Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• Edmonton was named the most sustainable city in Canada in the third-annual ranking published this week. We’re also the first city in the world to implement an ecoMobility project with the Global Alliance for EcoMobility.
• NAIT hosted a pretty cool event this week featuring Chef Rob Feenie. Here’s a video showing a behind-the-scenes view of the media blitz. Feenie will be back late in February for the chef-in-residence program at NAIT, and again in the spring to open a new Cactus Club Cafe location at West Edmonton Mall.
• On Monday, CBC reported that some panhandlers in the city make as much as $400 per day. This set off a ton of discussion and prompted a number of follow-up articles, including this interview with Newf, a former panhandler who now lives on welfare. He calls Edmontonians “the most kind-hearted in the world”.
• Three new LRT cars went into service early Tuesday morning! I previously wrote about the new LRT cars here and you can see some photos here. In a related story, Bay LRT station was renamed Bay/Enterprise Square this week. The U of A is spending about $25,000 to replace the old signage.
• On Friday, city council approved plans for cooperation on GIS and transit with other local municipalities. Could a regional transit commission be in our future?
• From February 2nd until the 6th, Mayor Stephen Mandel will be answering questions on Connect2Edmonton. This is apparently the first of many “Ask” forums the site is working on.
• On Thursday, Mayor Mandel’s hand-picked Committee to End Homelessness released its report, A Place to Call Home. The Journal has a good overview of the plan.
• Finally, a couple plugs for things I’m involved in. Help us grow Edmonton’s Free WiFi Project by purchasing and hosting a router! Curious about Twitter? Already a user? Join us on February 12th for Edmonton Twestival!

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• The City of Edmonton is co-hosting a photography competition called Lights Down Stars Up. They are looking for photographs that “capture the splendour and sensibility of naturally or artificially lit places.” Submissions need to be in no later than April 30th, and the winners will be announced on May 15th.
• Sharon posted her wish list for Edmonton’s food scene. She makes a lot of good points. Let’s hope some of them come true!
• Tickets for Pecha Kucha Night 3 went on sale starting Thursday. You can pick them up for $6 each at Tix on the Square. Better move fast though, it’ll sell out quickly. There are already 115 confirmed guests on the Facebook event page. The event is on February 5th at The Matrix Hotel.
• By 2010, Edmonton will have a new eco-friendly paper and glass recycling plant at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre. Once operational, it is expected that the facility will process 40 tonnes of wastepaper and cardboard every day.
• In a somewhat related story, City Council voted 7-6 in favor of selling the Gold Bar sewage treatment plant to Epcor, despite considerable opposition and debate.
• The 2008 Rexall Edmonton Indy might have had a great turnout, but the event lost $5.3 million according to an event summary released Wednesday by Edmonton Northlands.
• The Journal wrote about Talia Morrissey, the executive assistant and unofficial poster girl for Winter Light. Her advice on how to stay warm and be stylish is to layer, layer, layer!
• CBC Edmonton is the latest local mainstream media outlet to join Twitter. You can follow them at @cbcedmonton, but they’re just broadcasting at the moment and aren’t following anyone.

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• It’s warm and sunny outside again today! A new record-high temperature was set on Friday here in Edmonton, at 6.9 C. The previous record, set in 1972, was 4.4 C. Get out and enjoy it – there’s lots going on, such as Ice on Whyte which runs until the 25th.
• Edmonton Minor Hockey Week 2009 wraps up tomorrow – the Journal has a photo gallery of the action.
• For the third straight year, the Edmonton International Airport led the country in passenger growth at 6.1%. Passenger numbers reached 6.5 million!
• Yesterday was proclaimed Glenn Anderson Day in recognition of the Oiler great. His number will be retired at Rexall Place tomorrow evening before the Edmonton-Phoenix game.
• This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Alberta Soccer Association, and plans are underway to bring Inter Milan to Edmonton in August to play a team from South America. That would be cool.
• I attended an information session on Edmonton EXPO 2017 on Thursday evening. If you’d like to volunteer, you have until the 23rd to submit an application.
• Mark the evening of February 12th in your calendar for Edmonton Twestival! We’re still getting the details sorted out, but Edmonton will definitely be participating in the global event!

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• Thursday was the official start of Winter Light 2009, Edmonton’s new winter festival. I wrote about it here, and Todd Babiak wrote a good article in The Journal today.
• Numbers released by Statistics Canada on Friday show that Edmonton has the lowest unemployment rate in the country among major cities at just 3.6 percent.
• Sun Media announced on Tuesday that Edmonton Sun editor-in-chief Graham Dalziel is leaving his post and will not be replaced. Instead, Calgarian Jose Rodriguez will be responsible for all of Sun Media’s properties in Alberta.
• I suppose it’s not a huge surprise, but the City’s new 311 phone service (which cost $10 million by the way) is being abused. They estimate that up to 40% of calls are from people seeking information the service cannot provide.
• The proposed idling bylaw would carry a fine of $250 and would rely on citizen action for enforcement. Combined with the numerous exceptions, I can’t see why anyone would think the bylaw is a good idea.
• Half of Edmonton Police Service employees who responded to a recent survey considered quitting. That’s not good news.
• The latest Edmonton Startup Index was posted by Techvibes on Monday. Nexopia (startup?) continues to lead the pack.
• The City of Edmonton is looking for volunteers for the EXPO 2017 bid. There are four key areas: community engagement, theme development, sponsorship, and site and infrastructure planning. You can learn more at the official website, or you can check out the information session on Thursday, January 15th at 7:30pm in City Hall.
• Pecha Kucha Night 3 is coming up on February 5th, and Next Gen is still looking for presenters. If you’re interested, the submission deadline is January 12th – you can email Christine Causing for more information. It looks like they have selected the Matrix Hotel downtown as the venue (subject to change).
• Another one from Todd Babiak: he calls the Edmonton Transit System pathetic. My tweet about it received a ton of comments, most of them in agreement. In case you missed it – I want an API for ETS.

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• First of all, happy new year! Don’t miss my Edmonton in 2008 recap post. Also – I posted a few photos and video of the downtown celebration (you can see the countdown below). It was freaking cold!
• Anna Angela Samu was Edmonton’s first baby of 2009. She was born at 12:01am at the Misericordia Hospital.
• This year, 2009, marks the 30th anniversary of Boyle McCauley News! Congratulations!
• On Friday morning the LRT was shutdown due to an electrical problem. Not good news for commuters considering it was –30 C outside! Service was restored at about 5:30pm.
• In 2008, Epcor paid the City of Edmonton roughly $190 million from dividends, franchise fees, and property taxes. City taxes would have to go up 25% to replace lost revenue if Epcor didn’t exist. Really great article on Epcor in the Journal this week.
• The next Donate-a-Ride campaign started on December 31st and runs until January 31st. You can learn more at their website.
• Our fifth DemoCamp is coming up on Wednesday, January 7th – don’t miss it!
• Thursday, January 8th is the start of Winter Light 2009, Edmonton’s new winter festival. The opening ceremonies get underway at 6pm in Churchill Square. The Free WiFi Project is happy to be providing access to Ice on Whyte, which starts January 15th.

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• The City was awarded a silver medal for leadership from the Institute of Public Administration of Canada for its program to assess and manage $33 billion worth of roads, sewers, bridges, LRT lines, and other infrastructure.
• NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was in town this week, and said that a new arena is vital for the future of the Oilers and of the city itself. Councillors disagreed.
• You may have heard about Edmonton’s $11 house. On Monday, The Journal published an interview with the man behind the idea, David Stockburger. He and his wife are not even close to the goal of 25,000 entries, and chances are, the contest will be cancelled.
• Also on Monday, local social media strategy firm fusedlogic announced the fusedlogic Food Bank Challenge in partnership with the Edmonton Food Bank. The goal is to have one million pictures of one million food items by the end of 2009. You can learn more here. Disclosure: I do some contract work for fusedlogic.
• Electronic Arts is making job cuts and taking other cost cutting measures – will Bioware be affected?
• On the same topic – Edmonton is clearly not immune to the economic downturn. In the latest CIBC World Markets’ economic rankings, the city fell from first to fifth.
• The 9th Annual Downtown Edmonton New Year’s Eve Celebration will start at 7pm on December 31st. The city has partnered with the University of Alberta this year. The event features three indoor venues, and many outdoor activities. Parking is $1 after 6pm, and transit is free from 6pm until 3am.
• I’ll be mentioning this again soon, but mark your calendars now – DemoCamp Edmonton 5 will take place on January 7th, 2008.

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• I’ll have to write more about this later, but there is finally a website for the Winter Light festival.
• ETS is running its popular Christmas Lights Tours starting Monday. Tickets are $3 and tours run until Sunday, December 21st.
• Kind of a funny story this week – a cell tower in Calgary was configured incorrectly and thought it was in Edmonton! Can you blame the tower? Haha, just kidding friends to the south. The sad part is that Bell is not automatically refunding long distance charges, customers need to call and request it.
• Sounds like the Photography Tweetup might go ahead! Keep an eye on the wiki (and @TonyRatcliffe) for changes, but currently the group is planning to meet at 6pm on December 18th.
• City Council voted on the 2009 budget this week, approving a 7.3 percent increase in property taxes. They also agreed to spend $2 million to prepare for a bid to host Expo 2017, and $2.5 million to operate more buses during peak hours.
• Three Edmontonians were awarded the Order of Canada on Friday. Deborah Grey, Kenneth Poyser, and Dr. Ray Rajotte all received Canada’s highest civilian honour.
• Found this via gscratch on Twitter (his blog is here) – Edmonton Traffic Cameras!
• There are a bunch of new Edmonton Oilers related accounts on Twitter. Check out @OilFans (details), @OilersNation (details), and @Oilers. And of course there’s the one I manage, @EdmontonOilers.

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• I guess winter has finally arrived 😦 Though it was raining tonight, very odd!
• Here are a couple things I already wrote about: Edmonton’s new Future Shop, and more funding for the Winter Lights festival.
• There were a number of political rallies in Edmonton this week. Dave Cournoyer has photos from both the pro-coalition and anti-coalition rallies. Here are some more pro-coalition photos from @livingsanctuary.
• A new report says that an LRT line from downtown to Mill Woods would cost up to $2 billion. The line would end at the Mill Woods transit centre, and could use any of the four existing bridges across the river.
• I think this is really cool: starting summer 2009, the entire NAIT campus will be smoke-free! Smokers need to be 10 meters away from entrances.
• Sharon’s latest Edmonton events post is up – December in Edmonton is for the Holidays.
• We’re holding a Wrapping Tweetup tomorrow night for Santa’s Anonymous. Even if you’re not a Twitter user, feel free to come out and help us wrap and sort toys!
• I guess Christmas is definitely here now – Shaw started the Yule log channel! It’s available on cable 114 (and on channel 230 in HD, channel 1 in analog) through January 15th. They’ve also got a Christmas tree channel on cable 115 (and channel 5 in analog).

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• I posted about a couple things already: the new hockey arena concept, and the Halloween Festival.
• Today, Canwest Global relaunched about ten websites, one of which was the Edmonton Journal site. Sadly, there’s nothing unique about the new look. Every Canwest newspaper site in the country looks the same. Opportunity missed, I think.
• The latest Edmonton Radio Ratings were released recently. The Fall 2008 book is probably the most important of the year – 630 CHED and CISN Country top the list.
• The Edmonton Sun now has RSS feeds! I wrote more about social media and local news earlier this week.
• The City of Edmonton is considering a hiring freeze for next year, and warns there could be layoffs. Maybe we’re not entirely insulated from the economic situation after all!
• Homeward Trust finally released the final numbers for the 2008 Homeless Count. A total of 3079 people without a permanent place to live were counted, an 18% increase from 2006.
• I updated the Organizations page on the EdmontonTweetup wiki with some of the most recent to join Twitter, including Sonic 102.9 FM, MacEwan College, and Transcend Coffee. Welcome!
• Tomorrow is the last day for the Festival of Trees! Admission is $6 for adults, and the event takes place at the Shaw Conference Centre.

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

• The big news this week was the meteor (video is embedded below too). Everyone was talking about it, and Edmonton was mentioned on newscasts throughout North America. Very cool. You can read more about it here.
• Local tech firm Nirix announced a new marketing competition for students in Alberta called sparkIT. The deadline to register is January 26th, 2009.
• The Olympic torch will be making its way through Edmonton in 2010. The route will include 1020 communities across Canada.
• All of Edmonton’s high schools have been equipped with portable, lunch box-sized defibrillators. A grant from the Canadian Legion of Frontiersmen made it possible.
• Edmonton has been named a finalist in the 2009 Intelligent Community Forum’s Smartest Community in the World competition. The top 7 will be announced on January 21st, 2009 with the winner named on May 15th, 2009. Last year’s winner was Waterloo, Ontario.
• Homeward Trust finally released the report for this year’s Homeless Count to the media. The final number is 3079. Hopefully it’ll be posted to their website next week.
• Local radio station Sonic 102.9 FM has joined Twitter! You can follow them here. The popular Edmonton Fire Radio also joined, you can follow them here.