Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoyed the turkey this weekend. I sure did – I was in too much of a food coma to post this yesterday.

Here are my latest Edmonton notes:

• Over the first five days of advance voting, 8,438 Edmontonians cast their ballot, up from 6,198 during the first week of advance voting in the 2010 election.
• Disappointing news for frequent travelers to London – Air Canada is grounding its direct flight over the winter. It’ll restart again on March 29.
• Looking for something to read? Why not a free copy of EPL’s Centennial Book, written by Todd Babiak!
• Interesting story about an architect and his family that chose Edmonton.
• The Province has reversed an earlier decision to force an external review the finances of the University of Alberta. Still, students and faculty are dealing with the realities of budget cuts. The Faculty of Science is looking to fill a $4 million hole in its budget.
• Mayor Mandel was recognized by the University of Alberta recently for his unwavering support of post-secondary institutions in our city.
• It’s not just Stephen getting all the recognition though. His wife Lynn was honoured this week with a surprise gala.
• The Edmonton Waste Management Centre is about to get a $10 million addition in the form of an organic waste processing facility.
• Looking for some ideas for a first date in Edmonton? The Wanderer has a list of 50.
• The City’s Planning Academy is back, with courses beginning on October 29.
• As if it wasn’t already late enough, the renovation of the Federal Building has now been delayed until next fall.
• The Edmonton Community Foundation announced this week the creation of the Alberta Social Enterprise Venture Fund.
• After nine seasons, Edmonton Rush favorite Jimmy Quinlan has decided to retire from playing but will serve as Assistant Coach for the 2014 season.
• The City of Edmonton has won three awards for its leadership in innovation and planning from the Alberta Professional Planners Institute. The TOD Guidelines, WinterCity Strategy, and Food & Urban Agriculture Strategy were all recognized.
• The Villeneuve Airport is lengthening one of its runways and is installing an ILS, which will allow medevac flights to land there as well as plans travelling at night and in bad weather.
• The EPS Canine Unit recently competed in the annual Canadian Police Canine Dog Trials. Maverick, Xeiko, Quattro, and Storm all finished in the top five. It’s some good news after the recent loss of Quanto.
• This has got to be one of the funniest and most popular local tweets of the year:

Here are some upcoming events:

• Advance voting continues this week from Tuesday through Saturday.
• Edmonton’s NextGen is holding two Candi{date} events this week – opportunities for nextgeners to speed date with candidates. Tuesday’s event is at the Robbins Health Learning Centre downtown and Wednesday’s event is at SUB on the U of A campus.
• CBC is hosting a mayoral forum at Centre Stage over lunch on Wednesday.
• This year’s edition of the Edmonton Comedy Festival runs Wednesday through Saturday!
• LitFest 2013 kicks off on Wednesday!
• The Downtown Business Association’s AGM & Luncheon takes place at the Westin on Thursday over lunch.
• Friday at lunch is the CPRS mayoral forum.
• The Eskimos host the Stampeders on Friday night at Commonwealth Stadium.
• No more outdoor dates for the City Market Downtown, but you can find some of the vendors indoors at City Hall over the winter.
• Edmonton’s eleventh Homeless Connect takes place on Sunday at the Shaw Conference Centre.
• The Edmonton Woman’s Show takes place at the EXPO Centre on Saturday and Sunday.
• Monday is Election Day! Make sure to get out there and vote!
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• The election is really dominating the headlines lately – you can see my latest #yegvote update here. The race is starting to heat up! You’ll be able to cast your vote as early as Tuesday when advance voting begins.
• Even though new voter identification requirements mean you need to have something with your name and current residential address, the City and service agencies are working together to ensure the homeless can vote.
• Another hot topic of discussion this week was the welcome sign prank. It’s unfortunate that some damage was caused to City property (estimates peg the amount at $14,000), but I have to admit it’s pretty funny.
• For the third year in a row, the City of Edmonton has received an AA+ credit rating from Standard & Poor’s.
• Vital Signs 2013 was launched this week by the Edmonton Community Foundation and the Edmonton Social Planning Council. This year’s report focuses on Food Security.
• Student achievement results for EPSB were released this week. Growth in the five year high school completion rate continued with a 2.8% increase.
• The Parkland Institute released a report called “Wrong Turn” this week, calling the plans for a P3 to build the southeast LRT a mistake. Here’s what I wrote about the issue back in March.
• P3’s were also a major topic of discussion at the Province’s most recent economic summit.
• Have a library card? Great! Now upgrade it to a ME Card, which entitles you to borrow items from any library in Metro Edmonton.
• A voluntary buyout program at the University of Alberta will see 121 staff members, including 77 faculty members, leave next summer. It’s part of efforts to find $56 million over two years to deal with budget shortfalls.
• ETS commemorated 20 years of accessible bus service and 35 years of LRT operations at a celebration at City Hall this week.
• Employees at Superstore locations across Alberta went on strike at midnight, so shopping there will mean trying to get past the picket lines, at least until the strike is eventually resolved.
• Here’s a look at the Kelly-Ramsey block demolition currently taking place downtown. It’s fascinating to see the building torn apart.
• As the temperatures continue to drop, EPS is asking Edmontonians to winterize their homes against crime.

Benches have been installed on Jasper Avenue. Why some face traffic, I’ll never understand.

Here are some upcoming events:

• There are lots of forums this week, starting with the next mayoral forum at lunchtime Monday at the Shaw Conference Centre. The third and final mayoral forum organized by Edmonton Elections will take place on Thursday night at the Italian Cultural Centre.
• There will be lots of other opportunities to see the mayoral candidates though, including the Housing & Homelessness Forum on Tuesday at lunch, and the Your City, Your Vote forum on Tuesday evening.
• There are forums for Ward 2 and Ward 5 candidates Monday night as well. On Tuesday night there are forums for candidates in Ward 4 and Ward 10. Candidates in Ward 12 and Ward 6 will have their forums on Wednesday.
• Fruit Loop returns on Friday evening at the Yellowhead Brewery downtown.
• The Mercer Collective Makers Market is back on Saturday!
• Saturday is also the final outdoor date for the City Market Downtown – it’ll be in City Hall for the winter.
• There’s a cool new music festival taking place on Saturday and Sunday called Up+Downtown.
• Head over to Wunderbar on Sunday for Beer n’ Politics, yet another opportunity to chat about the municipal election.
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

It’s probably time to update this map…

Vue Weekly’s Best of Edmonton awards for 2013 were released this week. My blog was named Best Local Affairs Blog for the second year in a row – thank you very much! I was also thrilled to be recognized as a runner-up in the Best Twitterer category, and that What the Truck?! was once again named Best Pop Up Event. It means a lot!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• If you’re looking to get caught up on the election, here’s my latest update. Things got interesting yesterday as Karen Leibovici took a swipe at Don Iveson.
• Alberta’s population has cracked the 4 million mark! That’s double what our population was in 1978. Additionally, Canada’s population has now surpassed 35 million.
• Edmonton Fire Chief Ken Block has been named Fire Chief of the Year by the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.
• There’s a new commemorative monument called Memoryscape located on the corner of 99 Street and 103A Avenue. It is designed to “celebrate the long and proud history between Edmonton’s military and the community.”
• The City has adopted a new Open Government License. It contains the terms for accessing and using government data. Now if only we could get a policy in place to require that new data be made available in the Open Data Catalogue…
• The Edmonton Oilers today announced that Andrew Ference will service as the 14th captain in franchise history.
• Good news for Beacon Heights and Beverly Heights: the Oilers Community Foundation and Hockey Canada Foundation are working together on the redevelopment of two new outdoor rinks there.
• The Royal Alberta Museum is looking for your memories as it continues work on the new location downtown.
• Edmonton has now been officially recognized as a “Fairtrade City”.
• Canada’s first naturally filtered swimming pool will be built next year in Borden Park.
• Here’s a nice recap of Alumni Weekend at the University of Alberta.
• There’s a new red panda at the Edmonton Valley Zoo! His name is Kalden.
• Did you know that Edmonton has a full service pro shop and archery lanes at Wyld Archery?
• Apparently there’s a dating website for the wealthy that lists 621 eligible millionaires in Edmonton. Who knew?
• Great news for the Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo which wrapped up its second annual event today: more than 25,000 fans attended this year!
• From the Edmonton Sun: Edmonton Mayor Mandel’s era, recalled.

Here are some upcoming events:

• The Edmonton International Film Festival continues through Saturday evening.
• Monday night is The Mayoral Event, presented by interVivos, at Latitude 53.
• Also Monday are the first two forums organized by Edmonton Elections. The forum for Ward 9 candidates takes place at Lillian Osborne School, while the forum for Ward 1 candidates takes place at Westlawn School.
• The first mayoral forum organized by Edmonton Elections takes place on Tuesday evening at Harry Ainlay School.
• On Wednesday evening, there’s a forum for Ward 8 candidates at McNally School and a forum for Ward 3 candidates at Londonderry School.
• Also Wednesday evening is the election edition of Green Drinks!
• Thursday evening brings us a forum for Ward 7 candidates at St. Bernadette School and a forum for Ward 11 candidates at J. Percy Page School.
• For those of you interested in the school board race, there’s a forum for Ward H candidates at Royal Gardens Community Hall and a forum for Ward C candidates at Laurier Heights School, both Thursday evening.
• The Eskimos host the Alouettes on Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium.
• Saturday evening is the pan-Canadian Pecha Kucha Night organized by Designing Downtown. I’m looking forward to it!
• Watch out on Sunday for participants in this year’s CIBC Run for the Cure. Also Sunday is the Wishmaker Walk for Wishes.
• FC Edmonton hosts the Carolina Railhawks on Sunday.
• Also Sunday is the Edmonton Bridal Expo, at the Shaw Conference Centre.
• Head on down to The Underground on Sunday evening for Politweetup!
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

If you can’t make it out to the forums organized by Edmonton Elections, don’t worry – they’ll be streamed live online!

Here’s a promo video from Designing Downtown:

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• The final meeting of the current City Council took place on Wednesday at City Hall. It was an emotional affair, filled with tributes to Mayor Mandel. Here’s the letter to citizens that Mayor Mandel published that day.
• City Council this week directed Administration to proceed with a full closure of the City Centre Airport at 11:59pm on November 30, 2013.
• Edmonton was the first major city in Canada to implement curbside recycling way back in 1988. The City is celebrating 25 years of recycling!
• Here is President Indira Samarasekera’s State of the University address.
• From Gig City: Does public art improve life for Edmonton’s homeless?
• Here’s the latest update on the Walterdale Bridge project. Queen Elizabeth Park Road is slated to reopen to traffic in early October.
• Have you been using the on-street bike parking corrals this year? Let the City know your feedback by taking this online survey.
• Speaking of surveys, the City is also doing a survey on 107 Avenue.
• Here’s another blow for supporters of the Cloverdale footbridge: Council accepted an environmental impact study that allows the southeast LRT to be built as planned.
• At the same time, the City is exploring a new, multi-million dollar footbridge near Terwillegar Park.
• New data shows what you probably already suspected: class sizes at Edmonton area schools are really large.
• A new report suggests that police use-of-force incidents have dropped considerably in recent years. This is despite the number of police calls going up.
• Well this sucks. Sam Gagner suffered a broken jaw on Saturday night against the Canucks and is out of the lineup indefinitely. The Oilers won 5-2.
• Here are the latest urbanism headlines from Spacing Edmonton.
• There is of course a lot of election-related news, but I have a separate update for that!

Bay/Enterprise Square LRT Station, by Michael Chu

Here are some upcoming events:

• Tomorrow is Nomination Day! Candidates will be posted on the Edmonton Elections site sometime in the afternoon (and I understand, will also be available in the open data catalogue).
• Alberta Culture Days take place throughout the province from the 27th through the 29th. The kickoff takes place on 104 Street on Friday night.
• Come on down to the 124 Street Market on Thursday to see me and other media personalities compete in a cookie-eating contest!
• The Bloom YEG event taking place at the Art Gallery of Alberta on Friday night sounds pretty cool.
• Love LEGO? Then don’t miss the Edmonton 50 Years From Now competition taking place at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
• Sunday is the 2013 edition of Free Admission Day at City of Edmonton attractions!
• Also taking place this weekend is the Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo!
• There’s another Mercer Collective Makers Market on Saturday.
• The Eskimos host Toronto on Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium.
• The Edmonton International Film Festival kicks off on Thursday and runs through October 5. In case you missed it, the 24/One Challenge kicked off yesterday at the City Market!
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Guy Kawasaki with an Oilers jersey at E-Town

To help kick-off EIFF, I have a prize package to give away! To have a shot at winning two all-access passes and a gift basket, a prize valued at more than $260, simply leave a comment below with your favorite movie by 11:59 PM on Tuesday. I will randomly choose a winner and contact you on Wednesday. Good luck!