Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Chris Sunquist on Designing Green Homes...

Local green building pioneer Chris Sundquist was good enough to sit down with me at the 2010 Kamloops Energy Fair and share some of his knowledge and wisdom about this exciting new practice:

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Podcast: Rob Purdy on the Big Picture of Sustainability...

 

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/4370352638/

One of the organizers of the Kamloops Energy Fair, and former BC Wildlife Park manager Rob Purdy, spoke to me about some big picture sustainability issues. Recorded at the 2010 Kamloops Energy Fair on June 19th 2010. Almost 7 minutes.

Audio Map

00:00  - big picture of sustainability
00:22 - problems with oil based economy
01:03 - contribution of the Kamloops Energy Fair
02:06 - momentum towards transitioning to a cleaner energy society - key number is 13%.
03:55 - women another potential driver to greener world
          - green economy huge potential.
 

Interesting Reads to Start the Week?

Honestly, I am still getting back into community blogging after submitting a (successful!) MA thesis proposal and attending the Northern Voice conference this weekend. In the meantime, I've found these articles, posts, and conference sessions quite interesting:

 - Mel Rothenburger: Why Politicians and Journalists are the Same

 - Jeremy Deutsch: From Farms to 2000 Homes: Transforming Tranquille

 - Arjun Singh: My Attempt at Live Blogging: Northern Voice Gov 2.0 Session

Towards a Better City Hall Budget Consultation...

I've been thinking a bit about how our community public budget meeting could be made better. Almost every year, city hall invests a huge amount of resources into this meeting. All the most senior city managers almost always attend, as well as all of city council. Sally Edwards, the city's finance director, gives a very informative presentation. There are usually snacks on offer.

And, yet, the number of people attending is usually pretty pathetic. The people who do attend have a great opportunity to learn and give input. I still believe this is the most important city meeting of the year.

In 2007, I spent some time personally inviting people to the budget meeting and to a pre-budget event I hosted at the downtown Cowboy Coffee. A lot of people showed interest and the attendance at the budget meeting was much higher. 

This makes me wonder what would happen if city hall started officially inviting people to a public budget meeting and perhaps springing for a pre-meeting dinner. Perhaps, invites could go to the heads of the major business, social, cultural, and environmental groups in Kamloops. It would also make sense to formally invite representatives of neighbourhood associations and service clubs. There are other groups and people I am probably missing.

The idea would be to do some active marketing - "your city needs you" type of stuff, but also to make it friendly and inviting.

A National Conversation on Public Engagement...

I'm in Toronto for a couple of days attending the Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2) conference. I've served on the board of C2D2 since early 2008, and its been an incredible experience to meet very committed and talented public engagement / public participant practioners from across Canada, the US, and even a few from overseas.

The Mayor of Toronto gave a speech last night about the important of listening to citizens, and forming plans and policies from there. A Toronto Councillor talked about the importance of conflicting points of view, coupled with a committment to "stay in the room" until agreements can be reached.

Pretty cool stuff. Here is the conference page on the C2D2 web site.

It Sucks Not To Be At The UBCM Convention This Year...

The best learning opportunity in the province to learn about important issues and how to serve your community. That is what the annual Union of BC Municipalities represents, in my humble opinion.

You also meet some incredibly interesting people from all every nook and corner of BC.

I even considered going as a business / media rep / citizen, but it seemed a little weird to me just one year after not getting re-elected to Council.

The best things about UBCM are the various educational sessions. You get to hear and interact with top professionals in the province on all sorts of issues. Last year, I attended a seminar on crime and policing with the top provincial RCMP officer - Inspector Gary Bass. Extremely informative.

I hope some of our councillors and staffers attending this year might consider writing up some of their learnings and experiences.

To follow along with UBCM this year, watch for the coverage in the local media. Also, for more province wide / specific issue coverage, Google News collects lots of reports. There are a lot of interesting issues being talked about...

Pedal Etiquette Begs Question on Driver Etiquette...

As Kamloops strives to become a more friendly city to cyclists and pedestrians, it's probably good to have good refreshers in the etiquette of the road, bike path, and sidewalk. Kudos to Ryan McKee in Vancouver who has started the Pedal Etiquette blog. I wonder, though, if we have enough accessible information for drivers who wish to better respect cyclists and pedestrians. I've tried to search for that type of info and haven't had a lot of luck.

Interesting Stats for July....

I find watching the statistics for this blog really interesting. Thought I might share some July 2009 stats with you all.

  Some interesting takeaways: most popular post talked about the new Miss Kamloops web site, followed by a pointer to City Hall's garbage collection schedule, followed by a post on Domtar's quest for credibility. 

504 returning visitors in July, and 1251 new / one time visitors.

More information, click on these image:

 

My Newest Project: The Lower Sahali Bulletin...

I've long been interested in how people in a neighbourhood build links with each other. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, neighbours don't build very strong links. I think neighbourhood links, neighbourhood spirit is so very important.

I've spent the last month or so developing and creating a neighbourhood newsletter for Lower Sahali. I have also created a companion web site and a companion online residents only online forum. I've been inspired by efforts like Front Porch Forum, whose founder Michael Wood Lewis I was honoured to meet a couple of years ago at Personal Democracy Forum conference.

The inaugural issue of the Lower Sahali Bulletin is coming out next week, mailed to 1154 residences. I am proud of getting this off the ground. And I really hope the Bulletin will be thrive as a valuable resource. Here is how I describe my initial goals in the sponsorship sheet:

The Lower Sahali Bulletin is a new newsletter for the lower Sahali neighbourhood. The overall goals of the newsletter are to help build stronger community links in lower Sahali, to provide really useful information to residents, and to offer neighbourhood businesses the opportunity to build stronger relationships with nearby residents.

 

The newsletter is currently slated to come out twice a month, and will contain important and useful information for lower Sahali residents. Features will include information on neighbourhood events and amenities such as parks, upcoming road work and rezonings, commentary on important issues, a neighbour to neighbour free classifieds section, updates on nearby local businesses, home improvement tips, and much much more.

I have had pretty good response from neighbourhood businesses and residents so far. This is probably a model that could be replicated in other areas of the city. Would love to talk to anybody interested and share my experiences thus far.

Why I am Excited about North Kamloops...

The revitalization of the North Shore business and cultural districts should, in my mind, be of interest to people all over our community. We are too small and tight knit a community for the vast majority of us to think any differently.

We are just about to vote on the proposed North Shore Plan - a document three years in the making, with broad based community input. If you are interested in specific areas of the North Shore, there is likely to be proposals and details in the plan. Feel free to ask any questions.

A very brief and basic summary of what the North Shore Plan attempts to achieve, in my view: a more complete, accessible area. Buildings of increased height on Tranquille Rd from the Overlander Bridge to Fortune Drive, incorporating both residential and commercial, creating a more vibrant street life. Over time, transitioning from the auto malls at the foot of the Overlander bridge, and moving toward restaurants, boutiques, and more "people" places. Green building, crime prevention principles woven throughout.

The new Holiday Inn is being built as we speak. The new "Green" medical building across from the dilapitated Village Hotel is being planned. The Spirit Square public square should be complete by October. And I had a great lunch today at the recently opened Zorba's Greek Restaurant, kitty corner to Cowboy Coffee.