Manitoba TaxPayer

While doing a little poking around the City of Winnipeg Assessment Department’s assessment mapping application, I have determined that Seven Oaks School Division would have to acquire these three properties which border on Ridgecrest Avenue and Main Street:

The Ridgecrest Property!

Main Street Property One! (with the exclusion of The BubbleBath Carwash)

Main Street Property Two!

All of which, when added up, amounts to 53.1 Acres (so much for metric).. The School will take up 10 Acres leaving 43.1.
You don’t suppose Seven Oaks School Division was going to develop this property themselves prior to the Inquiry on the Swinford Development? How much of that did Palubeski acquire? How about O’Leary, did he grab a chunk?
According to the May 12th drawing that I have, Greenview Homes out of Calgary are going to displace the River Bottom forrest and the pair of Bald Eagles with 129 homes in the $255,000 price range. Don’t we have an local Developers?

In addition to the above, another developer, Coral Reef Property, will ride the infrastructure coattails of Greenview/Seven Oaks School Division and build another 91 homes (including the Lehmann Property where the big house currently sits) on properties adjoining on the north side.

The Whiteway Property (131 Mcbeth Street) development will add another 44 homes.

And finally, The Draco Property located on Red River Blvd. will add another 13 homes.

Here is a better picture of the overall area with most of the development south of This Spot on Google Satellite Maps!

Added up gives us a total of 84.8 Acres and ~277 Homes.

How much will this benefit me as I live on the other side of Main Street???

Monday, May 30, 2005!

The Winnipeg Free Press has an article about the proposed River Ridge Develop part of which includes the new West Kildonan Collegiate which will sit on 10 acres of the development.

I notice that The City of Winnipeg (David Marsh) is being portrayed as the “preventer” of the destruction of some 3.4 hectares of an ecosystem known as river bottom forest by the Development of River Ridge. Don’t you think they are acting in the best interest of the taxpayers???

The article states that 132 houses are planned when in fact it is over 200 houses from the last plans that I saw. Somebody ask Palubeski for the latest drawings?
While you are at it, ask him how much of the land that he owns and how much capital gain he is going to make personally, from the development!

Somebody could also speak with O’Leary of the Seven Oaks School Division and ask him if he is holding title (or option) to any of the land involved in the development.
And while you are speaking to him, ask him how much land the Seven Oaks School Division has acquired to build the school. Is part of their holding included in the housing development??? How much do they stand to gain/loose???

These are just a few of the questions I would like to have answered.

Complete? Winnipeg Free Press Article - May 30, 2005

This just in from The Blue Maple Leaf

The following article e-mailed to us by Jeff Niederhoffer. Jeff is a Winnipeg lawyer and political activist. Here is what he had to say:
Since 2002, the Seven Oaks School Division in Manitoba has arguably been breaking the law. As has been reported, the School Division spent $2 million of taxpayers’ money to develop vacant land into 70 residential lots, which the school division then sold for $2.7 million.

Full Article

This article is also featured at The Smyth Report!!

On May 12, 2005, David Palubeskie of Lombard North Group held a Public Consultation Meeting with River Ridge area residents which I attended. The plan included 217 lots (plus or minus ?) for houses expected to sell in the $250,000 range. Also included in the plan is the layout for West Kildonan Collegiate. Palubeskie said he was representing two developers, Green View Property, and Coral Reef Property, neither of which I can locate on the Internet. Brian O’Leary represented Seven Oaks School Division I think but I don’t remember him being introduced as such. They expected to move the plan through rather quickly, expecting to start construction in August 2005. The zoning adjustment plans are DASZ 10/05 for Green View Homes and DASZ 11/05 for Coral Reef Properties. The City of Winnipeg web site used to have all these public documents online but for some reason has recently removed them. David Marsh from the City of Winnipeg Planning Department also attended and presented the Planners options. It was an interesting meeting where as little information as possible regarding the Seven Oaks School Division’s involvment was presented. The presenters also asked for email comments and/or requests for more information.

I supplied links if you want to contact them!

The Times community newspaper also attended and their columnist, Elisha Cumbers, produced this article.

It is Tuesday May 17, 2005, continues concurrence debate on Capital Supply.

The full Hansard Report

If you wish you may jump forward to question from Mrs. Myrna Driedger (Charleswood) begins with:

Mr. Chairperson, I would like to ask the minister if schools are to have purchased their land before they get into actual expenditure of design?

Link

Myrna Driedger continues questioning with “Would the minister not have felt he had some responsibility to, at least, ask some questions?” for which Bjornson always answers the same way! My question would be “What is taking you SO LONG”?

Link

Myrna continues with a lengthy statement part of which states “He was, you know, weeks ago, told and even finally received the legal opinion that what Seven Oaks School Division was doing was illegal, and yet the minister did nothing.”

My question would be “Did the Minister Share this legal opinion (created with tax dollars) with Manitoba Justice Department and/or some Police Department to determine how illegal the crime might be?”
As a second question I ask, “Can We, the taxpayers, see this legal opinion?”

Answer? Read On

As we move on through the questioning the matter of the new West Kildonan Collegiate and the River Ridge development begins to unfold. This development involves the same cast of character including David Palubeskie of Lombard North Group as well as Superintendent: Brian O’Leary of Seven Oaks School Division.

Interesting? Read On!

We move on to the most ambiguous statement Bjornson has made so far, “We are not going to act in a way that will adversely affect the taxpayers.” Hello, Mr. Bjornson, it will probably cost the taxpayers a considerable sum of money to straighten out the illegal contracts the School Division has signed for the Swinford Development as well as the illegal contracts they are holding on the Grady Bend portion. I won’t even mention what it might cost to straighten out all the Land Titles involved in the entire development. Perhaps we should never pass the Capital Supply budget unless Bjornson can tell us exactly what all these legal expenses might amout to?????

Read On and Judge for Yourself!

I think we can soon ask Mr. Bjornson and the Seven Oaks School Board to resign!

Maybe we will find out in the next portion of the Committee of Supply debate!

On Monday, May 16, 2005, The Committee of Supply begins concurrence debate on the $823,342,000 for Capital Supply (Budget) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006. (Can someone explain “Capital Supply” as the Budget is 8.128 Billion $ according to This CBC News Report?) The Education portion of the Budget is 1.19 Billion $$.
As it begins, a lot of questions are directed at Education Minister Bjornson.
There are not a lot of interesting questions nor answers and it is late in the day (around 4:15pm).

The Hansard Report is available here for those who would like to read further.

I received a reply to my Open Letter to ALL on May 12, 2005, on May 16, 2005. Sorry I’m late publishing it but I have to work to pay my Taxes.

Again Bjornson answers no questions? He only says “the review announced is aimed at reviewing”! Is he too going to play with and show off his balls during the inquiry?

Reply from the Honourable Peter Bjornson, Minister of Education, Citizenship and Youth.

Other Manitobans that are fed up to the neck:

Hacks and Wonks - Humour only a political hack could chuckle at..

“Gee Mister, would you like to buy a bungalow? The proceeds will go to buy new books for my classroom…”

The Black Rod - O’LEARYGATE: Land development, NDP style

Steven Fletcher’s Blog - BJORNSON CAUGHT IN LIE

It’s too bad that the media is so busy with Ottawa now. A measley $2 Million mis-spent dollars don’t matter much..

The Seven Oaks School Board decided to continue work on their Illegal Development after sending their Open Letter to Government officials. If someone has a copy, I would like to include it here so my readers may see it. I think if you are accused of a transgression of the Law/Act and you are out on bail (until about June 2, 2005), you shouldn’t continue with the transgression. It seems they (The Seven Oaks School Board) think Open Letters have some power. I think this should work both ways so I wrote one of my own:

Message-ID: <42837293.6502@>
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:13:23 -0500
From: Robert Snyder
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (OS/2; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: “Hon. Gary Doer”,
“Hon. Peter Bjornson”,
“Myrna Driedger”,
“Charles Adler”,
“Hon. David Walter Chomiak”,
“Hon. Stuart Murray”,
“Hon. Jon Gerrard”,
“Adrienne Batra”
Subject: Open Letter to All
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

May 12, 2005, 10:38am

Open Letter to All:

By publishing (where? ,as I haven’t seen it) their Open Letter,
The Seven Oaks School District has made a decision to continue
work on their “illegal” contract and has again begun work on
the road for Phase Three of the Swinford Development.

The heavy equipment is again working on excavation of the road
as of 8:15 this (Thursday) morning.

That must mean that if I publish an Open Letter, it too might
carry some weight!
My Open Letter is to Request “Please stop wasting my Tax Dollars
Immediately”, until around June 2, 2005 at which time the
Honourable Education Minister said he would make some sort of
decision on the legality of this Development.

Yours truly,
Robert W. Snyder
Taxpayer

Copy also sent to Winnipeg Free Press via their website.

I guess it is time for the Legal System to take over the investigation of the Manitoba Department of Education. According to my way of thinking, these Acts, Bills, Bylaws, etc., are THE LAW. Ignorance of the law is not a defence. When a Board of a School Division takes office, they are accepting the responsibility of adhering to THE LAW. Just because the Finance Board said it was OK does not make everything right. The School Division also signed Contracts and Cheques to pay for the Contracts. Isn’t that something like Fraud??

Full Text of Winnipeg Free Press Article!

Now the Opposition MLAs are demanding the government seek an independent review. Canadian Taxpayers Federation Manitoba Director Adrienne Batra added several comments to the column the last one being “This minister is clearly incapable of handling his file, we are paying for his incompetence.” I think we should provide the Legislature with some type of device with which politicians could blow their own feet (foot) off (providing they could remove them from their mouth long enough).

Full Text of Winnipeg Free Press Article!

Mr. Leonard Derkach (Official Opposition House Leader) raised a matter of priviledge in the Manitoba legislature on Thursday afternoon. The Hansard report was not available until this morning (seems the government doesn’t work Fridays or weekends).

Hansard Report of Proceedings in the Legislature for Thursday, May 5, 2005!

In case you didn’t know, the government publishes reports in a somewhat timely manner and they are available here:

The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba Hansard Reports

It seems that the Education Minister “committed a falsehood”. The house leader of the Conservative Opposition, Len Derkach, said. “He knew he was deceiving the House.” (Can someone please define “falsehood”? Is that like lying?) Why do we have to be so politically correct?

Could we also say we have “a mendacious minister”? It sounds more lyrical to me!

Mendacious Minister?

Full Text of Winnipeg Free Press Article!

I forgot that we have two newspapers in Winnipeg so I must add to this an article By FRANK LANDRY, the Leg. reporter for the Winnipeg Sun!

By bending the truth and playing with some words, Bjornson has dug himself into a very deep hole. He’s also raised some very serious questions about what sort of grasp he has over his department.

Full Story Friday May 6, 2005

The Winnipeg Free Press of Thursday May 5, 2005 also carried an Editorial that tells us this is not the first time Education Minister Bjornson’s competence has come under scrutiny.

Full Text of Winnipeg Free Press Editorial!

In the Thursday, May 5, 2005 edition, The Premier is talking and not looking happy. Why does The Premier not command the Front Page? Is $2 Million not worthy of Front Page News? Is this turning into Manitoba’s AdScam? Bring in Gomery.

Full Text of Winnipeg Free Press Article!

In the first episode, we find out a little about what the Minister knows as of May 2, 2005 that he says he just found out about in Question Period. On Tuesday, May 3, 2005, his tune has changed.

Full Text of Winnipeg Free Press Article.

May 26, 2004

Mr. Robert Snyder

E-mail address: xxxxxxx@xx

Dear Robert Snyder:

Thank you for your recent e-mail message regarding Seven Oaks School Division.

Please be advised that the Public Schools Act allows any school division to acquire land. If The Public Schools Finance Board (PSFB) approves a new school on that property, the school division is entitled to be reimbursed its acquisition cost at fair market value.

The matter of community development appears to be a local issue and as such, I would encourage you to deal directly with the school division on this issue.

For your information, The Seven Oaks School Division and the PSFB have been working closely for the past two years to significantly improve West Kildonan Collegiate. That project is now at tender stage and we hope that construction will start in the near future.

Thank you for bringing this matter to my personal attention.

Sincerely,

ORIGINAL SIGNED BY

Honourable Peter Bjornson

To: “Stuart Murray” stuartmurray@leg.gov.mb.ca,
“Heather Stefanson” hstefanson@leg.gov.mb.ca,
“Myrna Driedger” mdriedger@leg.gov.mb.ca,
“Hon. Peter Bjornson” minedu@leg.gov.mb.ca
Cc: “Mike O’Shaughnessy” moshaughnessy@winnipeg.ca,
“Charles Adler” cadler@cjob.com
Date: Sun, 02 May 2004 12:21:32 -0500
Subject: School Division Mandate

Dear Education Minister Bjornson;

I will also direct these questions directly to the Education Critic,
Heather Stefanson, and Leader of the Opposition, Stuart Murray:

What mandate do the School Divisions in Manitoba have regarding
the development of Residential communities in their area?

I ask this because I am concerned that the Seven Oaks School
Division is acting as the developer (through Lombard North
Group - Consultants) of a community called the Swinford
Development. Minutes from the division meetings indicate
that they (the Seven Oaks School Division) are paying out
rather large sums of money to contractors for installation
of roads, sewers, and all the other necessities required
to build the community. There is no mention of any
revenue (losses) expected from this development in their
2004-2005 budget and I have not seen their financial
statement for 2003-2004 (I would like to see it).

The problem I have is that I believe that greed has overtaken
community development when the original intent was to build
a school, plans for which have not yet been seen. There is
currently another plan of subdivision (DASZ 8/04) being
presented to the Lord Selkirk West Kildonan Zoning Committee
on Tuesday, May 18, 2004, which only names Lombard North
Group as the applicant. Why is the fact that the Seven Oaks
School Division is really the applicant being hidden?

The area is in desperate need of a new High School as the
current West Kildonan Collegiate leaves a lot to be desired
as a High School.

Again I ask, what mandate have School Divisions been given
with regard to signing contracts for community development?

I have also carbon copied Charles Adler, CJOB;
Mike O’Shaughnessy, City Councillor for the area.

Regards,

Robert W. Snyder

A year ago on May 2, 2004, I sent an email to provincial education Minister Peter Bjornson asking about some unusual happenings in our Seven Oaks School District. I also sent the same message to the Opposition Leader, Stuart Murray and the Opposition Education Critic. I received a very confusing reply from the Minister about three weeks later. I also received an “of course we’re concerned” reply from the Opposition leader. This week I see that someone finally thought they might be able to do something with my inquiry as there was an Article in the Winnipeg Free Press on Tuesday May 3,2005.

Winnipeg Free Press Article