Save English Express

Yesterday I received the sad news that Alberta Advanced Education and Technology has decided to stop funding English Express, a newspaper for adults wanting to improve their English reading skills. English Express was established in 1982 and is now distributed to 60,000 Albertans. It is published eight times per year (from September to May) [...]

Who’s behind Envision Edmonton?

Last week, the City Centre Airport was once again in the news thanks to a “new” group calling itself Envision Edmonton. Though City Council voted to close the City Centre Airport nearly a year ago, the issue has never really gone away. First there was the delay to accommodate the Edmonton Indy, then there [...]

Mapping where Edmonton’s kids live and learn

On Friday evening, an interactive map I worked on with Edmonton Journal education reporter Sarah O’Donnell went live. Sarah’s first story based on the data was published in the paper today. Here’s our introduction to the project:
With five schools closing in Edmonton’s core and nine new suburban schools opening in September, education reporter Sarah O’Donnell [...]

Recap: Public Meeting on Proposed Arena & Entertainment District in Downtown Edmonton

Last night at MacEwan’s City Centre Campus the City of Edmonton held a Public Meeting on the proposed Arena & Entertainment District (on ShareEdmonton). I don’t know what the final attendance numbers were, but my rough guess is that about 100 people were in the room. There were a number of City representatives on hand, [...]

Edmonton’s South LRT Grand Opening

Today was the grand opening of the Southgate and Century Park LRT stations (see my previous coverage here). A joint news release issued by all three levels of government declared that “a new era in Edmonton’s transportation history has begun.” Edmonton’s LRT now extends 20.3 kilometers from Clareview Station in the northeast to Century Park [...]

Why I went to Reboot Alberta 2.0

I live in Edmonton, Alberta. I’m proud to call myself a Canadian.
I don’t consider myself a progressive. To be honest, I’m not even sure I know what that label means.
I enjoy the mountains.
I reject partisan politics. If you look through the archives here, you’ll see that I have voted for every major party in Canada [...]

Open City Workshop & Participation Inequality

The City of Edmonton is hosting a workshop tomorrow at the Art Gallery of Alberta called Building Community through Open Information (on ShareEdmonton). It’s a follow-up to the open data workshop that happened last year and the conversations that have taken place since, but is focused on connecting stakeholders, increasing a shared understanding of Government [...]

Edmonton’s Municipal Development Plan passes second reading

City Council passed the Municipal Development Plan in second reading tonight. Titled “The Way We Grow,” the document is Edmonton’s strategic growth and development plan, meant to shape urban form and guide future land use. It must now be approved by the Capital Region Board, after which it’ll return to Council for third reading (expected [...]

Alberta Budget 2010 website – security through obscurity

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is budget day here in Alberta. Like many Albertans, I am curious about what Finance Minister Ted Morton is going to deliver, so I started poking around online. First stop, last year’s budget, available at http://budget2009.alberta.ca/.
Seems logical that the 2010 budget would be at http://budget2010.alberta.ca. So I tried that URL, and was prompted [...]

#bill44 on Twitter by Edmontonians & Calgarians

A little while ago, Paula told me she was interested in reconstructing the Twitter stream that happened last year around Bill 44 (PDF and if you want a summary, Ken has a great one). She tried using Twitter Search but quickly found that it only goes back so far, so she asked if I could [...]

Thoughts on Edmonton’s new City Manager

On Tuesday evening I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet Simon Farbrother, the City of Edmonton’s new City Manager. He started on Monday, just less than three months after his selection was announced. There were a lot of people there on Tuesday, so I only had a couple of minutes to introduce [...]

Tony Caterina on the issues in 2009

It’s not surprising that City Councillors are often in the news, offering comment, explanations, and other thoughts on the latest decisions and issues. Some are generally in the news for positive reasons, others, not so much. Ward 3 councillor Tony Caterina is one of the members of council who seems to be mentioned for [...]

Social Media and Ask Premier Ed

Yesterday CBC Edmonton’s John Archer called to get my take on the “Ask Premier Ed” campaign, Premier Ed Stelmach’s latest foray into the world of social media (as you know I don’t like to be called a social media expert, there’s no such thing). The premier has had a Twitter account for a little [...]

Reboot Alberta: Tweets & Blogs

A very interesting event took place in Red Deer this weekend called Reboot Alberta. Participants discussed the state of politics in Alberta, and explored ways to “reboot” things. I was invited, but decided to stay home. I’m not as well-versed in provincial politics as others and I was unsure what I would be able to [...]

2009 Edmonton Citizen Satisfaction Survey Results

The results of the 2009 Citizen Satisfaction Survey are being presented to City Council today. The survey was once again conducted by Banister Research & Consulting Inc. Some quick facts:

The total cost of the survey was $13,650.
A total of 800 telephone interviews with Edmonton residents aged 18 or older were completed between June 2 [...]