Brandon Minute: Issue 119

Brandon Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Brandon politics

📅 This Week In Brandon: 📅

• City Council meets tonight at 7:00 pm. The agenda includes an update on the new diversion depot at the Eastview Landfill, updates on agreements with the Brandon School Division covering joint use of community facilities and election services, and two projects under the Build Communities Strong Fund. Council will also consider a recommendation to apply to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Green Municipal Fund for a capital project to retrofit existing municipal buildings, along with items on a pledge of taxes and an Indigenous Relations Coordinator. Earlier in the meeting, Council will hear an annual presentation from Brandon First and a delegation with an update on the Brandon Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. A bylaw to open a public road at 5 Hummingbird Lane will also receive first reading. 
  
  
• The October municipal election field is taking shape. Ward 6 Councillor Bruce Luebke will run for his Council seat again in the October municipal election rather than seek the Mayor's chair. Luebke had been weighing a mayoral bid but said that residents in his ward did not want to lose their Councillor if a run for the City's top job failed. He says he plans to campaign on recruiting and retaining City staff, improving transparency and accountability, and better public engagement, including civic satisfaction surveys, an easier-to-read budget book, and budget consultations held well before final decisions rather than the week before. Former Councillor and Progressive Conservative Brandon East MLA Len Isleifson is seeking the Mayor's chair. So far, Councillors Heather Karrouze, Shaun Cameron, Shawn Berry, Jason Splett, and Tyson Tame have confirmed re-election bids, while Kris Desjarlais, Barry Cullen, and Glen Parker will not run again and Greg Hildebrand has yet to announce his intentions. 
  
  
• Several Brandon streets flooded on June 29th as heavy rain swept across western Manitoba, with residents wading through knee-high water in some residential areas that evening. Mayor Jeff Fawcett said the rain came down so fast and hard that it backed up the drainage system, leaving high water levels in parts of the city. Environment and Climate Change Canada issued a warning for western Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan that afternoon, cautioning that highly localized rainfall in excess of 150 millimeters was possible. About 50 millimeters was recorded around the Brandon airport, but the west side of the city was reported to have received roughly 100 millimeters, while Boissevain, about 65 kilometers south of Brandon, saw approximately 150 millimeters. The storms followed a tornado that swept through Rossburn the day before, damaging several structures and destroying a home. Fawcett asked residents to avoid areas with high water, including Richmond Avenue at 18th Street, saying the water would drain down but remained high.
  
  
• More than 2,000 people have signed an online petition calling for an end to bullying in the Brandon School Division. Lindsay Robinson created the petition, called Brandon Students Deserve Better, after a 12-year-old Waverly Park School student had his head pushed into a toilet while on a school field trip in June. Robinson argues the division has a zero tolerance policy on paper that is not enforced, and says her own calls were ignored when her son was bullied at Waverly, leading her to move him to another school two years ago. The petition calls for Waverly Park's principal to step down, but Robinson says her real aim is for the division to put new anti-bullying protocols in place. Four days after the petition launched, the division said it is creating a review panel of a psychologist, a social worker, a classroom teacher, parents, and, when appropriate, students to look for gaps in its anti-bullying programs. 
  
  
• Brandon University is replacing the dome on its rooftop observatory, with the family of longtime astronomy professor Austin Gulliver contributing $50,000 toward the estimated $150,000 cost and the Province of Manitoba funding the remainder. The university's 16-inch computerized telescope, installed in 2009 on top of McMaster Hall, can be operated remotely from anywhere in the world, but the original dome that houses it still has to be hand-cranked open and manually pointed in the right direction. Brandon University says the telescope is considered the largest publicly accessible telescope between Thunder Bay and Calgary, narrowly surpassing a similar facility at the University of Manitoba. Once the new computer-controlled dome is installed, the university plans to let stargazers log on to view stars, planets, and comets remotely and to stream a live view from the telescope. Observatory domes are made by only a small number of companies worldwide, so the university had to join a production queue for the replacement. The new dome is expected to arrive on campus soon, with a formal unveiling planned for September during Homecoming celebrations.

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