Category: Uncategorized

Mayor’s Arts Visioning Committee releases recommendations for raising the profile of arts in Edmonton

arts visioningAfter eight months of consultation and hard work, the Mayor’s Arts Visioning Committee has released 12 recommendations that aim to raise Edmonton’s profile as an arts and culture hub. The City’s existing 10-year-plan, The Art of Living, provided the foundation for the committee’s work. From today’s news release:

“The committee has done a tremendous job reaching out to the community, narrowing down a wide range of ideas to come up with this list of recommendations,” said Mayor Stephen Mandel. “Their efforts show how we can work together as a community to raise the profile of arts in our city. Arts is an economic sector as well as a part of our everyday experience as Edmontonians. These recommendations provide a good place from which to start a dialogue about how we can move forward.”

The committee was co-chaired by Dianne Kipnes and Brian Webb. The first major event was held on June 21, an initial “Think Tank” that brought hundreds of Edmontonians together to brainstorm ideas and opportunities. I was fortunate enough to take part in that event, and was delighted to see so many people with such passion for the arts in Edmonton. Over the summer, a number of smaller consultation events took place. The second “Think Tank” was held on October 28. We were presented with preliminary recommendations and tasked with providing feedback. Since then, the committee has been finalizing the report.

You can download The Art of Living in PDF here, and the Arts Visioning Committee’s final report in PDF here.

Here are the 12 recommendations:

  1. MacEwan Centre for the Arts: The City of Edmonton acquire and convert MacEwan University’s west campus, the Centre for the Arts and Communications, into a multi-use, multicultural and City operated arts incubator.
  2. Rossdale Plant Redevelopment: The City of Edmonton develop the former power plant site into a landmark cultural and commercial complex on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River which must include a premier Aboriginal arts and cultural celebration centre, as well as studio, exhibit and performance space for Edmonton artists.
  3. Downtown Arts District and Performance Centre: The City of Edmonton endorse, in principle, a landmark performing arts centre (PAC) downtown, and designate land for such a development in the city core.
  4. Arts Capital Allocation: The City of Edmonton establish a capital allocation under the civic capital budget in anticipation of future opportunities to establish, enhance or acquire arts space of all types.
  5. Community Centres: The City of Edmonton create and sustain arts spaces within existing and future community recreation centres and other community spaces for creation, classes, exhibits and performance.
  6. Arts Sustainability Fund: Private and government partners establish an Edmonton Arts Sustainability Fund for small and mid-sized arts organizations to help finance business development.
  7. Arts Central: A community-led initiative, modeled after Sports Central, be supported by the City of Edmonton, to supply materials, equipment, and program support for disadavantaged and disconnected Edmontonians to pursue arts experiences.
  8. Arts and Culture Vision in City Administration: The City Manager and Edmonton Arts Council leadership develop a strategy to embed a broad vision of the arts into city planning and decision making.
  9. Multicultural Arts Outreach: The City of Edmonton increase capacity for the Edmonton Arts Council to strengthen proactive outreach programs to ensure diverse communities are engaged in decision-making throughout the city’s arts organizations and increase participation across the city.
  10. Arts in Education: The City of Edmonton takes a leadership role to invite a coalition of business, civic and community groups to strongly advocate for increased funding and emphasis on arts education in Edmonton schools and post-secondary institutions.
  11. Artists in Residence Program: The City of Edmonton and business partners increase support and awareness of the Edmonton Arts Council’s “Artist in Residence” program to enhance in-house opportunities and collaboration for artists with local businesses.
  12. Business and Arts Advisory Council: Corporate and arts community members establish a business and arts advisory committee to work with the Edmonton Arts Council to build on the 2040 arts vision and link the two communities with shared expertise, resources and ideas.

I think it is important to look further ahead, but as we all know, it’s easy to make a plan and much harder to execute on it. There’s a lot of work to do to bring these recommendations forward!

Some of these recommendations should come as no surprise. The Rossdale Plant Redevelopment was going to happen with or without this report, for instance, but specifically including arts and culture in the plans certainly makes sense. I think the Community Centres recommendation is an obvious one, and actually am a little surprised that we don’t already include space for the arts in mega-complexes like the Terwillegar Recreation Centre. I’m less excited about the Arts Capital Allocation, because I think we should leave capital funding decisions up to the Council of the day, to decide on what they think is most important for the city at the time. All the recommendations are worth considering, however.

The next step for these recommendations is for Mayor Mandel to submit them to City Council for consideration. In the meantime, save the date for the 25th Annual Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts: April 2, 2012. Nominations are now being accepted!

City Council data now available in Edmonton’s open data catalogue

Yesterday Edmonton became the first city in Canada to release “a fully robust set” of City Council datasets to its open data catalogue. A total of five datasets were released, including meeting details, agenda items, motions, attendance, and voting records. There are now more than 100 datasets available in the catalogue, with more on the way.

Here’s the video recording of the news conference:

The City also produced a video about the new datasets:

The Office of the City Clerk is responsible for managing Council & Committee meetings, boards, elections, and more. The release of this data (referred to as “Clerk’s data” by some City employees) is another example of the way that office has embraced technology over the years. Kudos to Alayne Sinclair and her team, as well as Chris Moore, Ashley Casovan, and the rest of the IT team for making this data available!

I’m really excited about the potential for this data. The information has long been available on the City’s website, it was just locked away in meeting minutes as “unstructured” data – possible for humans to read relatively easily, but not for software. Now that it is available as “structured” data in the open data catalogue, applications can be written that take advantage of the data. You can find the data under the City Administration tab of the catalogue. Unfortunately the datasets only go back to June 1, 2011 instead of the start of Council’s term in October 2010. Currently, the datasets are updated daily.

I’ve now had a chance to look through the data, and while it looks good, it is unfortunately incomplete at the moment. There’s quite a bit of data missing. I would love to do some statistical analysis on the data, but with so many missing records there’s a good chance that my conclusions would be incorrect. I have already summarized my findings and passed them along to the team, so hopefully they can resolve the issues quickly!

I have already added functionality to ShareEdmonton for this data, and as soon as the datasets are fixed, I’ll release it. I hate to say “stay tuned” but there’s not much choice right now!

WordCamp Edmonton 2011

WordCamp is coming to Edmonton on November 18 and 19! WordCamp is a gathering of all things WordPress, and is intended for bloggers, content creators, developers, designers, and publishers. Here’s a little more information about the event:

WordCamps are casual, locally-organized, non- profit conferences covering everything related to WordPress, the free and open source personal publishing software that powers over 25 million sites on the web. WordCamps come in all different flavors, based on the local communities that produce them. In general, WordCamps include sessions on how to use WordPress more effectively, beginning plugin and theme development, advanced techniques, security, etc.

We’ve got an awesome little promo video for the event:

WordCamp Edmonton will take place at the Shaw Conference Centre in Salons 5 and 6. I’m pretty excited about the schedule we have been able to put together! We’ve got some excellent speakers, and a wide variety of topics. We’ve also built in some time for conversation, so it’ll be a good opportunity to connect with others in Edmonton who are using WordPress. Tickets for the event are just $40, and that includes both days of content plus lunch on Saturday.

I took the WordPress plunge back in February 2008, converting my entire blog to WordPress 2.3 from Community Server. It was a great decision, and I haven’t ever considered changing platforms since. WordPress is highly capable “out-of-the-box” and has one of the most vibrant plugin and theme communities of any software product. WordPress is now at version 3.2 and it just keeps getting better. Whenever I need to build a new site, I turn to WordPress.

A big thanks to all of our sponsors for helping us make WordCamp happen here in Edmonton, in particular our Gold Sponsors, Jetpack and EEDC. Also, a shout out to the organizing team of Kory, Jeff, and Sebastian, who have had help from myself, Ashley, and Dana. Everyone has worked hard to get this event put together!

We hope to see you there! Get your tickets here! You can follow @wordcampyeg on Twitter for updates.

Budget 2012: Ten unfunded growth projects that caught my eye

It’s budget time, and I have been looking into the documents that were released last week.

At the very end of the 2012-2021 Capital Investment Agenda, there are some really interesting tables. One is “Approved & Recommended Growth Projects” – projects that have previously been approved or that Administration is recommending. The list of recommended projects includes the seat replacement at Commonwealth Stadium, the South East Community Leagues Association Skate Park, and a number of other projects you may have heard about.

The last table is perhaps the most intriguing, however. It lists 77 different “Unfunded Prioritized Growth Projects” totaling a little over $1.5 billion. Most of these simply will not get funding in the 2012-2014 Capital Budget because there is just $9 million available for allocation to these projects:

In the 2009-2011 Capital Budget, Council made decisions to commit $883 million of future funding for growth projects in the 2012-2014 time frame. The result of these decisions means only $254 million additional funding is available for growth projects and $245 million of that funding is constrained as Retained Earnings or Developer/Partner funding. This leaves $9 million available for allocation to other priority growth projects.

That said, I’m sure we’ll see some creativity as Council digs into the budget.

Here are ten unfunded growth projects that caught my eye:

  • 12-60-1753: Closed Circuit Television (#6)

    Total Cost: $2.35 million, $1.7 million to become compliant

    Less exciting than it sounds, actually. The Province has revised its policing standards and those changes take effect December 31, 2013. This project is all about extending the existing CCTV coverage to enable EPS to meet the new standards.

  • 12-28-4149: Louise McKinney Riverfront Park Masterplan Completion
    (#23)

    Total Cost: $6.5 million

    The vision for Louise McKinney was approved by City Council way back in 1997, and it still isn’t done. This project would see the completion of the Grand Stair, two viewpoints, four gateways, Shaw Conference Centre linkages, and the redevelopment of the parking lot. It would be great to see us actually finish this project before embarking on too many more new ones.

  • 11-66-1293: SMARTBUS (#25)

    Total Cost: $34.433 million, $3.4 million of which was previously approved

    For me this one is a definite no-brainer. SMARTBUS technology includes Automated Stop Announcements, Computer Aided Dispatch, Automated Vehicle Health Monitoring, and Automated Passenger Counters. It also includes Automated Vehicle Location and Real-Time Customer Information, which will finally make it possible to see where your bus actually is, rather than just where it is scheduled to be. I think a lot of Edmontonians would strongly support this one!

    The previously approved piece of this was the 50 bus evaluation and that is expected to be completed by September 2012.

  • 12-21-7227: Winspear Centre Expansion (#44)

    Total Cost: $3.5 million

    The planned expansion would accommodate a multi-purpose facility for arts initiatives, studio space for youth, and rehearsal space, among other things. The expansion would take place on the east side of the building onto surplus City lands between 102 and 102A Avenue adjacent to 97 Street. The plan is for construction to take place in 2014. The Winspear received $50,000 as part of the 2011 Operating Budget to help with the preliminary concept planning.

  • 12-75-3514: New Downtown Office Tower (#57)

    Total Cost: $140 million

    This project is part of the Edmonton Downtown Civic Accommodation Plan which focuses on strategies to support growth and expansion of City services and programs. The choice is either to lease existing building space or to construct a new civic office building. The $140 million pricetag is just what would be part of the 2012-2014 budget – the total amount of the project is currently $600 million.

    Analysis has not yet been completed, and the project profile states that “a financing strategy must be developed” if constructing the new office tower is recommended. The consequence of not building a new tower is that “the City will continue to lease a large amount of office space from the private sector.”

    This project isn’t an immediate one, so I don’t expect any major news will come out of the budget discussions. I’m glad to see the commitment to downtown, however.

  • 12-17-0373: 104th Street Funicular (#60)

    Total Cost: $20 million

    This project has been in the news quite a bit lately, usually in relation to the Rossdale redevelopment project. The idea is to “provide a way for people to move from the West Rossdale flats to the top of the bank thereby creating a more walkable area.” In other words, the hill is too step for most people! This project is specifically mentioned in the Capital City Downtown Plan actually, as part of the focus on River Valley Promenades.

  • 12-17-0371: Downtown Lands Acquisition (#71)

    Total Cost: $4 million

    Given the recent decision to purchase the land for the downtown arena, this project caught my eye. The land in question is located at Jasper Avenue and 100 Street, in front of Hotel Macdonald. “It is presently owned by a private developer who has publicly expressed an interest in constructing a condominium tower on the site. Purchasing this park will protect and preserve it in its current state, ensuring that the existing amenity space and historic view corridors are maintained.” Um, take that Occupy Edmonton!

  • 12-21-1200: City Collections Repository (#74)

    Total Cost: $29.539 million

    The proposed 55,425 square foot building would house historical artifacts from the O’Keefe Building and would also serve as the off site storage centre for the City Archives. “The building will be designed to allow for growth in both collections for 25 years.” The building was recommended by Lundhom & Associates after looking at the existing facilities and the collections. I think a new facility with proper temperature, humidity, light, and dust control systems makes a lot of sense. It’s important to preserve Edmonton’s history.

  • 12-21-5674: Medium Sized Stadium (#75)

    Total Cost: $53.016 million

    New stadium?! The proposed stadium would feature artificial turf and seating of 8,000 “with opportunities for increasing the seating further through temporary or expansion of seating for a total capacity of 20,000.” This project is intended to meet the needs for “certain amateur sports, professional soccer, FIFA and other championships and concert events.”

    Telus Field is one of the other venues identified, along with Foote Field (2,770), Clarke Park (1,300 seats), and Commonwealth Stadium (60,000 seats) but it lacks parking and LRT services. This new stadium would fit nicely in-between those facilities and would presumably be built close to the LRT, though the project profile does not mention a location.

  • 12-21-7663: CKUA Expansion (#77)

    Total Cost: $5 million

    I was wondering how CKUA could afford to move into the former Alberta Hotel, recently reconstructed just west of Canada Place on Jasper Avenue. Sounds like it is City of Edmonton to the rescue! The justification for supporting this is that it is adjacent to The Quarters, it would maintain and preserve a historic resource, and because “CKUA would offer below-market leasing space to other non-profit organizations.”

I encourage you to take a look through the budget documents, there’s a lot of really interesting information there!

Roundup: Reaction to the latest downtown arena vote

On Wednesday afternoon, City Council approved a financial framework for the new downtown arena. The vote passed 10-3, with Diotte, Iveson, and Sloan voting against. Council also agreed to spend $30 million to complete the design of the arena to 60%, to enable contractors to bid on the construction project with a Guaranteed Maximum Price of $450 million. From the news release:

“A new downtown arena is a catalyst for revitalizing downtown. This is a fair agreement and will help sustain NHL hockey in Edmonton while increasing economic activity in the city,” says City Manager Simon Farbrother. “It will also improve land values and the livability and sustainability of Edmonton for all citizens.”

John Karvellas from the Katz Group also issued a statement:

“We very much appreciate City Council’s strong vote of support for the downtown arena, as well as the considerable time and effort Mayor Mandel and City Administration, in particular, have put into this project. We will work with the City administration to understand the implications of the new elements of the deal introduced in today’s motion in the context of the agreements that need to be completed by month-end.”

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman also shared some comments:

“I am thrilled for the City of Edmonton and I want to congratulate and thank Mayor Mandel and Daryl Katz for their hard work and commitment. The future of the Oilers couldn’t be brighter.”

I was paying attention to the meeting on Wednesday, and as the vote approached I tweeted much of Council’s final remarks. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Mayor Mandel: “I have not had one, not one call since SLRT opened about what it cost us to build.”
  • Mayor Mandel: “Today is about making a decision to change our downtown.”
  • Mayor Mandel: “This is a project about Northern Alberta, it’s not just about Edmonton. The province should come to the table.”
  • Councillor Anderson: “Thank goodness he lives here.” (referring to Daryl Katz)
  • Councillor Anderson: “I believe that the casino and the gravel project would sit for another several decades if this does not go forward.”
  • Councillor Anderson: “We all have to remember however, that no matter how we vote on this, it is still subject to $100 million appearing from somewhere.”
  • Councillor Batty: “I applaud Daryl Katz for his perseverance.”
  • Councillor Gibbons: “Hopefully we can work toward keeping Edmonton on the map.”
  • Councillor Gibbons: “We’ve done such a good job of growing out, maybe we can grow back inside.”
  • Councillor Gibbons: “I’ve travelled all over the world, and a great city has to have a great downtown.”
  • Councillor Leibovici: “We do have a downtown that needs a bit of a lift.”
  • Councillor Leibovici: “Do we need an arena? Yes. Do we need to change what we have? Yes.”
  • Councillor Leibovici: “A lot of this reminds me of the airport debate.”
  • Councillor Sohi: “I know it’s not a perfect deal, but it’s a reasonable deal that I can defend to the people I represent.”
  • Councillor Krushell: “It’s time to tell the Prongers of this world that Edmonton is not just a city with great people.”
  • Councillor Krushell: “The project will play a key part in revitalizing our downtown, and that is why I am supporting this.”
  • Councillor Loken: “This is a game-changer in my mind.”
  • Councillor Loken: “This is about Edmonton, this is about vision, this is about the future.”
  • Councillor Diotte: “There’s no reason to agree to a bad deal.”
  • Councillor Diotte: “I think we can all agree that the majority of Edmontonians want to see a new downtown arena.”
  • Councillor Sloan: “I maintain grave reservations about the costs and associated risks that the City is undertaking.”
  • Councillor Sloan: “I am further concerned that a lack of clarity has resulted in both Council and Admin losing face in the public.”
  • Councillor Caterina: “I’m comfortable that this is a much fairer deal than what was brought back from New York.”
  • Councillor Henderson: “I’m prepared to continue moving forward because I think at this point that our interests are being served.”
  • Councillor Henderson: “I don’t think the arena by itself is the magic wand.”
  • Councillor Iveson: “Nothing would anger me more in my old age than to see this debate play out again in my lifetime.”
  • Councillor Iveson: “I’m sold on what a new arena can do for our downtown, but I believe a better deal can be found.”

Slowly but surely, our Councillors are becoming more familiar with the tools and technologies available to them. Three Councillors blogged their final remarks, something I’d like to see the norm rather than the exception.

Many people tweeted about the news on Wednesday, and as I showed in my brief analysis, the response seemed to be mostly positive. There was also a fairly active thread on Connect2Edmonton about the deal.

Here’s what Paula Simons wrote about the deal:

“On Wednesday, Mayor Stephen Mandel described the arena as something to benefit all of northern Alberta. Sohi called on Edmontonians to petition Premier Alison Redford for financial support. Indeed, the province may be more willing to come up with the necessary cash, perhaps by some sleight of hand with casino money, now that the city and the Katz Group have come to terms. But this story, dear readers, isn’t over. We’ve just taken a whole new plot twist.”

Here’s what John MacKinnon wrote:

“Now that Oilers owner Daryl Katz’s downtown arena project is a qualified ‘go,’ maybe people can focus on what should have been the main issue all along: how this facility will help transform Edmonton’s downtown.”

Here’s what Gary Lamphier had to say:

“As I’ve said repeatedly over the past couple of years, I’d love to see a new downtown arena. But not at any price. I don’t think this deal represents anything close to an equitable sharing of risks and rewards between Katz Group and city taxpayers.”

In that same article, U of A sports economist Brad Humphreys shared his thoughts:

“It’s a terrible deal. They’re still short $100 million and I don’t see it going very far until they come up with the remainder of the funding.”

Here is what David Staples wrote:

“So did we get fleeced? Not even close. This is a good deal, far better than the existing Oilers deal at Rexall, and certainly right in line with what we see in terms of public/private funding models for new arenas in other NHL cities.”

Here is what Terry Jones wrote:

“The late great city of Edmonton has dared to be great again.”

Northlands CEO Richard Andersen hasn’t made many statements since the vote, but the Sun quoted him yesterday:

“We want to move on and get busy doing the other things we do. This is a huge distraction.”

Oilers star Taylor Hall tweeted his reaction to the news:

“Excited news on the new arena for Edmonton. In other news @ebs_14 and I got iPhones and they put BlackBerrys to shame.”

Here is what Yukon Jack wrote in his column:

“Finally! Finally another step in the downtown arena project. To say this thing is moving at a glacier’s pace is an insult to climate change.”

Bruce Urban, owner of the Edmonton Rush, is a fan of the project:

“It’s very exciting. Let’s picture Downtown Edmonton with this beautiful arena, the businesses that will follow, the restaurants and entrepreneurs who will follow. It’s very exciting for the city.”

The Calgary Herald asked Flames CEO Ken King to comment and received this statement:

“The news coming out of Edmonton regarding their new building is wonderful.  A state of the art new facility will be a great boon to their community and create a viable future for their team.”

Writing for the National Post, here is what Jesse Kline had to say:

“This is nothing more than corporate welfare, and by threatening to relocate the Oilers, Mr. Katz was essentially threatening to make business decisions based on how much money he can extract from local governments, rather than what city is the best market to do business in.”

The Edmonton Sun said that with the deal done, it is time to move on:

“City council has decided to proceed with a package that will see a major chunk of downtown Edmonton revitalized. It has been an acrimonious two-year debate, and the sensible move at this point is for the city to move forward together.”

The Edmonton Journal said the decision was the right call for our city:

“In this corner, the belief is that all Edmontonians will benefit – from economic spinoffs boosting the tax base, from the proliferation of non-hockey entertainment options that they will use, from the greater future attractiveness of Edmonton as a place to live, and from the fact that NHL hockey will now be guaranteed to remain a key part of community pride for at least the next 35 years.”

I’m sure I have missed some reaction, but I think the quotes I have highlighted are fairly representative.

Twitter statistics for City Council’s vote on the financial framework for the downtown arena

After a long public hearing on Tuesday, City Council yesterday debated the proposed financial framework and ultimately whether or not they wanted to proceed with the downtown arena project. They voted 10-3 in favor of the framework, and also voted to spend $30 million to complete the design to 60%. Here’s my analysis of the the arena-related tweets posted by Edmonton users between 9:30am and 9:30pm.

By graphing the tweets per minute, you can very clearly see the time the vote took place (~3:03pm):

I was curious to know if the things people were tweeting before and after that moment were different. Here’s a word cloud of the tweets prior to the vote:

Caterina was mentioned a lot, which makes sense considering he turned out to be the surprise dealmaker of the day. The other Councillors were mentioned quite frequently too, as myself and others tweeted their comments.

Here’s a word cloud of the tweets posted after the vote:

It’s very interesting that “Edmonton” was tweeted so often after the vote passed. There were a lot of tweets similar to “Edmonton will get a new arena” that were retweeted after the vote. You can also see that “Iveson” was fairly prominent after the vote, reflecting the large number of tweets about his final remarks on the deal.

Other stats:

  • It was another busy day for tweets in Edmonton with more than 42,000 posted by Edmontonians. That works out to an average of about 30 per minute.
  • More than 880 users posted at least one arena-related tweet.
  • On average, 5.0 arena-related tweets were posted per minute between 9:30am and 9:30pm. The peak was 43.
  • Roughly 14% of the tweets were replies to other users.
  • Roughly 29% of the tweets were retweets.

Here are the top 20 most active local users (most tweets to least):

Here are the top 20 most retweeted local users (by other local users, most retweeted to least):

I gave Paula a run for her money, but she remained the most retweeted user on the arena issue!

UPDATE: I’m always looking for better ways to analyze tweets. Finding a good, reliable way to do sentiment analysis (are tweets positive or negative) is a challenge, partially because tweets are so short and because they usually include weird entities like hashtags (weird from a natural language processing point-of-view). To analyze the arena-related tweets, I used uClassify’s Sentiment Classifier. Here are the results:

tweet sentiment

I would say this is pretty much as expected. Tweets before the vote probably expressed less emotion one way or the other. Most people tweeting after the vote seemed happy with the decision Council made.

Avenue Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 for 2011

top 40 under 40The third annual Top 40 Under 40 list was unveiled this evening at the Winspear Centre. Avenue Edmonton has once again highlighted an amazing group of Edmontonians doing some really great things in our city.

“We are extremely proud to celebrate this accomplished, creative and insightful group of fellow citizens,” said Avenue publisher Orville Chubb. “They exemplify the best of Edmonton’s spirit.”

Here’s the Top 40 for 2011 and where you can find them online (in alphabetical order):

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that there are actually 41 names in the list. The editor’s note in the issue explains the reason for this, but essentially there was some communication issues – the top 40 are busy people after all! The average age this year is 34.1, up from 33.4 in 2009 but down slightly from 34.6 in 2010.

Top 40 Under 40 for 2011
Erica Viegas graces the cover

Top 40 Under 40 for 2011
Erica Viegas, Tina Thomas, and Kari Skelton

Top 40 Under 40 for 2011
Todd Babiak

Top 40 Under 40 for 2011
Karen McDonald

Top 40 Under 40 for 2011
Christine Causing

Top 40 Under 40 for 2011
Cam Linke

Some of the names on the list are new to me, and that’s great – I love learning about awesome Edmontonians! I feel fortunate to know some of the others quite well. Congratulations to all!

The November issue of Avenue Magazine will be on stands across the city as of October 29. Watch for nominations for the 2012 list to open in the spring.

My photos from tonight’s event are here. See also my posts about the Class of 2010 and Class of 2009.

Twitter statistics for today’s public hearing on the proposed arena deal

I think it’s fair to say that the public hearing on the proposed arena deal was the talk of Twitter in Edmonton today. Here’s my quick analysis of all arena-related tweets posted by Edmonton users today between 9:30am and 9:30pm.

A word cloud of the 4500+ tweets:

Here’s a breakdown of tweets per minute (you can clearly see the lunch and dinner breaks):

Other stats:

  • Thanks largely to the arena-related tweets, more than 44,000 tweets were posted by Edmontonians today. That works out to an average of about 31 tweets per minute.
  • More than 800 different users posted at least one arena-related tweet.
  • On average, 6.3 arena-related tweets were posted per minute between 9:30am and 9:30pm. The peak was 24.
  • Roughly 17% of the tweets were replies to other users.
  • Roughly 25% of the tweets were retweets.

Here are the top 20 most active local users (most tweets to least):

  1. Paulatics
  2. iNews880
  3. scott_lilwall
  4. KikkiPlanet
  5. ctvedmonton
  6. rjmackinnon
  7. Sirthinks
  8. jfranceska
  9. SunMichelleT
  10. JennaBCityTV
  11. canadianglen
  12. dstaples
  13. edmontoncritic
  14. Edmontonsun
  15. Darren_Krause
  16. journalistjeff
  17. SeanCollins11
  18. DennisMichael_1
  19. smoonie
  20. ScottFralick

Here are the top 20 most retweeted local users (by other local users, most retweeted to least):

  1. Paulatics
  2. ctvedmonton
  3. KikkiPlanet
  4. rjmackinnon
  5. iNews880
  6. sunterryjones
  7. scott_lilwall
  8. SunMichelleT
  9. mastermaq
  10. dstaples
  11. davecournoyer
  12. el_cormier
  13. yegmotto
  14. smah1
  15. frostiblack
  16. dantencer
  17. Edmontonsun
  18. dirklancer
  19. journalistjeff
  20. tedgbauer & alexabboud

Council voted to deal with the issue at 9:30am tomorrow (Wednesday). You can watch or listen live here.

ONEdmonton’s Downtown Vibrancy Task Force supports the Proposed Downtown Arena and Entertainment Deal

Today the Downtown Vibrancy Task Force finalized a letter to City Council expressing our support for the proposed downtown arena and entertainment deal. This is a follow-up on the January letter written in support of the rezoning. Here’s the letter:

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Our chair, Stantec’s Simon O’Byrne, spoke to Council in the second group of participants at today’s public hearing. A couple of his statements:

  • “Only people matter when it comes to vibrancy.”
  • “We believe this deal is an acceptable and advantageous tradeoff for Edmontonians.”
  • “No other catalyst will result in more people downtown.”
  • “Incredible opportunity to turn 16 acres of horrifically ugly gravel parking into the city’s premiere destination.”

The public hearing continues all day at City Hall. You can watch or listen live here.

With a positive vote on the arena, Council can get back into the driver’s seat

City Council probably could have done a better job of handling the arena issue this year. I asked Councillor Sohi about this a couple weeks ago, and he agreed. “In hindsight we should have been in the driver’s seat rather than letting the Katz Group drive the process,” he told me.

How much have things skewed in the Katz Group’s favor? Some would say a lot. Here’s what Paula Simons wrote about Council’s vote to purchase the land for the arena:

I am honestly awestruck at Katz’s audacity — and his brilliance. The city takes two large parcels straight off his hands, at his cost, allowing him to assemble and flip the land, with no expense or debt. The city pays all the upfront costs of the arena but still agrees to let the Katz Group choose and hire the architect, come up with the design, and keep all the revenues. We actually pay the team to promote the city. And, at Katz’s behest, we slap a tax on his business rival. It’s the most stunning power play in Oilers history.

The entire article is worth a read. It may have been a brilliant move on the part of the Katz Group, but I think it also opened the door for Council to gain some leverage. There are two key things to consider here – the land, and the design.

Purchasing the land that Katz assembled is a good deal for the City. Underutilized, valuable land is now owned by the City rather than speculative developers. The latest report on the proposed Downtown CRL pegs the cost of the land at around $30 million, a very reasonable amount. “The big piece of land for the arena proper is below market value so that was a no-brainier,” Councillor Iveson told me. Importantly, the City owns that land now regardless of what happens with the arena. “If the deal falls through, it’s a good asset,” Councillor Iveson said. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have the City own that land than a private interest. You might argue that the City could just as easily fail to do anything with the land, but at least we can put pressure on the City to make something happen. A private developer could just sit on the land forever. Getting rid of the parking lots is one of the most appealing aspects of this project.

Moving forward with the design process is an important next step. Conceptual stuff has been done by the Katz Group of course, but a vote in favor of the arena deal this week would really get the ball rolling. As I understand it, the City and the Katz Group would sit down and figure out the necessary retentions. They’d select the design architect, the local architect, and any consultants. An RFP would go out for the construction manager, and once the retentions were in place, the design process would start. According to the latest City report, “the City will fund the cost of design to a 60% level on which the tender documents will be based in order to get the best possible Guaranteed Maximum Price for the arena.” Keeping in mind the $450 million ceiling, the goal would be to produce a design that could be taken to market for that price, and the design itself is an element of that total amount. Importantly though, the City owns this design work (the Katz Group would retain ownership over the conceptual work they completed). “If either party elects not to complete the deal, the City will have ownership rights to the design work undertaken by the City.” You can read more about the budget request to start the process here.

The City needs the Katz Group’s help on this, so I think the collaborative approach makes sense. The Katz Group understands the market and they know what will sell. They’ve done the research and they know what has worked elsewhere around the league. Of course we want the design to be attractive, to comply with the Capital City Downtown Plan, and to support Edmonton’s other priorities, such as The Way We Green. But it has to be functional, too. With the proposed agreement, the City would get all of that design for less than all of the cost.

The design process also presents an important opportunity for Council to re-engage the public. The public consultation that will take place as part of getting to the final design must be taken seriously. It really should be seen as a rare chance to dramatically improve the way the City solicits input and feedback from citizens. We must do better.

Armed with both the land and a ready-to-build design for an arena, Council (and thus the City) will be in a much better negotiating position. Let’s assume for a minute that the deal falls through, perhaps because the province refuses to come to the table, and that Katz or a subsequent owner wanted to move the team. The City could justifiably go to the NHL and say “look, we have land and the design for a building ready to go” which would put the brakes on any move pretty quickly. The league is very unlikely to approve any move if the municipality is ready to play ball, especially in an important market like Edmonton. It gives Council leverage they lack at the moment, and it should put any relocation fears to rest, unfounded as they may be.

Not everyone agrees with this perspective. Councillor Caterina, for instance: “We could be spending taxpayers’ money…before we even know if an arena is a go or not.” But I don’t think there’s much harm in this limited amount of strategic spending. Everything appears to rest upon another level of government stepping up to the plate with $100 million or more. If that doesn’t happen, at least Council will be in a stronger position to move forward.

Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe with this week’s vote on the arena deal, Council can get back into the driver’s seat.