Partnership would tackle social issues: Mayor

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This article was published 21/04/2023 (1294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pinch-hitting for the premier after she cancelled an appearance in Brandon, Mayor Jeff Fawcett revealed more details about his plan to facilitate progress on social issues plaguing the city at Thursday’s Brandon Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Premier Heather Stefanson was originally scheduled to deliver the annual state of the province address at the Keystone Centre’s UCT Pavilion but was forced to cancel her trip to the Wheat City due to a snowstorm that hit southern Manitoba this week.

Fawcett stepped up to the podium to present his first-ever state of the city address, outlining the new city council’s four-year strategic plan and how he approaches his job as mayor.

“I play the role of advocating for what we need in this city and helping out everybody that’s working for the city,” Fawcett said. “I’m in Winnipeg an awful lot right now trying to make sure we’re getting our voice heard there and working with all kinds of different people.”

On dealing with social issues such as poverty, homelessness and addiction, Fawcett said they are placing increased pressure not just on the city and Brandon Police Service, but also on the private sector and residents.

The mayor was initially scheduled to deliver the address at a later date. He said because it was moved up, he was unable to disclose all the details he’d originally planned to share about a new initiative tentatively being called the Brandon community social health partnership.

“We’re working alongside Prairie Mountain Health CEO Brian Schoonbaert, our city manager Ron Bowles, the chief of police, we have partners in Winnipeg trying to help us towards that,” he said. “We’re working with our Indigenous governments on this. The Southern Chiefs’ Organization has just opened a location in Brandon, there’s lots of opportunity there.”

Other participants include local academic institutions and non-profit organizations.

The goal, Fawcett said, is to create an umbrella organization like Winnipeg’s Downtown Community Safety Partnership to co-ordinate efforts aimed at improving access to housing and community health services.

This is something the mayor first brought up in a year-end interview with the Sun last December.

At that time, Fawcett spoke of the successes seen by the Brandon Urban Aboriginal Peoples’ Council in bringing together representatives from nearby Indigenous communities and organizations with officials from the city to pursue reconciliation-related goals.

Though he acknowledged it had taken several years to get results through BUAPC, the mayor said he wanted to see if a similar approach could be used to tackle social issues.

“We’re meeting with the province on it again on Monday, because we do think we need to a lot more,” Fawcett said. “We need to work on it together.”

In regard to affordability and poverty, the mayor said work is being done to change Brandon Transit from being something people use because they have no other option to something people actively choose to use.

Going forward, Brandon is looking into creating four-year budgets for greater long-term financial management.

“We do know that our reserves have been getting low,” Fawcett said. “We do know that we’ve run a very modest budget over the last number of years, for a decade-plus. We don’t want everything spiking on people. We can maybe put some things in place so that we can leave the next council in a better place than this.”

Last month, the city and the province announced they had come to a new five-year funding agreement for the Keystone Centre that will see both governments contribute $7.97 million to the venue annually. On Thursday, Fawcett said a similar deal is in the works for the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium.

A long-term solution also needs to be found for the aging Sportsplex, but Fawcett said he wasn’t sure what that looks like.

“There’s going to be plenty of public consultation,” he said. “The Sportsplex isn’t going away, but it can be a lot better.”

Currently, the city has a tender out looking for a consultant to assess which features the community wants in a refreshed Sportsplex and to create a conceptual design based on those desires.

“The proposed 2023 needs assessment and conceptual design will assess whether community need is for a renewed ice plant and arena, or an alternate redevelopment, such as indoor turf and sport court,” the tender states.

The chamber of commerce is hoping to secure the premier for next month’s luncheon date, scheduled for May 18.

Fawcett said a ground-breaking ceremony for the city’s new outdoor sports complex featuring the premier had been planned for Thursday but was also postponed.

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