Voters in Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood will be welcoming a fresh face to city council on Election Day.
Global News has projected Evan Duncan’s election in the race for the west Winnipeg ward.
Evan Duncan, who finished a close second in the 2014 council race for the ward, is a lifelong resident of the area. He has been employed by Manitoba Justice for over a decade, working with law enforcement, the courts, and families affected by addiction and homelessness.
Chief among his concerns are cutting red tape at City Hall, revitalizing roads and sidewalks, community-focused policing, and preserving the ward’s green spaces.
The incumbent councillor for the area at the city’s far western edge is Kevin Klein, who stepped away from his council seat when he threw his hat in the ring for the mayoral race.
Klein was elected in 2018 to the ward, which has seen multiple name and boundary changes over the past decade. Prior to Klein’s election, the ward then known as Charleswood-Tuxedo-Whyte Ridge was represented by Marty Morantz, now a federal MP.
Morantz was preceded by Paula Haxivbeck, who took over from the late Bill Clement, a Charleswood-Tuxedo councillor for close to three decades.
Here’s a look at the candidates who were unsuccessful in their bid for the council seat:
Challenger Hal Anderson is well-known to Winnipeggers as a long-time voice on talk (and before that, rock) radio. Anderson stepped down from his long-running tenure at 680 CJOB when he entered the council race.
The top priority in his campaign was crime prevention, along with improvements to infrastructure, and preserving the ward’s green spaces and tree canopy. Helping the city’s homeless population was also an issue he said he’d like to see action on.
Steven “Master” Minion is a lifelong Charleswood resident who says he experienced an artistic and creative enlightenment in 2016, which led him to pursue community-building, in addition to working in construction on a freelance basis.
Minion’s platform was focused on compassionate, humane problem-solving, and includes the development of a hyper-local, environmentally sustainable economy. Long-term, he called for the creation of a resource-based local currency, “The Peg,” which would not be affected by global inflation.
Realtor Brad Gross may be a familiar name to many voters, as a candidate in past races for mayor and council, as well as two provincial elections.
His platform included minimizing property tax, as well as prioritizing the city’s green space, reducing traffic congestion, and re-engineering bike routes for maximum cyclist safety as well as smooth traffic flow.
Candidate Gordon Penner is another lifelong resident of the ward, who works at a local modular home company.
Penner’s platform highlighted the issue of public safety, with a focus on addressing the root causes of crime and keeping the community safe and inclusive. He also saw infrastructure, traffic congestion, transit, and 311 deployments as priorities.
The Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood ward covers the far western section of Winnipeg, extending to the Perimeter Highway and bordered by the Rural Municipality of Headingley.
Within city limits, its neighbours are St. James to the north, Waverley West to the southeast, and River Heights-Fort Garry to the east.
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