Winnipeg City Councillors met behind closed doors Monday to grill the city’s chief administrative officer over the Sterling Lyon Parkway controversy.
"Generally a respectful discussion, unfortunately there were some members of council who felt it appropriate to interrupt and yell at the CAO," said Mayor Brian Bowman of the meeting.
Last week a confidential briefing note surfaced that suggested CAO Doug McNeil may have known about the so-called rogue route to extend Sterling Lyon, a year before homeowners south of Wilkes Avenue were blindsided by the plan that could impact 92 properties.
McNeil told councillors he did not read hundreds of pages of attachments to the memo which included the new alignment. He blames engineers and officials within the public works department for moving ahead without permission, and not properly alerting him to the new route.
"What affects me the most is the fact that there wasn't a red flag in a briefing note to say ‘by the way, we've picked a whole new option’,” McNeil said.
For some councillors, that explanation is not enough. The project is now stalled and going back to the drawing board.
Councillor Janice Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert) wants to know how much the delays are costing taxpayers.
"I still think there's a lot of information that's not being provided,” Lukes said.
Councillor Russ Wyatt (Transcona) said McNeil needs to take responsibility and apologize to the city's public servants for not reading all of the attachments related to the extension.
“He, for all intents and purposes, threw them under the bus publicly, even though the information was clearly in the file,” Wyatt said.
It doesn't sound like an apology is coming. McNeil shot back at Wyatt.
"Kind of funny because he's one of the ones who's criticizing the public service all the time,” he said.
In the New Year, a committee of four councillors, including Wyatt, is set to review the job performance of McNeil and other senior staff members.
