Yule Heibel's Post Studio © 2003-2010

DV2020 nails candidate questions

In my October 25 post, What’s wrong with Victoria’s business community?, I blew up at the business community here, particularly the Chamber, for charging terribly high admission prices to the mayoral candidates meetings they’re sponsoring, and for not doing enough to use their networks, their ecosystems, to engage the community at large in a dialogue on Victoria’s economy.

(And I blew up at the Chamber in particular for being locked down by Microsoft: you can’t register for their events online if you use either Firefox or a Mac — that’s just retarded, as far as I can tell.)

I also castigated additional groups that I usually strongly support, Downtown Victoria 2020 (DV2020) and UDI Victoria, because their upcoming event (11/3) has a $30 price tag, too.  It’s another loss of the Commons, as far as I can tell, when you have to shell out that kind of money to listen to your city’s mayoral candidates explain what they would do to govern the city.

However, to DV2020‘s huge credit, they’ve come up with the most complex and challenging set of questions to candidates.  The set is called 2008 Election Questions for a Better Downtown Victoria, and if DV2020 posts the answers that candidates submit, we’ll be better able to make informed voting decisions.

The questions are organized as statements-cum-questions under four headings:

• Working with the Province
• The Social Health of Downtown
• Making Plans into Realities
• Stewardship of Downtown

These are super-smart, intelligent categories fleshed out by appropriate and probing questions.  There’s not a hint of bullshit about them: straight, clear, urgent, and necessary.  No matter if you’re a candidate or a voter, take a look at DV2020′s 2008 Election Questions for a Better Downtown Victoria and inform yourself.

And next time you’re at a free all-candidates meeting, go up to the mic and ask these questions.

The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

• British Architect Norman Foster to Design Public Library’s Renovation – NYTimes.com

  I don’t know enough about the affordances and constraints of the New York Public Library building on 5th Ave to be able to have an informed opinion as to the necessity of this proposed renovation, but I’m tempted to file it under the “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” category.

  The proposal sounds a bit scary, like a proposal to press a starchitect’s ego on what is a beloved icon. In particular, the quote by one board member (end of article) suggests a determination to proceed even if warning flags go up. Yes, libraries are very important, but they don’t necessarily need *spectacular* intervention proposed.

  Too bad the article doesn’t link to images of the proposal.

  On some levels the intervention sounds innocuous enough, as it won’t visible from the outside and will affect only the interior. It could be as restorative as a heart transplant for someone who’s terminally ill with heart disease. On the other hand, it could be as dangerous as a heart transplant…

  tags: nyt, libraries, norman_foster, starchitecture, new_york_public_library

• Keynote: Stewart Butterfield – X|Media|Lab – Tech – adikted.tv (beta)

  Stewart Butterfield’s keynote address in Australia (from a couple of months ago), ~16min. well worth watching.

  tags: keynote, stewart_butterfield, xmedialab

• Sun + Water = Fuel (MIT Technology Review)

  Fascinating article about Daniel Nocera’s work on biomimical process similar to photosynthesis, except in this case it’s sunlight turning water into hydrogen. If the process can scale, it has revolutionary implications for energy supplies.

  tags: biomimicry, daniel_nocera, photosynthesis, energy, hydrogen, fuel

• “Canada needs to focus its gaze on urban reality,” by Christopher Hume

  Excellent article by Christopher Hume, commenting on the post-Federal election blues reality in Canada. Key quote: “In an age when an ‘economic tsunami’ can sweep across the planet in days and hours, however, only the quick survive. But nimble we’re not.” Canadian cities are hobbled by the British North America Act and the subsequent cast of the Canadian Constitution (difficult to fathom how it could be written in the later 20th century), and instead of nimble, they’re paralyzed.

  tags: christopher_hume, thestar, canada, cities, politics

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.