Blog Posts
Robert Vinson sent the following to me by email today:
Where are the debates? As one of the mayoral candidates I am wondering why the media hasn't asked the candidates to debate the issues. Are we that biased with the current mayor that we are unwilling to see how he really stands up to the other candidates. debates are also a way for candidates to get their messages out that don't cost them any financial obligations and as a candidate that has limited resources I was hoping to utilize this area in getting my message across. I have limited my campaign donation requests due to my understanding that our citizens are experiencing financial difficulties so as to not burden people with unnecessary expences I am running my campaign with volunteers and word of mouth campaigning. I am a firm believer that in financially difficult times we only need to do the most necessary things that need to be done. I sum it up like this: in times like this we only do necessary repairs to our homes rather than do makeovers. Once our financial situations improve then those are the times to think about doing the makeovers. So I think the citizens of this community have other important expenses to worry about then sending me a donation to campaign. But I still need to get my message out, and this is were i believe our media comes into place. They are the ones that should be sending out unbiased information to the public so that they can make an educated decision on election day.
Thanks for your time.
Your readership can contact me at any of the following to ask questions regarding my campaign or if they want to leave me comments as well.
Vinson2010@cogeco.ca
Robert Vinson for Windsor's next Mayor facebook page
or by calling 5199873388
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The Citizfaction Municipal Election Calendar is now up and running. The calendar will feature all official Election 2010 events as well as local media, interest group and candidate functions.
Candidates can submit their own events to the calendar and they will be published after being reviewed. Events can be tracked through the RSS feed, ICal or on the Citizfaction Toolbar.
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The Citizfaction Municipal Election Toolbar is now ready for download. We will be tracking the Mayoralty and Councillor races in Windsor. The toolbar includes links to every active website of current candidates and regular updates via RSS feeds. In the works is the addition of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube tracking as well.
The toolbar has versions for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari on the Windows, Linux and Mac platforms.
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I have been using #windsorelection as a Twitter hashtag for the 2010 Municipal Election but I have been thinking lately that it might be too long. I've come up with a couple of other suggestions and decided to post a poll to see which one was the most popular, along with soliciting some other suggestions. You can suggest your own idea and it will automatically be added to the poll.
Whatever option wins the most votes will be used by Citizfaction as well as being integrated into W.E. Speak for the duration of the 2010 campaign.
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Government 2.0 or Open Government in Canada.
The Library of Parliament recently published two excellent reports on the status of open government initiatives in both Canada and the rest of the world.
Government 2.0 and Access to Information: 1. Recent Developments in Proactive Disclosure and Open Data in Canada.
Government 2.0 and Access to Information: 1. Recent Developments in Proactive Disclosure and Open Data in the United States and Other Countries.
From Wikipedia:
Open Government in Canada describes the capacity for the Canadian Government to provide online access to internal data in a standards-compliant Web 2.0 way.
Government 2.0 is a way to engage individuals and businesses in government decisionmaking and services. Integration of tools such as wikis, development of government-specific social networking sites and the use of blogs, RSS feeds and Google Maps are all helping governments provide information to people in a manner that is more immediately useful to the people concerned.[1] There are also aspects of improving Freedom of information in Canada but the main focus of Government 2.0 is citizen engagement.
A number of efforts have been made to expose data gathered by Canadian governments of all levels in ways that make it available for mashups.
Municipalities across Canada are realizing the benefits of releasing public data in machine readable formats. Nanimo, Vancouver, and Toronto are leading the way. The City of Ottawa recently adopted an open data policy combined with a $50,000 dollar app contest to help spur development. Washington DC lead the way in this regard with their 2008 "Apps for Democracy" contest which produced 47 apps in a contest for $50,000 in prize money. These applications returned an estimated value in excess of $2.6 million to the City. Their 2009 contest built on this sucess and the winning entry produced an IPhone and Facebook app. Utilizing the city's 311 API, the Facebook or IPhone apps allows citizens to submit 311 requests through either Facebook or their phone and view a history of all submitted requests.
Windsor has a long way to go if we are to be considered a leader in this initiative and to demonstrate that we really do believe in establishing this area as an innovative technology centre. Currently our City website doesn't even offer RSS feeds for delivery of things like News Updates or Council Agendas. All of our reports, minutes and agendas are documents that have been printed out and then re-scanned back into .pdf format, rendering them into unreadable picture formats instead of easily readable machine format. Interested people, such as myself, are forced to spend time scraping feeds together and finding other work-arounds to obtain data on a regular basis (eg. Current Council Agenda or the Communication Agenda - which is only available from Friday through till Monday).
While a recent announment by the Windsor Police Service to begin mapping data and releasing it represents a small step forward, releasing the raw data set to the public domain could potentially do a lot more. Windsor developers could be creating their own applications and as a result, producing high tech jobs of the sort communities proclaim they wish to persue. While the cost to taxpayers of purchasing this service is only $2400 per year, this is money that it going to an American company and stimulating jobs in their region, not in Windsor.
We need to begin harnessing the talent that is in our area and providing students graduating from St. Clair College and the University of Windsor a reason to stay in Windsor.
Cross posted from The Windsor Shadow
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 Citizfaction's Ideascale site continues to grow, slowly but surely. There are now 15 ideas total. Nine are city wide and 6 are Ward specific. Many of the ideas have been created by Citizfaction to kick-start things, but users are beginning to submit their own ideas.
On the Ward front, we still are looking for issues in Ward 1, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Do you have an idea to improve a local park or create bike lanes in your area? Do you have an alley that needs closing or maybe even cleaned up? We are providing a forum for everyone to advance their ideas and have an open and frank discussion.
As candidates join the race, Citizfaction will be notifying them about the site and encouraging them to participate.
You can join the site using existing Google, Yahoo, Twitter, OpenID, or AOL accounts. If you don't have one of those, creating an account is very simple and quick.
There are now 146 days until the next Municipal Election. Let's use this time to discuss what type of community we would like to have and how we'd like to get there.
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 Politics and Social Media: More Than Just The Message
Milk Coffee Bar
68 University Ave W.
Thursday July 22nd, 2010
7:00 pm
Featuring:
Tom Lucier , Phog Blog/DowntownWO - ENGAGING with Social Media
Adriano Ciotoli , Windsor Eats - INTEGRATING Social Media - Working Smarter Not Harder
Paul Synnott, Citizfaction/Windsor Shadow - EFFECTIVE Strategies for Political Campaigns - What,Where,When, How and Why
The event will feature Live Streaming and Live Blogging for those unable to attend.
Please RSVP to action@citizfaction.ca or register your attendance on Facebook.
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Idea: modeled on the "Burger Poll" of many political races, this will utilize participating locations in all wards in the City.
Participating restaurants/pubs will be given ballots after the nominations close on September 10th. Customers visiting each location and purchasing a meal or beverage as selected by the participating location will be given a ballot. Each ballot will contain an opportunity to vote for one person for Mayor and one person for Councillor in the ward where the participating outlet is located. The bottom portion of the ballot will be a detachable piece that will list the dates and times of the advance polls and election day along with where to get more information on the voting process
Eg. Phog Lounge could have a "Poutine Poll". Anyone purchasing a poutine would be given a ballot. A running tally will be kept and weekly totals posted on Citizfaction on the Mayor's race and each ward.
For some locations the qualifier could be purchasing an appetizer or maybe a local beverage such as Walkerville ale.
Ultimately I'd like to get at least one location in all 10 wards.
If you know of any locations who may be inerested, please forward this blog post to them.
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I just received a call from City Hall to inform me that we have exceeded the 500 signature mark required to certify our petition before City Council. The exact total verified to date is 506 signatures.
Well done and many thanks to all those who have participated in this venture. We have managed to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time.
The petition will now appear on the agenda for the August 10th Council meeting along with Council's reconsideration of the 10 ward option. If you wish to speak as a delegation for either or both items please call Council Services before noon on Friday to register. (519) 255-6432
Once again, many thanks to all for taking an interest in your community. Keep up the calls and emails to Councillors right up until Monday's meeting.
Let's make this happen!
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Last night the City's Consultant presented his revised ten ward option to the public at an open house in the 400 Building. The meeting lasted approximately an hour and a half with Dr. Williams giving a brief presentation and opening the floor to questions.
The best news is that the political will seems to be growing for implementing the ten ward option. Dr. Williams indicated that he would be taking the input he received from the public session and further meetings he had with individual Councillors and preparing a final submission for the next Council meeting on the 10th of August.
The only thing I was sad to hear last night was that he had only had meetings with or received submissions from 5 out of 10 City Councillors. Councillor Hatfield was at the public meeting and Councillor Halberstadt met with Dr. Williams earlier in the afternoon. I'm told that Councillors Jones, Lewenza and Dilkens also met with Dr. Wilkens. I find it puzzling considering one of the objections by some Councillors in the past was that they didn't have enough time for consultation. Monday's questions and debates should be interesting.
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IdeaScale
Submit your ideas for the City or your Ward. Discuss, debate and vote on them.
2010 Municipal Election
until the next Windsor Municipal Election
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