Joe Curnow

Saturday!

The City has known for years that the library needs safer infrastructure on the 4th floor. They know Community Connections and safety hosts have a proven record of improved safety and deescalation. They are consciously withholding funding for adequate maintenance and staffing of the library.

This is Scott Gillingham's fault, and councillors, press, and residents need to treat it like it's his fault. He let DCSP walk on a motion to take over Connections and then let it sit inaccessible. He let redesign plans go unfunded. We deserve a safe accessible library for everyone. He doesn't care.

If Janice Lukes or Scott Gillingham had wanted to make Wellington Cres safe, they clearly could have done so. This is a good program! These changes are good ones! But they do not care about our lives or those of our loved ones.

Every neighborhood deserves safer streets, except where someone has already died.
Gillingham and Lukes are first class weasels!

Hey #Winnipeg

This 🧵 ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Mayor Gillingham and (most of) @cityofwinnipeg.bsky.social council don't care about the safety of active transportation users.

Organizing really is mostly follow up. Oomph

Vigilante bike lane on Wellington Crescent. Love it.

June 6 4:30-6:30pm Wellington Cres + Cockburn BLOCK PARTY Celebrate the life of Rob Jenner And envision safe streets for all hot dogs • snacks • activities wear red for Rob

Wendy, Rob’s widow, was IN THE ROOM when Janice Lukes promised this. We’re having a block party TODAY at Rob’s ghost bike to celebrate Rob. We hoped we could celebrate safe infrastructure coming in his name, too.

DECISION MAKING HISTORY On December 12, 2024, Council concurred in the recommendation of the Executive Policy Committee and adopted the following: 1. That the Winnipeg Public Service be directed to report back to the Standing Policy Committee on Public Works in 120 days with an interim solution to improve safety for yclists (ahead of a more permanent Walk Bike design study for separated cycling infrastructure can be undertaken, to allow for consideration for initial implementation in 2025. 2. That the Winnipeg Public Service be directed to work with community partners, including Bike Winnipeg to support public engagement and prioritization of Wellington Crescent within the City of Winnipeg plans and priorities in the upcoming Transportation Master Plan 2050 and updated Pedestrian and Cycling Strategies. 3. That the Winnipeg Public Service be directed to work with community partners, including Bike Winnipeg to support targeted stakeholder engagement, focusing on potentially impacted fronting property owners. 4. That the Proper Officers of the City be authorized to do all things necessary to implement the intent of the foregoing.

Rob Jenner was killed by a driver one year ago TODAY. Councillor Janice Lukes hasn’t delivered on safety measures that she promised the community would be implemented THIS YEAR. And now she’s pushing back even LOOKING at the proposal into JULY.

Blaming the “funding model” for the budget choices is a cop out. The funding model is the same as other Canadian municipalities, yet those councils make better choices for road safety #winnipeg #wpgpoli

Janice Lukes’s answer for why we can’t move faster is we don’t have the money, but she’s 100% behind billion-dollar road widening projects that are estimated to save drivers 12 seconds on their commutes, and wants us to celebrate $7m/year for active transportation, much of which is just for studies

Road Safety Strategic Action Plan Vision A transportation system that allows people of all ages and abilities to safely move around without experiencing death or serious injury Goal 20% reduction in fatal and serious injury collisions over the 5-year plan winnipeg.ca/roadsafety Chart of road safety trends showing that the 20% reduction target is higher than the 35% reduction from baseline numbers experienced in 2022

Personally I would be embarrassed, as a city leader, to solicit praise for setting a five-year target for reducing road death that doesn’t even meet levels we experienced three years ago.

She very clearly wants credit for being an advocate for active transportation without committing to build any infrastructure that will inconvenience her suburban driver constituents.

Oh! Will you send us your syllabus? That’s so cool!

I'm looking forward to gathering again in a few weeks <3 Join us for collective community reflection & growing connections that can sustain our work around Queerness & Learning. I'd love to see you!

Lisa: “I don’t know if I can say this strongly enough. I am *livid* about what happened last Wednesday.” People following process carefully, and nobody know during entire day that mayor Gillingham had called DCSP and had them throw in proposal that day

bsky.app/profile/mari...

Mayor Gillingham is the most opaque, corrupt city leader I’ve ever seen and I’ve lived in fucking Chicago.

And it was the very last fucking thing of the day, so councillors and the mayor got to ask all their rhetorical questions and then adjourn, with no follow-up rebuttal from any of the many people who spoke about funding community connections

Goes directly against the assertions from Duncan et al that the lobby space should not be for social services, but that doesn’t matter, because this is (1) free and (2) part of removing, not serving, unhoused people.

Proposal is for DCSP to take over community connections space - which is a library service space with added services to serve additional needs - and make it an office for “service connection” - but without librarians.

DCSP delegate not on the agenda. Gets to talk on and BRING A PRESENTATION, also usually not allowed. Santos, Lukes, and Gillingham look over it eagerly and make references to it in questions, also not done in the rest of the meeting. Document is not accessible to public because it wasn’t submitted.

Greg from the Downtown Community Safety Partnership is proposing DCSP take over Connections space for security shit? DON'T LIKE.

Just so everyone understands how shady this is. Santos has been resisting information from dozens of community orgs about how essential it is to fund Community Connections, been talking about compromise. Suddenly a walk-on from our downtown homeless removal service to take over and she’s all ears 🧵

Community Connections' yearly budget is less than 5% of this.

They closed Community Connections over like $600k and wring their hands about where they’re supposed to get the money when we demand they reopen it.