Fire hall land swap: A reporter's lesson from a city scandal

Every once in a while, a story starts off simply enough and then takes on a life of its own.

On Aug. 23, 2012, I told our news editor I had a story. The previous night I had walked my dog by a fire hall on Grosvenor Avenue in River Heights and noticed the crews had moved on to a new station several blocks away on Taylor.

My initial interest in this was purely personal; I always dreamed of buying and living inside an old fire hall. I saw myself playing ball hockey with my buddies in one of the engine bays while the play-offs blasted from a nearby TV-- so much for the vigilant reporter stalking stories on every corner.

First look at a landswap

When I Googled the fire hall address the next morning, it triggered a series of events that prompted audits and reviews by the department of justice and police.

What came up when I plugged in that address was a link to local real estate developer Shindico's website, offering the Grosvenor station for lease.

Odd, I thought. I hadn't recalled the city declaring the hall surplus.

The first response that morning from city officials was they hadn't and that's when I knew there was a story.

Shindico had been in a similar situation when it advertised a city-owned downtown parking lot before the property had been deemed surplus.

We called the company about the fire hall advertisement after speaking to the city.

Shindico president Sandy Shindleman said he didn't comment on property matters. So we put the story on the air.

But the long and winding saga of this story would take its first real turn later that afternoon.

• Expropriation hearing missing key players in fire hall scandal
• City of Winnipeg moves to expropriate fire hall land on Taylor
• Shindico shown favouritism, fire hall report shows
• Questions arise over old fire hall put up for lease

We requested an on-camera interview with the then head of the city's property planning and development department to explain what was going on with the fire hall property.

When I walked into the administration side of city hall that afternoon I caught a quick look from a Winnipeg Free Press reporter waiting for the same interview.

"You aren't going to be happy," he said.

The fire hall had apparently been declared surplus as part of a three-for-one land swap deal, and it appeared we had accused the company of jumping the process prematurely.

It was based on what we were told by city officials, but we were a party to that inaccuracy.

I lost my temper. When Barry Thorgrimson, the head of PPD arrived for the interview, I was steaming mad.

“Do you realize we have a major error out in public based on what you told us this morning?” I said.

In more than a decade in journalism, I have never been so angry, and frankly unprofessional, in my demeanour.

Thorgrimson was taken aback by my anger and said he knew almost nothing about what was going on. He told me he had been handed the file and told to go talk the media.

"This is a property matter that went through a different standing committee, with a different department. So I'm kind of left out of this whole process as well," he said.

Shindico, he admitted, should not have posted this property.

"They are being a bit aggressive. We've asked them to pull that back until we can complete our due diligence and do the formal land transfer, as instructed by council."

Who didn’t know what?

It turns out a lot of people were "left out of this process." The subsequent audit would show multiple processes weren't followed.

There have been dozens of stories about the fire hall scandal subsequently.

It created a phrase familiar in convenience stores and at the toniest restaurants in the city.

Most Winnipeggers know what you are talking about when you say, "They built a fire hall on land they don't own."

But it took two years for me to realize what I had missed.

In the intervening time there has been some pretty deep investigation into what went wrong. The audit alone had 14 recommendations, all accepted by city council.

At CBC, we did our own research, talking to key players and asking the city for documents.

And through the Freedom of Information Act, we got hold of one of those important pieces of paper; I just didn't understand what it meant until late this December, more than two years after the first story broke.

I was sitting in the expropriation hearing between the city and Shindico on the Taylor fire hall property, and I had that paper in my hand.

It was a letter of intent between the city and Shindico to do the land swap, and it was signed by Barry Thorgrimson -- seven months before he told me he had no clue about the deal.

So either Mr. Thorgrimson had no idea what he was signing or what he told me that August day in 2012 was simply not true.

It wouldn’t be the last time

This was not the only time senior managers told me one thing that turned out to be something else entirely.

Just a few days after the fire hall story broke and was getting serious traction, Bartley Kives of the Winnipeg Free Press and I were called to what I can only describe as an extraordinary meeting with the heads of most of the city's departments – all of the top people.

City chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl headed the meeting and was flanked by fire chief Reid Douglas, chief financial officer Mike Ruta, chief operating officer Deepak Joshi, Barry Thorgrimson, director of property, planning and development, city solicitor Michael Jack and the head of material management, Barb D'avignon.

The only caveat? No cameras.

Across a long board table we were assured that all proper city practices were followed and according to Sheegl, "There's nothing that's been done that's untoward."

It was at that meeting that Sheegl told us he was aware of the land swap deal from "50,000 feet."

Something must have impaired Sheegl's sense of distance. The fire hall audit would later lay out his role in a few words.

"The current CAO has taken an active role in the project since the beginning," it said.

But, it added, "It appears that both the CFO and COO provided little to no oversight."

Sheegl would later receive an undisclosed pay-out when he left the city and angrily dismissed audits as a “witch-hunt.”

So why is this relevant now and what lesson did I learn?

In my own practice as a journalist, this has taught me you have to go back to the source material.

CBC had the letter of intent Barry Thorgrimson had signed, but we didn't make the connection and report the massive discrepancy between what he told us and what he had put his signature on.

Thorgrimson took the exit from his duties three days before the expropriation hearing began for the fire hall land and that letter of intent he signed? It figured prominently.

As to relevance, look to what former mayor Sam Katz told reporters after the audit came out about repercussions for those involved in such major errors of judgement and process.

"When you build something on someone else's land, that is the kind of mistake that I can easily see following into that category of repercussions," Katz told reporters. "That's the kind of mistake that should not be made."

Mayor Brian Bowman has now inherited this mess among others.

He praised Barry Thorgrimson last week for decades of service to the city and wished him a happy retirement.

It will be up to Bowman to figure out if there are any repercussions before others can join Sheegl and Thorgrimson in retirement.