Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Looking at Youth Voter Turnout...!

As part of my MA in Professional Communications studies, I am going to be doing a substantial piece of research. I'm hoping I get approved for a thesis (which allows more research time and the ability to conduct interviews / surveys).

What I am planning to research is what voting outreach messages work best to build trust in non voting youth so that they are encouraged to vote.

With voter turnout in Kamloops under 30% in the 2008 civic election, I hope this study will have some relevance to local voter outreach efforts. I think we miss out on so much community wisdom when people are so disengaged from the electoral process. I also think groups who don't vote in great numbers, such as youth, may not see their priorities well reflected in government.

As some may know, I've long been interested in increasing voter turnout at all levels of government. I am hoping my thesis will have national relevance and generally trying to frame the research that way thus far.

Still, I'm also really hoping the work will help increase voter turnout in Kamloops.

New Miss Kamloops Web Site...

The Miss Kamloops Ambassador Program (snazzy new web site) offers a great opportunity for young women to develop leadership skills in Kamloops. I wrote about my first time attending the Miss Kamloops crowning event, the pageant, back in 2006.

This Year's pageant is on July 3rd, 2009 at Sagebrush Theatre. Would recommend the evening, its always really interesting and fun.

A Heineken at the Transit Exchange

I love travelling by transit. The last few months, I have been in my car way too much. How I missed letting someone else do the driving while I read, answered email, or socialized. How I missed the extra, no longer gas money in my pocket.

Early this month, I bought my bus pass. And I have been trying to schedule so riding the bus is workable with my busy life. .

Today, I went down to the transit exchange to catch a bus  to Sahali. As I walked by the bus shelter area,  someone from within a crowd of teenagers yelled out "hey, there's Arjun Singh!!!!". I craned my neck in an attempt to spot this enthusiastic person, but only caught a fleeting glimpse of what seemed a young man in amongst all the other people.

I walked to my bus stop on the exchange and sat on the nearest bench. The enthusiastic young man came over. He said, "you are Arjun Singh, aren't you, I've only seen you in the paper".  I confirmed that I was indeed me, and the young man shook my hand and sat down beside me.

It was then I noticed the large bottle of Heineken beer in his hand. And I became quite alarmed. 

Thank You Mairi....

This summer, a very bright young person will be doing a bit of job shadowing with (of?) me. I first met Mairi Lester this past December when she contacted me and expressed an interest in civic issues and public engagement strategies. Mairi took the SFU semester in dialogue, and has recently graduated with a BA, specializing in geography and political science.

It's totally impressive when a young person expresses such an interest and has the chops to seek out ways of learning and growing. This is a very good, and sadly still rare, sign.

We quickly hatched a bit of a plan. I would help Mairi understand better what I do as a member of city council, and Mairi would help me understand better how to better engage people in our community. It's working quite well so far. Thanks Mairi for the fine work you have done and for the good advice you have shared so far. It's been a pleasure and I look forward to a great, productive partnership!

Mairi was a good sport today and let me video a short personal introduction.

Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurship among Kamloops Youth...

I had the honour of attending a Kamloops Junior Achievement reception this evening.

Junior Achievement teaches young people in our area skills business and entrepreneurship skills. One of the best feelings in life is knowing you can be self reliant, and create your own independence, security, and future. This is the huge value of the free enterprise system.

I feel it is very important to have more people in our city start businesses. Too often, we trade our own creativity and happiness for the security of a steady paycheck. People sometimes think you can't have all these things in one package - and going into your own business is certainly an established way.  It is difficult to work for yourself, and even harder to have the responsibility of others working for you. But, ultimately, it is very rewarding and very important to our community as a whole.

The skills these young people have started learning through Junior Achievement will hopefully grow exponentially as they live their lives.

Congrats to Gemma Gowling, the person who coordinates all this learning locally!

Cities Fit For Children conference...

Last week, Thursday and Friday, I attended the Cities Fit For Children summit for municipalities. I want to thank Val Janz from the local Make Children First organization for encouraging me to go. I learnt a lot about how parent-child interaction is so critical to healthy development for the 0 to 6 years. I also found out what different communities are doing in partnering with school districts to use unused classrooms for preschool and daycare programs. I found an observation from keynoter Suzanne Crowhurst Lennard interesting - she said that high rises are very unfriendly to children and to families and any building should be a maximum of six stories.

I have a page of scrawl that I have yet to process from the sessions - so there may be more to post on takeaways.

My friend, Jordan Bateman, Langely Township Councillor, was also in attendance and his report is here.

First Blush - Takeaways from the 2007 Smart Growth BC Conference

I am putting this post into a lot of different categories because Smart Growth can underpin so much in a community. It is not just the intersection of the economy and the environment. It also speaks to social issues, preventing crime, the arts, and so much more.

Today, I attended Smart Growth BC's annual conference. This was a gathering of hundreds. And the topic at hand was how to create happier, healthier, more environmentally friendly, and more profitable communities. It may be a little abstract at first, but Smart Growth makes more and more sense to me every time I hear about it. Of course, its not a perfect philosopy, but it is the best I have seen so far. It is a very holistic approach.

Here are some of the highlights from today:

John Knott Jr leads one of the most ambitious city revitalization projects in the US - the Noisette development in North Charleston, South Carolina. He spoke about building and development as an art form and a service to the human community - not just a way to make money. He talked about good development taking into consideration the history and context of a place - sometimes going back thousands of years. This made me think about how we can incorporate more first nation touchstones in Kamloops development. It made me think of ranches, and river travel.  John Knott talked about  how green development not necessarily being more expensive, but a simple product of more thorough planning in the beginning. He also talked of an almost moral imperative for developers to help solve social problems in society. He said developers are actually the best placed people to lead the effort. A quote:

"We come together now around what we fear or what we hate - we no longer come together around what we love"

Chris Corps talked about the value propostion in building green. In Kamloops, we have had some conflicting information cost / benefits. But, Chris Corps points to many studies that indicate the benefits - a green building, for example, is a healthier building and consequently inhabitants are healthier, workers are more productive, patients get better faster. Chris was asked whether this may be because any new building, green or not, produces an initial excitement for people inside. He said it may be too early to draw anything conclusive but preliminary data shows  green features do have a positive effect on wellbeing. Chris pointed to the Green Value report - very interesting reading.

Whistler is heating their new athletes village using waste water. SFU hosts a new community on Burnaby Mountain - Univercity - a walkable community with a variety of housing options, where the residents are offered a $100 discount on a monthly transit pass. Univercity favours local Burnaby businesses in its retail spaces.

Jonathan Westeinde, with Windmill Developments, spoke a bit about the potential of green development. He maintains that using current technologies and practices, we can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from buildings well below Kyoto Protocol targets within 15 years. He pegged political will as a crucial element - helping to fast track green developments, and providing regulations that can make them successful.

I will be getting all the proceedings from the conference on a CD soon.

A New Daycare Downtown?

In the very near future, your Council will decide on a rezoning application to allow a 28 space daycare near the corner of 6th ave and St Paul. The board and staff at the Children's Circle Daycare Society have been working overtime in a search for a new location. It has been a long, and sometime frustrating, search. The funding sources may soon dry up.

Interestingly, there has been pushback to the proposal. My friend and Council colleague, Tina Lange, for example, has expressed concerns about losing residences in primarily residential areas and increasing parking and noise issues.

I support the concept of accessible child care. And that generally would mean daycares situated in residential areas. My responsibility, under legislation, is to maintain an open mind. So, I look forward to hearing from people at the upcoming pubic hearing on the rezone application, before I make my mind up.

Other communities doing great things with Youth

From the youth presentation at yesterday's large city UBCM forum.

Saanich has built a stand alone teen centre and staffs many programs that engage youth in their community. They sound to have a great mentorship and youth development program.

Vancouver youth have helped their city hall train planning staff on how to talk to youth. I must admit that sometimes I find it challenging talking to youth about issues - I want to make it relevant and interesting to them, but don't quite know if I am resonating. So, Vancouver has a great program. Also very notable and challenging are Vancouver efforts that bring youth from vastly different situations  (homeless youth, youth from wealthier neighborhoods, etc) around the same table to work on projects.

Great Progress by School District on Drugs & Alcohol Issues

I want to thank Susan Dixon, drug and alcohol prevention and intervention coordinator with the school district, for an invite to an advisory meeting yesterday.

The meeting was incredibly pleasing to me, because it focused on the root causes of a lot of the bad stuff we see in Kamloops today. And it spoke to trying to address problems at the early stages.

Pure gold.

A lot of the work Susan, and her colleague Angela Lawrence, do are encapsulated on or linked to on this rather extensive web page.

They can be contacted for advice or guidance on the issue of young people, addictions, and negative behaviours.