ONE YEAR AFTER Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett reflects on his first year in office – building relationships, securing funding from senior governments and diving into the weeds of city business By: Colin Slark Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023 Last Modified: 10:11 AM CDT Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023

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Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett was no stranger to municipal politics when he assumed the role, but being the head of council has been a different experience than being a councillor.

“You’re fully engaged all the time,” Fawcett said. “The issues are relatively the same, but you’re more engaged. You’re the full-time person … I did have a fairly significant engagement with the provincial government when I was a councillor, but nothing like this.”

On Wednesday, the Sun sat down with Fawcett to talk about his first year on the job after being elected as mayor on Oct. 26, 2022.

While Fawcett hasn’t had to deal with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic like his predecessor, Rick Chrest, there have still been some issues that needed addressing.

Less than a year into his tenure, Manitoba elected a new provincial government and Brandon has to develop new relationships. The mayor said he has already gotten the chance to speak with some of the new cabinet ministers.

Specific references to Brandon in Premier Wab Kinew’s ministerial mandate letters in the form of directives to establish a Prairie Innovation Centre at Assiniboine Community College and set up medical training seats at Brandon University with the help of the University of Manitoba were welcome, Fawcett said, even if governance of those two institutions isn’t under his purview.

“I look forward to working with the new government on a lot of different things,” he said. “Particularly, I liked that they put together a ministry of housing, homelessness, addiction, mental health.”

Though funding for the redevelopment of the Sportsplex’s ice arena — closed since March due to safety concerns with the ammonia ice plant — was a campaign promise made by the second-place Progressive Conservatives and not the governing NDP, Fawcett said he was hopeful the new government might still commit some support.

When the Sun interviewed Fawcett last year after his election, he said he envisioned creating a collaborative effort to tackle local social issues and poverty in the same manner the Brandon Urban Aboriginal Peoples’ Council (BUAPC) has brought together local Indigenous stakeholders to advance reconciliation.

In his state of the city address before the Brandon Chamber of Commerce earlier this year, Fawcett again raised the idea, saying it could be done similarly to Winnipeg’s Downtown Community Safety Partnership.

Though the Tories made another campaign promise to extend that partnership program to Brandon if re-elected, not much public progress has been made on that front. At this point, Fawcett said he hopes the city can focus more on that project next year.

City staff are looking at the work of a few organizations in Winnipeg, Fawcett said, to see what models can be adjusted for use in Brandon.

Fawcett said the transitional housing and sobering centre project being built jointly by the John Howard Society of Brandon and Westman Youth for Christ alongside the additional paramedics the city is hiring through funding provided by Shared Health will have a lot of benefit for the community.

When police arrest people, the mayor said, the new paramedics working at the Brandon Police Service’s holding cells will be able to assess them there instead of bringing them to the emergency room at Brandon Regional Health Centre.

“Then in the sobering centre, the fact that we can maybe have some wraparound services in there that, if people need or want to start getting help there, they’re already in the queue, they have the opportunity to do that.”

The previous government under Heather Stefanson was very much against the idea of establishing safe consumption sites.

Asked if Brandon would be interested in looking into the idea with a new government in place, Fawcett said some of the harm reduction strategies employed in British Columbia have not worked out very well. He said things like safe supply or safe consumption would likely need to be coupled with getting people to commit to treatment.

During last year’s municipal election campaign, one of the top issues up for discussion was the city’s plan to build two wastewater lift stations in southwest Brandon to facilitate further development in the area.

Those lift stations were since approved by council, but construction has yet to start. To try to reduce the public’s contribution to the project, the city has been working with developers to narrow its scope. So far, Fawcett said, $3.9 million in funding has been received from the province towards the project, but he’s working to try to secure more.

But why was external funding only sought after the city had approved the project and the first round of borrowing to pay for it?

“We run a very thin staff and these applications are complex,” Fawcett said. “So we have pushed a little harder to do either applications or proposals.”

The mayor acknowledged that there had been less of an effort to secure assistance from other levels of government for that project versus others like upgrades to the water treatment plant or the outdoor sports complex being built at the corner of First Street North and Veterans Way, but said he’s working on securing more funding for the lift stations.

Tied to the discussion about the lift stations was a perception by some in the community that the project would mainly benefit developers looking to build in the area rather than the city and its residents.

An argument made by the city was that development cost charges had been implemented to make developers contribute a financial stake in infrastructure developments that benefit them.

A review of those charges, which is likely to see them eventually raised, was supposed to be completed by the end of last year. At this point, Fawcett said he’s expecting to have the review completed by the end of 2023.

The delay, he said, comes from a lack of personnel at the city, especially in the engineering and finance departments.

Last month, Brandon put out a tender requesting the services of a consultant to help develop a new employee retention strategy. Fawcett said the city has staff recruited to work in the private sector and competes with the private sector for new talent.

When Manitoba’s Public Utilities Board rendered a decision last month on Brandon’s request to hike water and wastewater utility rates, it granted permission but castigated the city for its handling of the utility’s finances, its seven-year wait between rate applications and deficits run by the utility in recent years.

The mayor said he doesn’t think staffing shortages or the departure of personnel were responsible for those issues and that city council has already put a process in place to mandate annual reviews of the utility to prevent further issues.

However, he said that as the year has gone on, he’s found himself diving more “into the weeds” of city operations to keep an eye on things.

“You can’t spend all your time in the weeds because then who’s actually operating as mayor?” Fawcett said. “But yeah, you do need to get in at times.”

One of the things he said he’s spoken about with city staff is improving communication, so that items aren’t missed.

Heading into budget deliberations early next year, Fawcett said Brandon and other communities in the Association of Manitoba Municipalities are waiting to see what the new government’s approach to municipal funding will be and whether it will remain stagnant or escalate over time.

Work is continuing on a project to create a four-year budget plan to make sure a long-term financial plan is in place to guide city council’s financial decisions.

In the next year, Fawcett said he wants to see the city take a larger step forward on Vision Zero street safety efforts, improvements to Brandon Transit, working with Indigenous partners, continue discussions on the construction of two new schools in the city and to continue building relationships with other levels of government and local businesses.

Last month, city council deferred a vote on whether to acknowledge Canada’s residential school system as an act of genocide. With BUAPC appointing a new board this month, Fawcett said progress on that front will likely be paused until discussions can be held with the organization.

Applications have closed in the hiring process for Brandon’s next police chief, the mayor said, and early interviews are being scheduled. Fawcett said he hoped someone would be in place by Christmas.

Previous chief Wayne Balcaen retired earlier this year to run for public office, successfully getting elected as Progressive Conservative MLA for Brandon West.

Fawcett said so far this year, Brandon has managed to secure $23 million in additional funding from higher levels of government.

“I would really stress that I have spent this year trying to lobby for funds to improve our city with different levels of government and forging relationships that we can build on in our community with the other levels of government.”

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