Brandon Minute: Issue 126

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

📅 This Week In Brandon: 📅

• City Council has approved two subdivisions that will create a total of 89 new single-family detached houses in Brandon's southwest corner, on either side of 34th Street north of Patricia Avenue. The first, a 43-lot application from Waverly Developments at 1900 34th Street, will be developed over the course of 10 years and extends the existing Brookwood neighbourhood into Brookwood South. The second, a 46-lot application from VBJ Developments, will connect to the Bellafield neighbourhood and link it directly to 34th Street for the first time. Council rezoned both parcels from agricultural land to low-density residential at its August 17th meeting, and also approved financing arrangements for water and wastewater infrastructure projects supporting growth in the Bellafield and Brookwood areas. Both developments will require more municipal infrastructure, which the City has been building out since announcing its southwest wastewater servicing project in 2023, and a new school now under construction will serve the new neighbourhoods. Mayor Jeff Fawcett acknowledged Council had been slow to develop single-family homes in the past few years, and said he received zero feedback from the August 5th public hearing on the applications.
  
  
• Free public transit for passengers aged 6 to 17 will launch in Brandon on September 1st, after City Council adopted the provincial initiative at the same August 17th meeting. The program flows from a $10-million allocation in the NDP's provincial budget to launch free youth transit in five Manitoba cities with transit systems, and Brandon can receive up to $1 million to reimburse lost fare revenue from September 2026 until August 2027. Several Councillors asked whether the provincial money could instead be used to improve the transit system, but City Staff explained the funding is a reimbursement of fares young riders would otherwise have paid, so it cannot be accessed in advance and the City only collects more as youth ridership grows. In 2025, roughly 73,000 youth riders generated $116,000 in fare revenue, and City Staff anticipate a significant increase in ridership once fares are removed. Bus passes will be administered through the Brandon School Division, with students required to show proof of age, while students outside the division can pick up a pass at a downtown info booth as the City deploys 10,000 passes. Children five and under will continue to ride free when accompanied by a paying adult.
  
  
• A University of Winnipeg political scientist says the City of Brandon should be more transparent about closed-door meetings, after data obtained by the Brandon Sun showed the City has held 78 Committee of the Whole meetings, most of them closed to the public, since the current Council took office in October 2022. Those meetings are not listed publicly, their minutes are not accessible on the City's website, and the data was only provided after a formal records request. Professor Aaron Moore believes the City is complying with legislation but says it does not proactively provide information, describing its committee minutes as meeting the "bare, minimum requirements". Ward 6 Councillor Bruce Luebke said he sees no benefit in going behind closed doors on certain matters, pointing to a recent committee agenda where he felt two of the three topics should have been discussed in public. Mayor Jeff Fawcett rejected the criticism, telling the Sun that Brandon is the most transparent government in Manitoba and that the City follows municipal rules.
  
  
• The City of Brandon has released its audited financial statements for 2025, recording an annual surplus of $28.3 million - more than five times the $5.1 million the City had budgeted. Total revenue reached $176.2 million against $147.9 million in expenses, with property tax revenue rising from $50.5 million in 2024 to $54 million. The City spent $62.2 million acquiring capital assets during the year and took on $13.5 million in new long-term debt, bringing its total long-term debt from $35.2 million to $45 million. Net debt grew from $38.9 million to $51.6 million over the year, and the City's cash position swung from $8.6 million on hand at the start of 2025 to a small net bank shortfall by year end. The statements, audited by MNP LLP, were released under The Municipal Act and are available for inspection through the City Clerk's office and on the City's website.
  
  
• Brandon's October municipal election field has grown again, with long-time resident Scott Pedlow registering last week to run for Councillor in Ward 9. Pedlow, who grew up in the city's east end, says he wants to focus on basics like cleanliness, graffiti, roads and sidewalks, and to be "open all the time to public engagement". He joins Norah Woychyshyn, who has already begun campaigning door to door, as the only registered candidates so far in the ward. The seat is open after Ward 9 Councillor Glen Parker announced in May that he is leaving politics after three terms on Council. The municipal election is on October 28th. 

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