Charleswood-Tuxedo Questionnaire

Last election, I sent out a questionnaire for the candidates of Charleswood-Tuxedo and this year I am doing the same.

I am still undecided and slowly making my way to a decision. I have formed the questions to be informative as well as fun. They were mailed out to all of the candidates and I post the results in complete form when they come in.

Here are the questions:

Questions for the candidates for Charleswood-Tuxedo Ward

Question 1: What is your name?

Question 2: What is your profession? What business holdings do you have in Winnipeg and beyond. How would you avoid conflict of interest as an elected official with what you do now?

Question 3: How old are you?

Question 4: Can you tell us about your family?

Question 5: Why are you running in Charleswood-Tuxedo?

Question 6: How long have you lived in the ward? Do you live full time in Winnipeg?

Question 7: Have you had any past political affiliations in provincial or federal politics?

Question 8: Who did you vote for in the last civic election both for mayor and councillor and why? How would you rate the last council and mayor?

Question 9: Do you feel your political views are left, center or right? How would you describe your political views?

Question 10: What do you think are the major issues for the city of Winnipeg?

Question 11: What do you think are the major issues for the ward of Charleswood-Tuxedo?

Question 12: Do you support a tax freeze or do you believe that taxes should go up to re-build infrastructure and support programs?

Question 13: Do you support cuts in the city of Winnipeg budget? Where?

Question 14: Do you support increases in the city of Winnipeg budget? Where?

Question 15: Do you support an increase, decrease or a freeze in the city budget for police officers? Do you believe we need more police officers? If so, would you support a tax increase for it?

Question 16: What is your view on crime in the city of Winnipeg and what can you as councillor do about it?

Question 17: Do you support rapid bus transit or light rail transit? Do you have any other ideas for rapid transit? Do you believe Charleswood is well served for public transit?

Question 18: Do you believe a city should fund a zoo? If yes or no, please indicate why.

Question 19: Do you believe a city should fund arts and culture? If yes or no, indicate why.

Question 20: Do you believe the fire department should have an increase, decrease or a freeze in their budget? Would you support a tax increase for the fire department?

Question 21: Do you believe that roads, water and sewer should receive an increase, decrease or freeze in their budget? Would you support a tax increase for roads, water and sewer?

Question 23: Would you support the city of Winnipeg having a sales tax in addition to property tax?

Question 24: Do you think Winnipeg should have a tax cut? If yes or no, explain why?

Question 25: Do you believe that the present city of Winnipeg budget is adequate for the city of Winnipeg? If yes or no, explain why.

Question 26: Should education be funded through property tax or through general funds from the province?

Question 27: Do you support term limits? Will you be serving a term limit even if there are no rules in place? How long will you serve?

Question 27: Do you think housing should be allowed at The Forks? If yes or no, explain why.

Question 28: What changes (if any) should be done to upkeep our city parks and recreation programs?

Question 29: What do hope to see in the Kapyong Barracks along Kenaston?

Question 30: Do you support a moratorium on development on old railway lines in favour of rapid transit and bike corridors?

Question 31: Do you support widening Kenaston to three lanes in each direction?

Question 32: Do you support the creation of service roads for any further shopping developments?

Question 33: What is your view on city taxes helping to build professional arenas and stadiums?

Question 34: What is your view of a possible call for taxpayer help to expand  attractions around the MTS Centre? Would you support it?

Question 35: What do you believe the city should do to ensure a vital downtown? Do you believe it is important as a councillor to support it?

Question 36: Do you believe that some city service should be privatized? What services (if any) would be candidates for it?

Pinkerton Series Starts Sunday at High Noon

The Pinkertons TV series has been shooting in Manitoba all this summer and now will be airing on TV starting this week. Here is where you can see it in Winnipeg.

High noon.

The western series set in the 1860s follows the Pinkerton Detective Agency which acted as law enforcement long before other American law agencies ever did.

Look to see many Canadian actors featured in the series as well as Manitoba dressed up to look like the Old West. The Prairie Dog Railway stars prominently.

Sunday, high noon. There will be 22 episodes of this syndicated series coming in the weeks to follow.

XS Cargo Closing

XS Cargo Winnipeg

XS Cargo Winnipeg along with the rest of the 50 stores in Canada will be shutting down after failing to re-structure this past week. This comes on the heels of the shut down of another warehouse store Big Lots which shut down 78 stores last years including the Winnipeg store.

The XS store was in the parking lot of The Brick near Polo Park.

XS was known for colourful ads inserts and low cost goods, some of if re-conditioned product. The company blamed competition with Target and Walmart for their demise.

Other stores circling the drain the last months are Bowring, Bombay and Sears.

The Race for Mayor of Winnipeg 2014

It is usually after the long weekend when people start to pay a little more attention to what is happening besides what they will do on the weekend cottage visit or how many Fringe plays they will attend.

Our past mayor usually didn't even announce he was running until after Labour Day.

We still have a little while for the nominations to close. Across the province, lots of incumbents remain unchallenged. In some cases not enough people are running for the positions that are available. Sad, really.

It is a difficult decision to run. Mayor and Councillor are full-time jobs. The present mayor had his business as well as a home in another country and this was a source of consternation for many including our media. No matter how high energy a person is, running a city is an all encompassing thing. Also, the matter of conflict of interest is a growing concern. The wearing of two or more hats is no easy matter. Even the perception that you are acting on behalf of someone else is enough to destroy the credibility of the process and everyone within that process.

As of last count, we have 7 people running for mayor. One dropped out, three were ruled ineligible due to problems regarding getting the 250 signatures needed to run.

I have joked around over the amount of people running for mayor and even made some teasing remarks. However, let me state quite clearly that I am happy for a competitive race. The last mayor's race had four people including an incumbent mayor. I was undecided almost till the end and voted for my candidate despite doubts. In the end, I want better governance and despite witty rejoinders and some sarcasm, I respect anyone who runs.

In the last election I voted for Judy Wasylycia-Leis (JWL). Despite misgivings that her campaign had gone off the rails a bit and increasingly relied on her NDP friends, I voted for her over Sam Katz. I deeply worried that she would not be her own woman and felt that Greg Selinger would have undue influence over her.

The NDP has tried for many years to win City Hall all the while telling us there are no party politics. Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats have been in city office for years but it is only the NDP that seems to have an agenda of controlling the city through the provincial party.

At this point in the 2014 city election, I am once again undecided about who I will vote for mayor.

There are 7 final candidates barring any other changes. It is a lot to go through. Some people have dismissed some of the people listed already. To be sure some people in past campaigns seem to have entered in part for publicity.

At the moment, I can only assess what I can see, read, hear or otherwise find in regards to the ten mayor candidates. Some candidates have complained the media has not been covering them. I'm sure others think the media covers them unfairly.

It is not the job of the media to promote and go into depth on any particular candidate. Heck, they can endorse someone right now if they like and only cover that person till the election. The biggest threat to the media is if they are not regarded as credible so generally they will cover news stories and then add a healthy dollop of opinion. candidates should not get hung up on media coverage and try other forms of getting their message out there.

I consume a fair amount of print, radio and TV news and you soon realize that there is a variety of ways to approach news and even more varied opinion. I also read blogs, social media and often the personal or professional sites of the politicians. City Circus had one of the more extensive interviews with Judy Wasylcia-Leis.

The point is that candidates should use whatever means they can to get known, put forth a a platform and debate it whenever possible. Don't expect a free ride, understand that you might find the questions challenging, repetitive and even hostile. If you don't like dealing with the media, keep them at a distance like Stephen Harper does. It hasn't harmed him in getting his message across.

There have been a few polls out. Some say the race has already been won. Be that as it may, I am still undecided.

Let's work our way backwards from the least known candidates at this point. Some have called them fringe to whit they have bristled. Calgary elected a fringe mayor who became a beloved mayor. You could do worse. For sake of argument, I will just say least known which I think even the candidates would agree with at this point.

7. Michel Fillion

He doesn't have a website. I do follow the Twitter account. I have seen a few newspaper stories and he has promised to change perceptions of downtown and offered some ideas on what to do to provide better security. He has not been invited to a number of forums by some organizers. This is their right. If he wishes to crack that group, he will probably have to set up a website, organize his own media events, use all social media and forums he can.

What I do know of him is that he comes from a political family and that he is an entertainment booking agent. What I don't know is why he is running for mayor. I say this because many of his ideas focus on downtown. I would have thought council might have been a good start. With around 40 days to election, we'll see if some of his ideas will help elevate his status.

6. David Sanders

He has had a varied career in law,  journalism and government and rose to attention for his constant monitoring of city governance. He asked the uncomfortable questions that those representing the voters needed to ask. As an outsider, he faces an uphill climb. Sometimes it is easier to be a critic than to formulate your own ideas. That's okay. The world needs critics too. However, in a city election the voters are also looking for ideas and even a vision of how to run their community.

The job of running for mayor is one that requires organization which can be difficult. He might have made a more formidable candidate for councillor. It is possible over the course of the election that more notice will be taken of Sanders and his considerable resume. This will take ideas and challenging candidates who come to forums with empty rhetoric or outright lack of knowledge on a subject. It will be interesting to see in the days ahead,

5. Robert-Falcon Ouellette

Here is a candidate with another impressive resume and a little charisma. He probably challenges JWL on the left for the progressive vote. Some Liberals, Greens and NDP are looking at him now. I don't know that prominent NDP are going to endorse as they would likely be clubbed by the provincial party. However, nothing is stopping general members from climbing aboard.

JWL is well in the lead but RFO could eat into that support if she cannot tap into some of the vote that is looking for something a little more exciting. As it stand, RFO has been introducing some policy ideas that contrast with JWL. It will be interesting in the end to see which of the candidates has the more fleshed out campaign.

As a First Nations man, RFO is mounting a campaign that inspires even if he doesn't close the gap to striking range of the perceived front runners. One wonders if some in the city will let the issue of race dictate their vote. You would hope that like Calgary, we would look only at the person.

4. Paula Havixbeck

As a first term councillor, she was on the Executive Policy Committee but soon fell into disagreement on a host of issues with Sam Katz. This got her booted off. I didn't vote for her because I thought she would be brought into the inner circle of the mayor and things would never change. I can say I was wrong in thinking that. At first it appeared to be that way but she could no longer go along with the old way of business.

I can't say how I feel about her as councillor. I had one issue that I dealt with myself for the most part. After one term, I can't really assess how she has done since she was shunted aside by Katz. Her currency went up being a critic of the mayor but was it sufficient to make a run for mayor herself? We are still seeing policies unveiled but might be a case of too many people at center right running for office and she doesn't have as many endorsements of establishment backing.

It is difficult to break into the lead without something exciting to propel you there and the people to do it.

3. Gord Steeves

Steeves keeps bouncing back. He quit city politics, changed long time party affiliation and ran as Progressive Conservative and was smacked for it with defeat. Out of office and back into law, he indicated his interest early in the mayor's race and possibly crossed the line into violating the law on when you can announce. Had another set back when a prominent organizer and supporter ditched him. Ran into huge controversy when his wife said things that stung of racism.

And yet Steeves keep ticking. This is in part due to the fact that the front runner is on the left and is running a campaign light on actually mentioning too much. The controversies may have knocked Steeves down again but they also bolster people and supporters. It is likely a few people think his wife was bang on.

Steeves has been in politics a long time. He had a huge mandate from his ward when he was a councillor and would likely still be there if he didn't have wanderlust. It would appear that Steeves is trying for aggressive and is confronting JWL at every turn. It is a risky proposition as it can look like bullying but it has turned attention to the contrast between the candidates. Given the setbacks, Steeves has remained part of the discussion for the top 3 but he might have to wait for someone else to falter to benefit.

The people who look to Steeves are the ones who will hate rapid transit, are sick of tip toeing over which demographic scares them and makes them angry, are not fans of downtown, want roads fixed but also want their taxes low. The aggrieved suburbanites.

2. Brian Bowman

Another lawyer in the mix. This one a privacy lawyer with long time ties to the Chamber of Commerce. In short order he has picked up some top business endorsements. However, the bulk of the Progressive Conservative party and Liberal party are split among candidates. The Liberals have people in almost every camp. The NDP key supporters are by and by with JWL.

Bowman has largely tried to straddle the center right with a positive campaign. Like a lot of candidates, there is talking of finding efficiencies in the system. He remains a supporter and expander of BRT in contrast to Steeves. In fact, he has several policies that contrast him with Steeves including downtown. What he still lacks is policies that contrast him with JWL. The transparency policy could be that but he would have to show how allies of JWL such as the unions and trustees on school board don't record votes and hide facts such as raising salaries for unionized workers. Even if was a good idea, hiding it wasn't.

Depending on which poll you read, Bowman is second or third. It appears that Steeves and Bowman could do with a consolidation of the anti-JWL vote. However, neither seems likely at this stage to drop out. At this point, the movement in support is unpredictable. Stumbles can happen and momentum can build. Front runners can slip. Bowman could be well positioned to move up.

1. Judy Wasylcia-Leis

She has been the front runner since the beginning and campaigns like one. She tries not to be controversial, she makes no big vision or policy statement. In the one area of rapid transit, she says to finish it but struggled to indicate how to pay for it.

It is hard to fault her campaign. She is collecting the endorsements she needs, the union support and NDP/Liberal support she needs and just has to be the thing the is really the elephant in the room: Sam Katz.

Could Sam Katz have won again. Sure. However, it seemed obvious that some in the business community were looking for something different.

JWL still has difficulties in outlining her ideas. She can get flustered or angry. Being the only woman in the race had advantages though. She can appeal to a part of the population who want a left of center female mayor in power. Ideology and feminist movement politics are in the background. Union activity in the foreground.

I voted for JWL last election mainly because I believed that Sam Katz was increasingly running into problems related to city management. I worried that all the police and fire union endorsements could result in a lack of due diligence on budgets. It would seem much of that has borne out.

Nothing seems to have dislodge JWL from grabbing the ring of power in this upcoming election. And yet I have troubled thoughts that she might not be her own woman and that the provincial NDP and Greg Selinger will be pressuring her to kowtow. The provincial party has bulled city candidates before with Harvey Smith. I don't see them changing their tune that NDP people should do as they are told.

***

Despite my misgivings on the election, campaigns and some of the candidates, I am still undecided. There is still some time before the vote so I continue to watch with interest.

Winnipeg Jets on TV Tonight TSN 3

TSN 3 is the host of the Winnipeg Jets regional games this year and this means that people who used to pay $10 a month for the right to see the games will see them as part of their overall cable package. This should result in far more people in Winnipeg and beyond watching the Jets this year.

Exhibition games will also appear on the network starting with tonight's against the Minnesota Wild at 7 PM. This will be of special interest to people who have no desire to see fall season premieres that are as thick as thieves this evening.

Expect to see a lot of the young guys trying hard to crack the line-up in pre-season.

One thing everyone agrees with is that the Winnipeg Jets have drafted well since the move. Many of the players picked are some of the most exciting to see on the team.

Go Jets go!

Autumnbee's Pizza Coming to Grant Park

It will be sad for some but Pizza Place has been closed at Grant Park Shopping Mall after being located there since 1969. The Pizza Place chain was the first pizza restaurant to open in the city as Crestview in 1960. Shortly after that, Pizza Hut and Gondola came as well.

The 88 seat Pizza Place became an institution, a place to get a set down meal at Grant Park for the neigbourhood and before a movie. They had the most memorable jingle in the history of restaurants.



"It's ready with spaghetti and they season it just right, so let's go to Pizza Place, they're ready every night."

Decades of serving Winnipeg and now the last Pizza Place with its leaning tower of Pisa logo is gone.

In the place of Pizza Place and opening very soon will be Autumnbee's Pizza. It look to be an Italian restaurant. It is good that a casual dining restaurant will remain inside the mall.

Even now, renovations continue to take place as new skylights, tiling, paint and the like are replaced. Several stores have upgraded, a few others are newly opened. The Landmark Theaters is under renovations as well.

Perhaps when things are completed in the fall, it will be possible to get a slice at Autumnbee's and then attend a show at Landmark.

Seasons Apartments Tuxedo Coming Soon

Seasons Apartments near IKEA/Cabela's

It has kind of flown under the radar but is now taking shape on the IKEA and will open in spring of 2015. It is immediately beside Cabela's on a spot that that was designated for future development. Surprisingly, it has gotten built faster than the long awaited Lowe's Home Improvement that presented their plans for the area many, many months ago.

The spot beside Cabela's is Seasons Apartments

 More of the activity near IKEA has shifted across Sterling Lyon where the factory outlet mall is being laid even as we speak. Condos and apartments are also being prepared adjacent to the new shopping area.

What is interesting about Seasons is that it is a large 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartment rental complex that is pet friendly. Unlike many apartments, it also has in suite washer and dryers and dishwashers. Prices are not listed for the apartments yet but given the shortage of newer rental units, it could prove popular.

The big question is: Will people want to be in space of one of Winnipeg's newest and largest shopping districts?

If the increased building around Superstore on Bison Drive is an indication, the answer appears to be yes. It seems most developers have cottoned on to fact that if you want to fill your very large site, putting housing in might be the ticket.

There seems to be few larger developments now that don't have some sort of housing component.

I am still awaiting the day that Polo Park or St. Vital Centre announce they are building additional floors for housing.

The arrange of housing for Seasons appears to be three buildings laid out in a horseshoe. All look to be four floors with outdoor parking.

There is additional retail likely to be added to south of Sterling Lyon near IKEA but it will be interesting to see if so much housing will attract a grocer to supply all the residents.

Yankee Candle Coming to Winnipeg

It is reported this week that the massive U.S. retailer Yankee Candle is seeking out sites in Winnipeg malls for new stores. This is part of their Canadian strategy of opening 50 Canadian stores coast to coast within five years.

Yankee Candle, seller of scented candles operates in all 50 states in the United States.

It is unlikely that Park will see this store in 2014 given the huge expansion of stores they are adding this fall including H&M which had a huge opening this week.

Look to see the stores possibly after this Christmas season and sometime in 2015 year to open.

Tommy Gun's Coming to Polo Park

Coming on the heels of opening at Kenaston Common early this year, Tommy Gun's Original Barbershop will opening in Polo Park very soon.

Several local barbershops have taken up the challenge of being more geared to men and now a chain is taking it to the malls and strip malls. Polo park used to have a more traditional barbershop near Sears prior to the expansion in the 1980s but it gave way to more modern salon styles.

Tommy Gun's put the man back in the picture. It has IPads, bubble hockey and flat screens filled with sports to watch even as you get your cut and shave.

In some ways this is Back to the Future for Polo Park to get the  old time barbershop back. It looks good on them.

Cora's Coming to Polo Park

Polo North is now fully leased with the announcement that Cora's will be joining the site very soon,

The former CKY building and Winnipeg Arena re-development already includes Marshalls, Marks, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Atmosphere and Destination Maternity.

Cora's Restaurant's original location on Waverley Street remains popular but their location on Provencher closed August 17 when their lease ended.

Given the popularity of the Polo Park area for shopping, the addition of another good breakfast restaurant nearby will be appreciated.

As nearby Target awaits completion, the question remains whether additional restaurants will be built as well.

Winnipeg was one of the first Cora's outside their base in Quebec and now there are 130 locations all across Canada.

Numb U2

Linkin Park - Numb

Tourism in Winnipeg

Tourism is always hit and miss in this province. Travel Manitoba came up with a little buzzworthy four TV ads that emphasized the three things they thought were important. Those things were: Churchill, northern tours, fishing (especially with use of a guide) and Winnipeg.

These ads were set up to present Manitoba to others but they were also shown on TV within the province to present the province to itself. In other words, the biggest tourists are people in the province visiting one another. Show someone in Winnipeg what Churchill is like and they will be the number 1 source of tourists generally.

There is a limited budget each year and past efforts have been mediocre. The government realizes the importance and sets out to support key industries such as fly-in fishing and tours of Churchill. Winnipeg has always been more difficult to capture because cultural images show a world mosaic. It is hard to show the Winnipeg ID, the character of the city, who we are. The television ad shows dragon boat racing on the Red River. Don't know how that says: Winnipeg.

Tourism Winnipeg is obviously focused more on Winnipeg which you'd expect. The City  of Winnipeg tour book is as good as it gets. Top notch all the way. The request page though needed a correction. It said "chok full" rather than "chock full" and I hope it is corrected soon.

There is no doubt the city is trying to position itself a lot better with limited resources. Quite a bit of research is being done. And yet the city has suffered tourism-wise because in the grand scheme of things there has to be compelling attractions for people to want to visit the city.

The Canadian Tourism Commission turned its eyes to Manitoba and brought a hundred plus travel writers to the province for about $300,000. The first articles from that visit are starting to appear in newspapers like the Toronto Star.

Some journalists think travel writing is fluffy or dishonest. Perhaps that's because payment is often involved from the party being reviewed.

Given the cuts to newspaper and magazine budgets, few seem willing to send their reporters off each week to far flung destinations. Yet every major metropolitan newspaper has a travel section. Very willing to accept travel ads, not willing to assign hard news reporters?

I guess the same could be said of home and auto sections of the newspapers. Lots of ads but is there any hard news reporting in there? Is all we see softball in terms of reporting?

That is a debate for another time. Let's just say for now that travel writing is popular and if we can believe the tourism departments, it works.

In the aftermath of the tour of travel writers, we will have see if the articles that result from it see an uptick in the number of visitors.

The Journey Churchill at Winnipeg Zoo, the Human Rights Museum and swimming with belugas in Churchill are new to the province. Manitobans will visit them first in big numbers but their long term future depends on visitors from all over to survive.

Most of Winnipeg's greatest tourism attractions are cultural. The mountains and the ocean don't exist in a river valley. While the natural attraction Winnipeg does have can be emphasized, they don't hold a candle to the city's people and culture. That is hard to capture in pictures compared to Vancouver by the mountains and sea or Toronto by the lake.

Ultimately what becomes a national and international tourist attractions in Winnipeg are things the people in the city have done for themselves. The examples abound from Folklorama, the Folk Festival, Rainbow Stage and The Forks. As good as those are, it is hard to capture iconic pictures of it to sell the masses beyond Manitoba's borders.

The travel writers who recently visited our city now have the iconic pictures of people inside a tube watching polar bears above them. They have the distinctive Human Rights Museum that looks different from most buildings on the planet and further afield, they have pictures of people swimming with belugas.

They say a picture says a thousand words...those pictures from this past trip of travel writers are probably worth at least $300,000.

Let's see if those pictures result in millions more being in Winnipeg and beyond.

Baby Got Class -- A back to school parody

Tom Petty - Free Fallin'

TSN3 Equals Free Winnipeg Jets

If you already have TSN on your cable channel, get ready for good  news...TSN Jets is going to be free on a new TSN3 station. No more 10 bucks a month...free.

This year's coverage will for 65 games including some exhibition ones. The rest of the season will be seen on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, Rogers Sportsnet and City TV.

Expect viewership to spike this year. Not every family was willing to pay the extra but were indeed Jets fans. They were just fans with a budget.

TSN3 equals free will continue to have Dennis Beyak on play-by-play and colour will be handled by Shane Hnidy and Brian Engblom. The rest of the team fills in with Sara Orlesky and guesting from Gary Lawless.

Lindor Reynolds and the Free Press

Lindor Reynolds has produced what is likely her last column from the Free Press as she spends her last days at Riverview Health Centre in palliative care. This year my family made a contribution to the Riverview Health Centre Foundation for the care they have provided for us over the years.

The last column is terribly sad for her family, friends and readers.

I'll be the first to say that I read certain writers not because I love them but because they can be cathartic in the other emotions they can elicit. They can also make me look at other points of view that shed insight on things.

What I do love is newspapers. I generally read four different one on a weekend. Try my best to turn every page, scout online for other stuff local and farther afield and just expand my mind. No, I don't read every comic anymore. And no I don't read every story or column in every section. Try as I might, I just don't read humour columns no matter how gut bustingly funny people tell me they are. I like funny things but in life I don't really watch sit-coms or go to too many funny movies either. Why? I guess as we get more time pressed, it is harder to commit to a column, a show or a movie. You make choices.

I still don't really know how the newspaper industry works. I don't don't how the Free Press works in particular. I don't know who gets chosen to write a general interest column, what editorial direction or oversight is involved, how they measure success or failure or anything really. I often wish there were regular columns on papermaking. And by that I mean, how things get done and why.

Lindor Reynolds was a content producer for the paper. In addition to the general interest column, she wrote travel stories. It was always from a personal level and often her family was part of the story. In many cases, based on years of her stories, you knew when she was going to be on her high horse, when she was going to be starstruck and what type of column was about to appear.

There were some excellent columns, a lot of clunkers, journeymen work and plenty to annoy me. Yes, I said annoyed. Plenty of times I would read and say to myself: here we go again. That's fine. Some issues deserve repeating. I read the late Tom Oleson not because I agreed with him. He was a curmudgeon, held opinions that were wrongheaded and liked to poke the bear.  I read Fred Cleverly and Frances Russell because they would fight the good fight every week.

It is okay to be disagreeable. Don't need dittoheads everywhere you go.

If hundreds of people say they don't like you, it probably means they read you. You need thick skin to write. Not everyone will like you but it doesn't matter if it sells newspapers.

I often want newspapers to better. I do get annoyed at some for having some for having a wide canvas to paint on but only choosing one small corner of it or using only a select amount of colours. I have been told by some inside the field that it might be a strategy of that writer or a chosen editorial direction for that type of writing.

It is hard not to think that some writers in the Sun are also actors. My inference here is that they chose a role to play and then strike up the band. I don't think too many people would disagree that it can be theatre.

Lindor Reynolds will be dearly missed by many of her readers. It is a giant beast that needs to be fed this thing called newspapers. Her last column reminded that there are people who put these stories out. True to her style, she delivered a personal note of where any of us can be when we least expect it.

They say newspapers are going out of style. I certainly hope that isn't true. I am not as journalist but I always hope we have a world full of them even when they say things we disagree with or are annoyed by, especially so.

Paul Edmonds New Voice of Jets

Some months ago, I mentioned how good it was of TSN 1290 in Winnipeg to hold on to Paul Edmonds after the Goldeyes radio broadcasts moved to a different radio station.

Paul Edmonds will become the new play by play guy for TSN Jets broadcasts. The long time voice of play by play hockey Brian Munz is changing to colour analyst and reporter for the Jets radio broadcast.

For the last while, Edmonds has helped anchor the The Big Show morning program with Troy Westwood and Matt Leibl on TSN 1290. Edmonds will be leaving that show at the end of August. No word yet on who will fill the morning spot that Edmonds was still very new to after replacing Jay Richardson who left the show.

This past year, Edmonds had a chance to fill in at play by play for hockey for the Jets and this obviously made program directors see him in a different light from his baseball broadcasts.

So what does this all mean? Well, according to the station TSN is expanding their Jets broadcasting to year round.  Dennis Beyak and Brian Munz were sharing radio broadcasts. It appears Beyak will only do TV now. Shane Hnidy will still cross between radio and TV broadcasts.

I liked Brian Munz's work as play by play guy. He was really good. I am not sure what led to the decision to make him colour guy and reporter.

A good pairing is worth its weight in gold. The old Jets were overseen by Curt Kielback and Ken Nicholson. From 1979 to 1982, Nicholson was play by play and Kielback was colour but then they switched in part due to Nicholson's health related to diabetes.

Could the pairing of Edmonds and Munz be the next legendary twosome of Jets radio? I'd like to think so.

The increase in Jets coverage year round for TSN is a good move. It is a way for the network to ensure the best people cover hockey and if there ever is a chance again at national broadcast of NHL hockey for TSN, it will because they have done the hard work at the local level.

It will be a real dogfight for radio ratings this fall.

Mercedes-Benz Winnipeg Moving to Kenaston

Mercedes-Benz Winnipeg, formerly Lone Star

The only Mercedes-Benz dealer in Winnipeg moved from Regent Avenue to Portage Avenue in 2000. Formerly known as Lone Star, it has been an independent in the luxury market with a fine product in their Mercedes car. They also do well with their Smart cars and a line of courier vans.

Their location on South Portage beside the Charleswood Bridge is quite packed with inventory. In 2000, dealerships along busy roads was the way to go. The big move to dealership parks was still somewhat of an exception.

In recent years, we have seen more and more car dealerships move to large car parks. We have also seen a lot of dealerships become part of massive multi -brand ownership groups. Just recently Landau Ford has been bought by one such group.

Some of the abandoned dealerships along main business streets have been taken over by independents with varying degrees of success and failure. Woodhaven Toyota was taken over by independent Winnipeg Hyundai. The old Birchwood GM dealership near the Charleswood bridge was taken over by Mercedes-Benz.

Given the marquee nature of the Mercedes brand, their dealership could be anywhere in the city and still attract Manitobans. However, the after sales service has become so important to any car dealer. Service and parts departments keep sales going and busy dealerships are profitable ones. It isn't always new and used car sales.

With this in mind, Mercedes-Benz Winnipeg is moving to Kenaston for a site that is larger, meets more of the demands of today's dealership and is closer to the people who often buy their cars.

Kitty corner-ish to the Goodlife Fitness on Kenaston

Construction is already taking place on the corner opposite Goodlife Fitness on Kenaston. An office building is likely to share the corner with Mercedes in the near future.

Empty now but soon an office and dealership

The building along Kenaston is just another example of how the street is becoming one of the biggest commercial roads in the city. Unlike Portage Avenue though, it has no was of accommodating ever increasing traffic.

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