Winnipeg, MB - Mayor Brian Bowman marked his first year in office meeting with local business owners at the Small Business Summit as part of his commitment to work with businesses, citizens, City Council and the Public Service to build a growing, thriving more modern city.
Record level investment into street renewal, unprecedented action taken to make City Hall more open and transparent and a renewed sense of local and national pride also mark the strong start of Council’s mandate over the first year.
"Through collaboration and a commitment to address the issues that Winnipeggers told us were important to them, this Council is off to a strong start has done a remarkable job getting City Hall back on the right track in only our first year," Bowman said. "We still have a big job ahead of us, however, and my focus heading into 2016 remains steadfast on keeping the momentum of street renewal and to leading the campaign to secure provincial support for a new funding model that works for Winnipeg and grows as we grow - so we can fix our massive budget challenges along with our roads."
First year highlights include:
- Strong focus on infrastructure and road renewal: Approximately 130 KM of resurfaced and renewed streets across Winnipeg through record level investment of $103.3 M in 2015;
- Unprecedented access to information for the Mayor and his senior staff's meetings, proactive disclosure of FIPPA documents, and public reporting on all capital project expenditures in machine readable format and live streaming Council and committee meetings;
- Renewed sense of local pride as Winnipeg reclaims its rightful place on the national stage leading important initiatives such as 1Winnipeg.ca, One: the Mayor's National Summit on Racial Inclusion and a revived commitment to actively partner with the Big City Mayors through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities;
- Strengthened commitment to support local business reducing eliminating the small business tax for nearly half of all small businesses and leading the first-summit to engage with small businesses to meet their needs and improve customer service experience when doing business with City of Winnipeg;