Mayor didn't meddle in deal to sell old arena site: reports
Winnipeg Free Press
Tuesday April 26 2005
By Mary Agnes Welch
THE city's auditor and the provincial ombudsman have cleared Mayor Sam Katz of allegations he influenced the city's decision to turn the old Winnipeg Arena into a shopping complex instead of a water park.
In a report to be discussed behind closed doors today, city auditor Shannon Hunt exonerated the mayor and said the city generally followed a "fair and reasonable" process when it chose a company to redevelop the old hockey barn.
"We found no evidence of unfair treatment of the submissions or of the mayor influencing the administration's evaluation of the submissions, as alleged," wrote Hunt and her auditors in their report.
Last summer, the city agreed to demolish the Winnipeg Arena and sell the cleared land to the owners of the Polo Park shopping centre, Ontrea Inc. They plan to use the site for more retail space.
The city rejected another proposal to turn the arena into a water park, a plan that enjoyed considerable public support but didn't meet key bid criteria.
Ontrea was represented by Sandy Shindleman, president of local development firm Shindico and a friend and business partner of Katz. The relationship spawned conflict-of-interest allegations from opponents of Ontrea's plan and from boosters of the water park. They asked the provincial ombudsman and the city auditor to investigate.
Katz said yesterday he was pleased with the auditor's findings, though he couldn't understand why the allegations were made in the first place.
He said the decision to sell the arena land to Ontrea was made before he even took office, a fact borne out by Hunt's audit.
The city's auditors did recommend some small tweaks to the way the city handles requests for proposals, including clarifying exactly what kind of information must be included in a proposal to buy or develop city land.
The secret nature of the arena deal, which became public only through leaks to the media, was also mentioned in the report. Hunt recommended that the city make it clear to bidders what parts of their proposals might be made public.
The provincial ombudsman's office has also made a ruling similar to the city auditor's. Staff in the ombudsman's office wouldn't comment on any complaint or on their findings because of privacy rules. But former NDP MLA Marianne Cerilli, who lodged the complaint against Katz and the city's property department, said yesterday she had received a letter from the ombudsman saying the city appears to have conducted the land sale fairly.
But Cerilli, who wanted the old arena turned into a community recreation facility, said she plans to have a lawyer look at the ombudsman's report.