WINNIPEG — Almost 100 days ago, Mayor Brian Bowman accepted a tough job but likely never thought it would be this hard.
This month alone, Bowman suspended the city’s highest ranking bureaucrat, acting CAO Deepak Joshi, halted a backroom downtown hotel development deal at 220 Carlton Avenue, the next day Bowman called a rare press conference following a Maclean’s article calling Winnipeg the most racist city in Canada and this week he dealt with a three day boil water advisory.
“You kind of wonder at night if he’s questioning his decision to do this,” said Political Science Professor at the University of Winnipeg, Aaron Moore.
Moore says there’s no doubt it’s been a bumpy start and likely it won’t end soon, “The more he focuses on transparency and changing how things are done the more obvious it’s going to be how things were done wrong.”
In early December, Bowman failed to deliver on an election promise to get rid of lucrative severance packages for outgoing councillors. Councillor Ross Eadie said at the time, “To disrespect it with the language I heard regarding the severance is disgusting. Its severance and not political payout.”
But Bowman was successful in pushing through a plan to reduce his salary and councillors sitting on the Executive Policy Committee by $12,000 a year.
An election promise to be more transparent, Bowman, a social media lawyer is using social media to do just that. He tweets and Instagrams almost daily and posted YouTube videos during the boil water advisory.
And it’s no secret Bowman is spending a lot time with NDP Minister Kevin Chief, possibly working to improve the city’s, at times, fractured relationship with the provincial government.
But in 100 days, Bowman has left his mark, a bigger job than he likely bargained for.
“That may have been good in the past but there’s a new administration and that’s not going to be good enough anymore going forward,” said Bowman during an EPC meeting after learning about another messy development deal.
He still has more than 1300 days to go.
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