“The problem is TransFair can’t limit the usage of ‘Fairly Traded.’ They can & rightfully do frown upon...” 
“Just for your information “Fairly Traded” and “Fairly Traded Certified” are two different things....” 
“Bevans, I think you need this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/pl ugins/time-machine/ It lets you do hourly.” “First off, I love you and your plugin, it’s been a huge time saver. I’m using it on 5 blogs now! 
I have two...” 
“you don’t have a clue unless you’ve went through it or know some one who has.My daughter was 7 of age when she...” Posts about my adopted town.
The VrtuCar reservation page sort of sucks. It works, but it’s ugly:
It’s also hard to use, as it:
My greasmonkey script makes the site look a little better:
If you’d like to improve the look of your VrtuCar reservation page, grab the script from the GitHub repo.
((blogawa++)++)++ 
A post on Transit Ottawa reminded me of a recent poll on CFRA.
89.6% of respondents believed that Clive Doucet and Alex Cullen wanted to cancel road projects because “[they] aren’t interested in keeping taxes down; this is just a thinly veiled attack on car owners by a couple of public transit lovers.”
That’s the first time I’ve heard “transit lover” used as an epithet. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
David Chernushenko was elected as Councillor for my ward last night. Not only did he win, he rocked the ballot box with 41% of the vote.
My voting career has spanned almost two decades now. I think this vote was the first winning vote I’ve ever cast.1 It’s good to know that I’m in the majority largest single voting block for once.
I was only at the victory party briefly, but there seemed to be a degree of shell shock. Lots of the folks in the room had supported David’s previous campaigns, and we didn’t quite know what to do when our candidate actually won. I’m glad that we got to see it.
Congratulations to David, his campaign team, and his volunteers. You all did a great job.
I’d like to welcome a bunch of new bloggers to Blogawa! In chronological order:
First among equals is GJ Hagenaars‘ now ex-campaign blog. He’s no longer in the Bay Ward municipal race for all the right reasons. It sounds like he intends to keep his blog updated with his thoughts on the future of our city.
Keeping in the electoral vein is Municipalities Out Of Control – sort of a Girls Gone Wild for city politics, but with finances instead of sex and city councillors instead of drunk/stoned/payed teenagers. (Mr. O’Malley, I apologize if you don’t like the simile, but the name of the blog was too good to pass up)1
Blogawa also welcomes its first online magazine, in the form of UnFolding. The whole thing looks pretty snazzy, particularly the previews section.
iKEN is an excellent photoblog by a Korean exchange student visiting Ottawa. The photos of Korea are particularly cool.
We also get to welcome ThumbShift a cycling blog. Fellow cyclists are always welcome, especially those who post pictures of street art.
So far, I’ve gotten two comments saying that I’ve missed the point of GJ Hagenaars library policy. On the off chance there are other readers who feel that I’ve missed the boat, here’s my response:
Mr. Hagenaars made an unexpected proposal for the city’s libraries. He proposed replacing the existing OPL staff with 33 librarians (one at each branch) and a staff of volunteers:
In my opinion, what we truly need are small, local libraries, with one librarian [...] and volunteer staff from the community to keep them going. Let people vote with their feet if they want library services. If there are no volunteers [...], one full-time librarian is already too much.
His proposal didn’t explain who would maintain the OPL’s physical assets (lending materials, buildings, computer networks, website, bookmobile, and archives), nor did it explain the effect of cutting over 8,000 classes that have an annual enrollment of roughly 190,000. Perhaps worst of all, he proposes cuts without an indication of the savings they would provide.
This suggests that Mr. Hagenaars either:
My concern is that Mr. Hagenaars didn’t know what he was suggesting. My fear is supported by a question in his original letter “Where are the volunteers at the libraries, if people think they are that important?” Obvious answers aside: Ottawa has 555 library volunteers. It’s worrisome when a blogger with a couple of hours on his hands digs up more information about an election issue than a candidate.
Proposing a solution is easy. Proposing a useful solution is much harder.
In his response to my original post, Mr. Hagenaars seems more focused on the proposal for a new Main Branch rather than laying off 419.46 employees1. This is good – Mr. Hagenaars doesn’t reiterate his call for a dismantling of the existing OPL and its programs.2
I hope that his original suggestion was nothing more than an overzealous cost-cutting proposal. If that’s the case, I would much rather that he said that, rather than continuing to avoid its mention.
Update: Cleaned up wording.
PiePalace reader Gawp offered a fantastic comment on my post about GJ Hagenaars‘ assertion that the city should have exactly one staffer in every library branch. He starts out: “I know, lets use Mr. Hagenaars’ argument for other city services. They make just as much sense!”
what we truly need are small, local SNOW REMOVAL, with one SNOW REMOVAL PERSON (making less than six figures) and volunteer staff from the community to keep SNOW REMOVAL going. Let people vote with their SHOVELS if they want SNOW REMOVAL. If there are no volunteers (i.e. not enough interest), one SNOW REMOVAL PERSON is already too much.
Not to keep harping on Mr. Hagenaars, but I thought that was funny.
