'It's no secret I had been a little too honest,' former city director says
Lester Deane says contradicting Winnipeg's mayor contributed to departure from the city
Winnipeg's former public works director says contradicting the mayor on Portage and Main contributed to his departure from the city.
Lester Deane left the City of Winnipeg in May 2017 after leading the public works department for 16 months. At the time, Winnipeg chief administrative officer Doug McNeil said Deane failed to meet his expectations and suggested the director lacked political acumen.
In an interview with CBC News in December, Deane said one of the factors that led to his departure was a decision to honestly answer questions about the time it would take to reopen Portage and Main to pedestrians.
"It's no secret I had been a little bit too honest on my estimation of when Portage and Main would be open," Deane said, referring to Mayor Brian Bowman's desire to reopen the intersection by July 2017.
"He was told that there was no way this promise could come true. And yet for some reason he decided the course of action was to double down and say anything I had said was inaccurate."
Portage and Main has been closed to pedestrians since 1979. In June 2016, when mayors from across Canada visited Winnipeg for a Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference, Bowman told reporters he wanted the intersection reopened to pedestrians in time for the Canada Summer Games in July 2017.
"We are having good discussions with the property owners and we're making really good progress on that," Bowman said on June 3, 2016 at RBC Convention Centre, where the conference took place.
"The next time we have so many people here for such a huge event, it would be great for them to be able to cross."
On Nov. 29, 2016, Deane poured cold water on that idea. At city hall, he told reporters it could take two more years to begin the work due to the complexity involved in reopening the intersection. Negotiations with property owners, budget constraints, traffic safety issues and accessibility concerns all needed to be worked out, Deane said.
The next day, Bowman said Deane's statements were inaccurate and suggested the public works director was not up to speed on the file.
"There are no timelines that are contemplated. It could happen sooner and it could happen later," Bowman said.
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In his December interview with CBC News, Deane said he personally briefed Bowman about the time it would take to reopen the intersection.
"I never said I didn't agree with opening Portage and Main or that it couldn't be done," Deane said.
"I had personally told him, with a group of senior officials, that it was impossible to open Portage and Main [in July 2017]. The earliest it could be done, with unlimited budgets and everything, would be November 2017.
"He knew that going into when he made that statement, saying I was inaccurate. I have no reason why he would say I was inaccurate. In fact, he should thank me for telling the truth."
On Oct. 13, 2017, the mayor announced Portage and Main would not reopen to pedestrians until 2019 at the earliest. Asked whether he would apologize to Deane, the mayor said he would not, explaining he said the previous year it could open sooner or later.
Bowman's office reiterated on Thursday that Deane was not in charge of the project.
"Mr. Deane was not the project leader responsible for the Portage and Main project. Administrative leadership of this project was, and is, the responsibility of the chief administrative officer," Bowman's communications director, Jonathan Hildebrand, said in a statement.
"Mr. Deane was an engineer overseeing just one aspect of a multidimensional project — traffic flow — and speaking definitively about overall project timelines for which he was not responsible, and which did not even exist at the time, was inappropriate."
Hildebrand also noted 2017 was the year "critical steps" were completed toward reopening the intersection, starting with the successful conclusion of negotiations with property owners at all corners of Portage and Main.
He also noted council voted in late 2017 in favour of spending $3.5 million to make improvements to Portage and Main both above and below ground to complement private-sector investments.
The mayor's office also downplayed Bowman's statements at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in June 2016, insisting the mayor never promised to reopen the intersection the following summer.
"In Mayor Bowman's February 2016 State of the City address, he reiterated his support for the removal of the pedestrian barriers at Portage and Main, and said he believed it could get going in 2017 by intensifying engagement with property owners," Hildebrand said in his statement.
"Please do not equate this with a commitment to have the barriers removed and pedestrians crossing in 2017 because it wasn't."
Deane also said his decision to hire consultant Jeanette Montufar, who is married to former Winnipeg transportation engineer Luis Escobar, was another factor in his departure from the city, based on a conversation with the CAO in May 2017.
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