Council stumbles through police contract vote, highlighting procedural dysfunction at City Hall

After some procedural hiccups at City Hall, the Winnipeg Police Association officially has a new contract.

Many councillors were steamed that they didn’t have ample time to review the details of the deal, but still voted to accept it Wednesday, with the exception of Shawn Dobson.

The city sent out a press release around 4 p.m. Tuesday containing detailed information about the tentative five-year deal with the union. This is also when most councillors got a first look at the deal.

The executive policy committee held a special meeting at 9 a.m. to approve the contract ahead of the full council meeting, as is standard protocol. But councillor Jeff Browaty had that meeting nullified based on a technicality because other councillors were not properly notified the meeting was taking place.

“It’s unfortunate that the clerks didn’t send out the email they would typically send out for these notices,” Mayor Brian Bowman said. “The member of council did receive the press release and administrative report, didn’t raise any issues, wanted to obviously wait until council to make a political point, and he did.”

Another special EPC meeting was then held at noon, and instead of resuming regular council, another special meeting of full council was called to talk about the deal.

“As a non-EPC councillor, I was not privy to the instructions given to our negotiating team, nor had I any idea what concessions were given,” Dobson explained. “Yet here I am, expected to vote on something with less than 24 hours notice, with no time to understand what this contract really means to the city.”

“I really wanted to meet as a council, to get the background details of what’s involved in this particular settlement,” Browaty added. We’re talking about a five-year deal, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m an elected member of council, yet the first details of this contract I learned were through the media.”

Councillor Janice Lukes had coincidentally prepared a motion asking for more time for councillors to review materials ahead of meetings, which was discussed after council voted to approve the police contract.

The St. Norbert councillor has been vocal about a lack of access to information since getting the boot from the mayor’s inner circle, and had some words about the leadership of council.

“What’s really incomprehensible about this is that we’re never, ever brought together by leadership. When I tell residents that we never meet as a council to discuss the city, outside of official meetings, they just can’t believe it, and I can’t believe it either. If leadership can’t herd this council and get value out of each member, somebody else needs to do it.”

Her motion called for at least four business days to examine agendas (as opposed to the current 96 hours, regardless of weekends). An amended motion was passed and the by-law is scheduled to take effect in January.