Isleifson says he’s ‘committed’ to operational reviews

A Brandon mayoral candidate says he would push the city to conduct internal reviews of its departments and create a public safety committee if he is elected.

Len Isleifson, who is challenging incumbent Jeff Fawcett in the Oct. 28 election, made the comments on Tuesday when asked why he hadn’t made any campaign promises.

“We’re going to make a commitment to do a review, an operational review of every department in the city, to make sure we’re running efficiently,” Isleifson said, adding that it is specifically a “commitment” and not a promise.

“As a council, you get one vote out of 11. So, it’s really tough to make a promise,” he said.

Isleifson said he was originally going to wait until he was elected to make the two “commitments” public.

The internal reviews, he said, would task department heads with finding out where improvements and efficiencies can be made.

“We’re stewards of people’s money. And the money goes into the departments, and we just want to make sure that the departments are running effectively,” Isleifson said.

He said some staff members who have good ideas don’t feel like they’re being listened to currently.

As for the public safety committee, Isleifson said he would want it to include business and community groups to look at how the city can reduce crime and work with the police and fire departments to make sure they have the proper resources.

“When I’m at the doors, people are concerned. They don’t know what’s going on. They’re not being listened to. They’re not being heard,” Isleifson said. “People love this community, and I just think that the more opportunity we have to listen to residents on what some of their concerns are, it might help.”

Fawcett, responding Tuesday to Isleifson’s commitments, said while his opponent’s plans are positive, the city is already regularly reviewing its departments and has a downtown safety committee, and that police collaborate with businesses and the community.

On Monday, when he was asked why he hasn’t made any campaign promises, Fawcett said that is something he won’t do.

“You’re not going to make a campaign promise, and if you do, your ego must be so big that you think you can just convince 10 other (council members),” he said after the council meeting.

“And you’re also running for the wrong position, because you collaborate with people. You can say what you’re looking to do, but to say you’re just going to do something, you’re running for the wrong position.

“These aren’t dictatorships.”

Fawcett said the city has made progress on a variety of fronts in the last four years, including attracting industry to the area, enhancing Manitoba Hydro’s generating capacity, building new homes and starting work on constructing a new outdoor pool, among other things. But, he said he knows how council works, and knows the limits that come with the position.

“If I even pretended to make a promise, you’d have to call me out on that because I can’t make any of those decisions,” Fawcett, who is running for his second mayoral term, told the Sun. “But I’m advocating for all those things and working … on all those things. So there’s a massive amount of work going on, and really looking forward to seeing it through.”

Fawcett said people should vote for him because his council has made tough decisions for the benefit of Brandonites, has managed to receive more money from other levels of government than previous councils and has built meaningful relationships with other levels of government.

“We’ve worked really hard to build trust relationships with the provincial government that, in all likelihood, will continue to be the provincial government, with a federal government that, in all likelihood, will continue to be the federal government — and those relationships matter. And I’m doing my best I can to represent the city as best I can,” he said.

Fawcett, when asked what chances he thinks he has at retaining the city’s top job, said: “You don’t enter if you don’t think you’re going to win.”

Isleifson said he thinks he has a “really good chance” of winning the election.

Advanced voting is Oct. 14, 17 and 22.

» alambert@brandonsun.com