Letters, Nov. 5

Penalize unsafe driving

Re: Pedestrian struck on Portage Avenue (Nov. 3)

Why is the above headline becoming more and more frequent? Could the reasons be distracted driving, careless driving or complete disregard for pedestrians?

It is time for the Winnipeg Police Service to start suspending, penalizing and ticketing drivers who are driving in and out of traffic, driving in the curb lane on bus routes or any route that has a pedestrian crosswalk.

Another dangerous thing I am noticing are drivers coming extremely close to pedestrians who are crossing the street, either at crosswalks or at traffic-light-controlled crossings, instead of staying in their lane until the intersection is free of people crossing.

I now notice cars forcing pedestrians to stop so that they can complete their turns. These should be offences where the drivers lose driving privileges and face heavy fines.

Alfred Sansregret

Winnipeg

Streamline educational bureaucracy

Like many Manitobans, I’ve just paid my property taxes and, quite frankly, it’s getting ridiculous.

A huge portion of our property tax bill goes toward school taxes. Homeowners, seniors and families are being asked to pay more every year, while many are struggling just to keep up with the cost of living.

But here’s the question nobody seems to be asking: Are we getting our money’s worth from the school taxes we’re paying?

I’m not talking about teachers, students, classrooms or the education our children deserve. I’m talking about the layers of administration, bureaucracy and outdated school-division structures that continue to consume millions of taxpayer dollars.

School divisions were established in a very different time. Today, with modern technology and centralized services, why are we still carrying so many layers of administration? Why should taxpayers continue funding unnecessary duplication and bureaucratic overhead?

It’s time to stop treating school taxes as an endless source of revenue without demanding accountability for how that money is spent.

We’re not asking for less education. We’re asking for less waste.

Property owners are getting squeezed and it’s time someone stood up and asked some tough questions.

We need a serious review of school division administration, real accountability for every dollar collected and meaningful reductions in unnecessary costs.

Enough is enough. Manitobans work hard for their money. We deserve better than watching more and more of it disappear into an administration system that needs a serious overhaul.

Robert Adams

Petersfield

Tick-tock talk

There is a lot of talk about the pro and cons of permanent daylight time, with experts warning us that this change is going to bring terrible consequences for those with heart conditions, depression and much more.

It seems to me that everyone is forgetting that our neighbours right next door in Saskatchewan have not turned their clocks back for decades. Am I missing something here or are we getting all worked up about something that will never happen?

Does anyone remember how worried we all were about opening up Portage and Main? Now let’s move on.

Tom P. Scott

Winnipeg

Wish-infillment

Re: New council, new opportunities for Winnipeg (Nov. 2)

Brent Bellamy’s op-ed piece presents a happy picture of infill housing that will regenerate failing neighborhoods and lead to economic savings for the City of Winnipeg, with no side effects.

Having served as the city councillor for the Glenwood area for the past 15 years I can advise that the reality has been far more complicated.

Bellamy argues that older neighbourhoods will get more residents to use the underutiltized “police stations and community centres.”

The police stations referenced must be AI-generated as there has not been a police station in St. Vital since 2013 and certainly the three remaining city police stations are far from underused.

As to community centres, there has never been any evidence the local community centre was underused. Many of the new infill homes are Airbnbs (short-term vacation rentals), which do nothing to utiltize the supposedly underused local facilities.

Bellamy argues that the new infill will allow more affordable housing and that seniors can age in place. In fact, the city has no requirements for affordable housing or accessible housing. Seniors do not move into tall skinny houses with lots of staircases, which is the model in Glenwood.

The affordable-housing argument is complete fiction — generally an older house is sold for $275,000; after demolition, two new homes with secondary suites are built and sell for about $650,000 each.

The debate should not be whether Winnipeg needs additional housing or whether infill has a place in city planning. It should be whether the city has demonstrated that its approach to infill produces measurable public benefits that outweigh the costs to existing neighbourhoods.

Residents have filed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of complaints with me over the years. The theory is lovely but the reality has been starkly different.

There is some hope. Over the past two years, the city has started enforcing some rules against the developers and the head of planning, Hazel Borys, has stated that there was some good and some bad infill in Glenwood — a huge step forward from the previous city view of “it’s all been great and we deserve awards.”

City councillors denied a lot split of a 150-foot lot in Tuxedo in 2019 and at the same meeting approved two lots splits of 50-foot lots in Glenwood. This has been a clumsy attempt to demonize the working-class residents who cared about the neighbourhood.

Hopefully the new councillors will realize that all citizens deserve to be heard in determining the future of the city.

Brian Mayes

Winnipeg

Into-office reply

John Zaplitny (“Office work = better work” Letters, Oct. 29) argues that employees “should come back to the office to work under the supervision they need.” But now that employees have experienced hybrid work, their perception of work has been irrevocably changed. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

Christian Le Breton (“A questionable move,” Letters, Oct. 28) and rigorous studies of over 450 companies and more than three million employees agree that remote work offers a better work-life balance, better psychological health and access to a bigger talent pool. Return-to-office mandates motivate star employees to quit, reduces the satisfaction of those who stay and discourage new talent from joining.

The additional commutes of return-to-office disproportionately impact mothers and star performers. Data from tech companies and non-profits show that letting people work from home part of the week boosts happiness and decreases turnover by a third — without any cost to performance.

It’s time to focus on performance, not process.

Dan Prowse

Winnipeg

Worthy links to forge

Re: Magician conjures hope (Oct. 31)

Escape artist-magician Dean Gunnarson freed himself in a locked water-filled tank to raise awareness for the charity Linking Hope, a non-profit organization that connects businesses and individuals with surplus clothing, hygiene items and household essentials to local grassroots agencies that can directly distribute these resources to those in need.

He shared his words of wisdom: “When you give people hope, you give them dignity, you give them the courage and strength to move forward.”

That sounds a lot like the themes of the sermons I preached 40 years ago at Donnelly United Church, where Dean’s parents listened and sang.

Thanks, Dean, for inspiring so many people with your 40 years of amazing magic — many more than my sermons ever did!

John Wesley Oldham

Winnipeg