I just received the following email from City Hall:
The 9th annual Capital New Year in the Park will take place on Wednesday, December 31 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. at Victoria Park. This has become an annual traditional event that gives residents the chance to come out and meet neighbors, friends and family and to wish them all the best for 2009. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and ends at 7:30 p.m. with the annual Prayer for Peace taking place at 7:00 p.m. and then the official countdown. There will be hot apple cider, pop, hot dogs, cake, music and horse and wagon rides throughout the park.
This is a great family event and a nice alternative to traditional late night New Year’s parties.
See you at the City of Charlottetown Levée on New Year’s Day (10:30-noon).
Our monthly public meetings of Council are streamed live over the internet and archived for later viewing. This is, in theory, an excellent way to review a meeting when I need to recall the details of a particular discussion that took place because the video is often posted long before written transcripts are available.
In practice, the videos are almost useless. Every time I’ve tried to view one the video and sound are so garbled and constantly re-buffering I just give up. The technology is ancient in technology years. With all the video sharing services available these days there must be a better way to stream, record and archive these meetings. If there are any internet video connoisseurs out there that can recommend a better, simpler, cheaper solution I’d love to hear from you.
Here’s something to help you ponder this problem.
Today the Mayor announced changes to the Standing Committees at City Hall. I am no longer the Chair of the Human Resources & Pension Committee, but will instead spend the second half of my term serving as Chair of the Police & Bylaw Enforcement Committee.
My time on the HR Committee has been very interesting and rewarding, and I have been happy to maintain the confidential nature of much the committee’s business. Chairing the Police Committee will be a much more public challenge. I can expect a regular barrage of difficult questions from my fellow councillors at Council meetings, as well as demands to meet ever increasing expectations from the public.
The Charlottetown Police Services are currently under a full independent review. The review is being conducted by an incredibly impressive duo “from away” with deep experience in policing, police auditing, and organizational change management. I look forward to receiving their report and implementing its recommendations with Chief Smith and Deputy Chief Collins.
I am also pleased that I will continue to work with the City’s Director of HR, Andrew Thompson, who is also the Director responsible for Police Services. Andrew is a real professional and a helluva nice guy. He has shepherded me through my first two years of committee work and I am very happy that we will continue to work together.
Police, eh? Who’d a thunk it? I’ve got some learnin’ to do in the New Year.
I’ve just recently discovered that the City purchased — at least a year ago — a dozen GPS units and a license to Grey Island Systems’ InterFleet application for the purpose of tracking the City’s snow plow fleet. Public Works staff have been tinkering with the system but it has not been fully deployed. The intention is to eventually have a public-facing map on the City’s website that shows the location of all the plows in real-time.
Staff have access to a wider array of functionality such as vehicle history that would theoretically allow staff to respond when told, “Your plow knocked off my car’s side-view mirror last night on Ambrose Street”, by saying “Actually, there were no snow plows on Ambrose Street last night”, which may or may not be the basis for another complaint. I haven’t actually seen the product in action yet, and by all accounts this project has fallen off the radar somewhat, so I plan to stick my geeky nose into this business and find out what exactly we’ve purchased and how (or if) it can be put to good use.
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