning.

It was the first time she had worn her uniform.

"She's in air cadets," Chantel said proudly.

Few of us are perfect role models.

Chantel isn't either. But she's trying in extremely trying circumstances.

Trying where so many fail.


"ö "ö "ö


Now it's my turn to take a hit.

A deserved one.

As I was saying, it was suggested that I had misled readers about how imminent Chantel's eviction was, and that appears to be true.

It would have taken at least 10 more days if she had failed to come up with the back rent according to her landlord.

So was my error and mine alone.

For that I apologize.

But, you should also know this.

When I asked her landlord if Chantel's fears of being evicted were justified, he said they were.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

[wags_in_the_peg]

New utility corporation approved

City council has approved a plan to dissolve its water and waste department and replace it with a new city-owned corporation.

Council voted 10-4 this afternoon to explore the idea of creating an arm's-length utility that would take over city water treatment, sewage treatment and possibly green energy production.


The utility would hand the power to set water-and-sewer rates to the provincial Public Utilities Board.

It may also sell city wastewater-treatment services to neighbouring municipalities, which would mostly likely include West St. Paul and St. Andrews.

Couns. Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge), Dan Vandal (St. Boniface), Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre) and Lillian Thomas (Elmwood) voted against the plan, citing concerns over the loss of control of basic city services.

Gerbasi and Vandal tried and failed to refer the decision over to city council's Alternate Service Delivery committee.

Several citizens' groups and the city's largest union spoke against the plan because they fear it is a prelude to the privatization of city services.