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Conferences I am planning to attend in 2007 - your thoughts?

I promised at the end of last month to prepare a list of conferences I plan to attend in the rest of 2007. I would love people's input:

1) UBCM Environment Conference - June 27th and 28th
2) UBCM Annual Conference - Sept 24th to 28th
3) Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation - Nov 12 to 14th

These are the events I am thinking of attending right now. Obviously, the list is subject to change depending on circumstances and input received.

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.

Upcoming Conferences I plan on attending...list forthcoming...

Just so its no surprise to anybody, I am now putting together a list of conferences I plan to attend this year on your behalf.

I will be going to Vancouver tomorrow, for example, for a one day Smart Growth BC conference. The value in this conference is in learning about more environmentally friendly, profitable development and in networking with other people working towards this goal. Cost of the conference should be about $450 with bus travel, meals, and conference registration fee.

Welcome Radio NL Readers...

On May 29th, Radio NL will be broadcasting my editorial explaining the value of my attending the Personal Democracy Forum. In the editorial, I welcome people to visit here for a full report on the conference. Here is the report.

I will update progress on action resulting from the conference as it happens.

First Thoughts - Takeways for Kamloops from the Personal Democracy Forum...

I got back to Kamloops this morning, after a whirlwind couple of days in New York City at the Personal Democracy Forum 2007 conference.  Obviously, I am still trying to synthesize a huge amount of information, but I want to share some of my preliminary thoughts on how me attending this conference benefited all of you.

As many know, I have always had almost an innate bent towards encouraging more full and honest participation in democracy. I believe the more engaged people, from all walks of life, we have working on community issues the better. A lot of other people believe this is a good thing as well. 

I know I have not always responded to emails in as timely a way as I should, or even recognized some of the great comments on this blog, but this is what I strive to do.

Internet technologies can make these efforts so much easier. Just look at all the features the City of Kamloops has added to the official city website - meeting minutes, bylaw searches, useful maps, and so much more.

At Personal Democracy Forum, the subject matter revolved around the cutting edge of technology in government and communities and I specifically looked for technologies and projects that could help all Kamloopsians share thoughts, ideas, and concerns about our community more easily and effectively.

• Here are some of the takeaways:Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, spoke of the Internet's potential as a political "truth director". There were a couple of innovators I met who are making that concept as a reality. Utah Rep Steve Urquhart, a new friend, has put together an amazing site giving grassroots citizens a better handle of what on happenings in the Utah legislature. Its called Politicopia and people can post pros and con arguments on different issues of the day. Others can scan through the arguments to help them come to more informed points of view. It seems really accessible. And I see potential for us to create something similar in Kamloops.  A similar, more dense, site is Debatepedia.

• A lot of people are using social networking tools to organize around issues. The most prominent sites are facebook and myspace. Might be useful for citizen groups such as Save Public Waterfront to look into this. I even found a "City of Kamloops" myspace page, posted by someone outside city hall. I am not sure city staff would ever write a tagline that read "         "I am the city of Kamloops and you suck!!", although I think its kind of funny.

• Seems to me that a lot of this internet democracy stuff will help us reach out to young people in our community. Enabled by the sites mentioned above, but also through 3d worlds like Second Life. I saw a really interesting demo of second life at the conference.

• I saw some great new tools. Front Porch Forum is a site that connects a great number of people living close to each other in Burlington Vermont. It has a 50% participation rate with 20% of Burlington citizens participating. Eventful is a free online event service which even allows people to request events that are not yet organized. Another mention here for Second Life as it allows you to create virtual 3D models of potential city plans and projects.

• There was a great deal of concern expressed about the use of the Internet only to further awful behaviour and nastiness in government - attack ads, taking things out of context. There was talk of rules of behaviour, codes of conduct. I think this is a very difficult, important issue and it was good to start focusing on it in my head. I would hate for elected people to start becoming even more private in this world where everyone has a camera on their cellphone, and a lot of folks are starting to blog their thoughts online.

Responding to Jordan Bateman, Langley Councillor

Jordan Bateman took me to task a bit here for my comments on the hotel room I stayed in at UBCM. I wish he had included the full text of my post - which talked of the great value of going to UBCM.

I think Jordan wisely turns off comments on his blog posts after a few days, but here is my comment further on his post, if I could post it:

Jordan, $125 for a hotel room at this year's UBCM is great value for the Kamloops taxpayer. No, I would not spend as much if I was paying my own dime. But, what I neglected to say is that I would not have worked as hard either. After a long day learning, lobbying, and networking - a good sleep in a good bed in a hotel a block away from the conference centre was very prudent. And entirely appropriate.

Photos from UBCM

Here are some photos from the UBCM conference:

Transit Session

Mid Size Community Forum

Audience for Ida Chong & Community Opportunities Task Force presentation

Singing O Canada at beginning of resolutions plenary session.

   

Panel of Provincial Ministers on social and educational side.

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.

UBCM conference great value...

I am staying in a very nice hotel - rate is about $125 a night I think. The meals are good. I would not stay in such a nice place if I was paying my own way but I would probably still eat as well, or better.

The point, though, is that this conference has been of enormous value to the citizens of Kamloops. For three reasons:

1. Informing the provincial government of Kamloops concerns and issues.
2. Learning local government best practices from across BC.
3. Meeting other across councillors from BC, and learning about their issues and responses.