Looks like Ward 2 Candidate Dan Petoran has finally given up on putting up a website.
The "Coming Soon" page has been removed and surfing to danpetoran.com now produces a simple default page.
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!
Welcome to all the new readers from the Star's Scene section.
A while ago I posted a link to Eddie Francis "Real" plan from the 2003 election. I've received several emails that sometimes the link is not working. I've posted a copy of the plan. For those that are interested, you can use it to compare notes with Eddie's self published "Report Card" .
(WindsorCityBlog has posted their own "Report Card" for the Mayor)
From challenger David Wonham, now that we're in the final "10 days to two weeks that count", we should be expecting a large "splurge". Not sure what an election splurge is, but I look forward to learning.
From a content perspective neither Eddie Francis or David Wonham is doing much online. The latest content for Wonham is a blog post from the 20th of October.
I guess you could consider Eddie's site fresher - the site didn't actually go live until the 26th of October. The latest dated content on the site remains a piece on the News page from the 17th of October. I had a sense of deja vu when viewing it - reminded me of this page.
Both Francis and Wonham have very little on their respective sites in the way of platform, plans, vision or promises. For Windsor's sake, hopefully this will change in the next two weeks.
The Windsor Star's Tom Lucier saved me a lot of typing. His article today helped highlight what I was referring to yesterday.
Today's campaign question is not whether a candidate should have one or not, but why would you not? Putting up an "internet postcard" for a website doesn't quite cut it either.Candidates should go online
Tom Lucier, Special to The Windsor Star
Published: Monday, October 30, 2006"I spend a majority of my early day on the Internet. ... Well, it is the information superhighway," said musician and voter Nate Gelinas, 22. "I just don't think they're after the attention of young people."
Those words should cause night terrors for candidates who aren't addressing the young voter online. "It's not just young people. Everybody has the Internet," said Mark Lapointe, 26. "The ones who have a website, they have a plan. Who wants a leader who doesn't have vision?"
The following is the list of candidates for Mayor and Council for which I have not been able to find a website. If you know of a site for any of these candidates, please email me the address at bluebloggingsoapbox@gmail.com .
Mayor - Mohamad-Ali Beydoun
Ward 1 - Mohammad Qayyum Khan
Ward 1 - Tom Lynd
Ward 2 - Gail Growe - update - website found
Ward 2 - Tom Livingston
Ward 2 - Dan Petoran (* "Coming Soon" doesn't count)
Ward 2 - Chris Richie
Ward 3 - Fulvio Valentinis
Ward 4 - Dave Cassivi
Ward 4 - John Middleton
Ward 5 - Frank Batal
Ward 5 - Steve Farrell
Ward 5 - Percy Hatfield
Ward 5 - Bill Kachmaryk
Ward 5 - William (BJ) Taylor
I guess the next question for these candidates, if they do not plan on having a website, is WHY NOT?
More on that question later.
I finally saw a Mohamed Chams sign today for Mayor. Thankfully his sign has the website on it - MChamsforMayor.com
Sidebar links updated as well.
From the Roseann Danese's Windsor Star Blog - Election Notebook:
After announcing his intention to run for mayor, Dr. Dave Wonham has pretty much been a no-show during this election campaign.According to several different sources, phone calls were still being made as late as last week by Wonham's campaign to numerous people in local Liberal and Conservative circles, seeking a campaign manager. The failure to find a local campaign manager would seem to explain the delay in hiring Mykytyshyn and his late entry into the race.
Except for a brief appearance as a delegate when city council approved the east-end arena, Wonham has remained invisible. There are no signs. No billboards. No press releases. Just a webpage that Wonham claims gets 1,000 hits a day.
“I haven’t been hiding,” he said. “We decided we’re going to do a two-week splurge.”
Wonham hired a professional campaign manager from the Toronto area. His name is John Mykytyshyn and he says he has more than 25 years of political consulting experience.
“I’m told it’s the last 10 days to two weeks that count,” Wonham said.
Mykytyshyn promises a spirited challenge to incumbent Mayor Eddie Francis. “Part of what we have to do is give people a choice.”
New website found for Ward 1 - Henry Lau. Sidebar links have been updated.
(H/T to David Wonham's blog for the link.)
From an article in the Windsor Star comes news of an event almost as rare as a sighting of the Dodo bird - an open Council Candidates night for Ward 5 voters.Meet candidates night slated for east side
Voters in the east end will have the opportunity to meet and greet all city council candidates running in Ward 5 tonight at the Forest Glade Community Centre.
The candidates will each give a brief speech and audience members will be invited to participate in a question and answer session. The meeting, which runs from 7 to 9 p.m. will wrap up with an informal gathering, allowing voters to mingle with the hopefuls.
I received this email yesterday, but forgot to post it.
Ward 5 Candidate Stephane Beaudin has launched his website and is using a unique free platform, at least as far as this campaign is concerned.
Campaign Beaudin is hosted on a MySpace website - the social networking site of choice for many 30 and unders. (Stephane is 31, but we'll cut him some slack for this one).
It's cost-effective (free) and easy to setup. The important thing is that Stephane has made the effort to reach out to the voters of Ward 5.
(maybe we can encourage Stephane to send an email to another Windsor campaign and let them know how it's done - only 17 days of campaigning left).
The following survey was sent to all candidates by the Citizens Environment Alliance, with a request that it be returned by the 20th of October.
This municipal election, more than any other in recent memory, will define ourI have included a list of all candidates below, detailing who did not respond.
community in numerous ways. Economics and financial prudence will, as
usual, be high on the list of qualities desirable in our candidates for council.
However, the lack of weight put on quality-of-life issues over the past few
decades has brought Windsor to the state of crisis it currently finds itself
embattled in. We find many issues rising to the top of residents lists that
have gone unaddressed in the past and built up to the point of concern they
now occupy. This questionnaire seeks to understand your stance on many of
these issues and how you would address them in council chambers if you
were to become a member of the next City Council.
Please answer the following eight questions honestly and in depth. Your
answers will be posted on the internet and published in local publications to
help provide Windsor residents the oppourtunity to educate themselves in
time for the November 13th election. Please send your responses by Friday,
October 20th
WEB responses.pdf (354.71 KB)Globe and Mail Campaign Bubble blogger, Marc Weisblott is looking for Municipal Campaign posts for inclusion in his next blog post.
More! More! More! stuff from around the province in the next post. Send your links and love here.Poor guy's getting paid to blog - help him out. A couple hundred emails from around the province should do!
This doesn't directly qualify as election material, but it certainly makes for good comedy script. I'm sure the responses from incumbents involved in this selection process would interest many a voter.
Best laugh I've had in weeks comes from a Windsor Star business article written by Chris Vander Doelen:
Mancini to chair economic authorityThe executive of the new commission -
" The new commission has a new balance of representation which injects more county money into the funding formula, more county representation, more business representation, and not one politician. "
Signs of life from the Petoran campaign. The underpaid and overworked research staff at Windsor Municipal Campaign (me) discovered a 2nd Petoran website address - DanPetoran.ca . Personally, I like the DanPetoran.com site better.
Would the real Eddie Francis please stand up - Eddie Francis Eddie Francis
Edit: Eddie For Mayor Now LIVE! - check out this post.
As for the graffiti "artists", this is a passing era of immaturity, and will cease if we do not get too excited about it : if there is no challenge, they will not bother to fork out the money to pay for the spray cans : these people are just children. David.( Dr.Dave)
Editor's Note: the person responsible for repeatedly tagging my former business location and countless others in the University/Wyandotte areas, was 23 years old. He had a photo album detailing all his "art work".
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but then so too are your tax dollars - Art Matters.
What do you do when you're trying to attract attention as a candidate? - Throw a stick of dynamite and hope it goes off!
What does it take to get answers from city administration? Certainly more than one councillor demanding the answers.
To tell or not to tell - the taxpayers that is!
Ward 5 Candidate - seeking voters with questions.
Ward 3 Public School Trustee candidate - comments and questions welcome - no charge!
Yesterday's " Coming Soon " Poll Results - Eddie Francis in a landslide!
Only 18 more campaign days left.
Two races were acclaimed in the race for Catholic Trustee positions.
Ward 1 - John Macri - acclaimed
Ward 5 - Barbara Holland - acclaimed
I received a link the other day for Ward 5 candidate Daniel Roncone's website. The sidebar has been updated as well.
As the popular saying goes, size doesn't count in this contest.
Vote soon - only 19 days left in the campaign!
or
I think I might be able to get a pretty good pool going on who the first will be to take down their Closed for the Season Coming Soon! page on their websites. This might be the most exciting race of this election:
Eddie Francis
Dan Petoran
(campaign staff for the above mentioned campaigns are not eligible for the pool - they may be able to influence the outcome of the pool by actually rushing to post some information)
Only 20 days left to book your square.
Regular reader Suzanne sent me the link to Jo-Anne Gignac's site.
I just noticed today that the Windsor Star has created a Municipal Election page. It's pretty much just content that has already been published in the Star.
It never ceases to amaze me what people are willing to do anonymously on the internet.
The funniest thing is, most people don't realize just how un-anonymous the internet really is if someone so desires.
Anonymous arrived at this little blog from 64.228.201.xxx, stayed on the blog for 3 minutes and 1 second, viewed 4 pages, posted one comment (with a nice unique signature on a secure server) and then departed.
If I decided to file an abuse complaint, it shouldn't take Bell and Google very long to match up the records.
Have a nice day!
In the Battle of Bike Lanes, Riverside Drive residents have started Save Our Drive.
Cycling supporters have Cycle Windsor and an upcoming event in support of cycling - Riverside Drive for All.
Frank Butler, Windsor Essex County Environmental Committee Chair - Transportation sub-committee, issued a Press Release on Friday regarding a possible conflict of interest for Ward 4 Councillor David Cassivi.
Frank Butler Press Release
October 24th brings all sides together at a Riverside Drive Vista Project Public Information Meeting - Riverside Arena Update: Riverside Baseball Clubhouse, 6865 Ontario St, 7:00 pm.
I will be unable to attend this meeting, but if anyone does attend and would like to send a report, drop me a line at bluebloggingsoapbox@gmail.com
H/T Voice of Windsor
Councillor Ken Lewenza Junior and Candidate Bill Marra certainly seem to be doing their best to inject some spice into what has been a pretty boring campaign so far.
First up we have allegations of intimidation and threats by Lewenza Jr against Marra supporters and then we have another story about Councillor Lewenza questioning CUPE's endorsement of Marra.
Someone is certainly sounding desperate. Who that is depends on where your sympathies lie.
While we wait for the Mayor's 2006 website, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a peek at the 2003 version.
Thanks to the services of the Wayback Machine I've been able to find a copy of the infamous plan we've often heard about.
EddieforMayor.com 2003 - "Eddie Francis for Mayor - A Real Plan "
Althought I don't think Mayor Francis has anything to worry about in this campaign, it never hurts to have a better informed voter and allow people to have all the information available to ask the right questions.
When I initially started this blog I envisioned it being an information source for voters in the City of Windsor. To that end, I have searched for websites, blogs, forums and any other information on various candidates and races and provided links wherever possible. I had also hoped to attend various all-candidate events to report on them as well as soliciting support from other members of the public to report on meetings I could not attend. So far I have managed to attend the two DWBIA candidate nights for Wards 2 and 3. (I'll be posting a brief synopsis of these two events later this evening.)
Two things that have surprised me are the lack of events either city-wide or in each individual ward and the relatively weak internet presence of most campaigns. I realize that campaigns are costly and candidates operate on shoe-string budgets, but there are no lack of free or low-cost resources available today. (Blogger and Google Page Creator are two good examples).
I've decided to shift the focus of this blog somewhat. I will still be providing as much information as possible about events and candidates but the main focus will become somewhat more proactive if not opinionated in some respects. In the spirit of full disclosure I designed and administer three candidates websites in this campaign - votealan2006.com, alteshuba.com and votegretzky.com . I've never hidden my identity online or tried to hide my involvement in various campaigns. I publish this disclosure simply to make it clear.
Here's a press release from last nights DWBIA event at the Room. I'll post my own thoughts on the night later on.
Media Release
For immediate Release - October 18, 2006
City Council Candidates for Ward 3 met with dozens of downtown residents and business owners at The Room last night for a lively session of questions and answers. Moderator John Fairely posed some challenging and informative questions about the many issues facing Downtown
Windsor, and the debate was open and engaged.
Moderator John Fairely of Cogeco TV's Face to Face.
Now Meet Ward 2 Candidates!
Where
Upstairs at Patrick O. Ryan's
25 Pitt Street E.
When
Wednesday, October 18, 7:00 p.m.
Who
Councillor Ron Jones
Councillor Caroline Postma
Gail Growe
Tom Livingston
Dan Petoran
Chris Richie
Chris Schnurr
Moderator John Fairley
Members of the downtown business and residential communities and the DWBIA
What
Retail and Residential Components
Property Taxes
Noise Issues
Downtown Farmers' Market
Traffic Concerns
Casino Relations
Tourism
Panhandling
Massage parlours
and more...
The DWBIA exists to serve the business community of the Downtown Windsor area through its leadership in advocacy, infrastructure, development and promotion. Its vision is to gain recognition for Downtown Windsor as the model downtown of modern North American cities. Its mission is to develop and market Downtown Windsor with other stakeholders as the place people want to BE and businesses want to INVEST.
- 30 -
For further information, contact
Barbara Peirce
Communications & Marketing Manager
Downtown
519.252.5723 ext. 26
Fax 519-252-6817
barbara@downtownwindsor.ca
Incumbent Mayor Eddie Francis has joined the internet portion of the race - sort of. EddieforMayor.com is live, although all you will find so far is a holding page.
A local company - Crowbar Media is doing the website. From looking at their site, they're up to speed on RSS and blogging, so we can only hope that the Mayor's site will include both.
The Globe and Mail has started a new blog - The Campaign Bubble - to focus on municipal elections both in the GTA area and across the rest of the province.
I managed to score a blogging trifecta yesterday with links to my personal blog, Blue Blogging Soapbox, my Windsor blog aggregator project, WE Speak and this blog.
Keep your eye on the Bubble for more information on Windsor and other municipalities across the province.
One of the goals I hoped to achieve with this blog was to increase the interaction of Windsor voters with their candidates and eventually with their elected representatives. Email, blogs, forums, and online surveys are just some of the methods available today.
In line with that goal, I would encourage all candidates to visit Autoworker.net - A Canadian Autoworkers Forum Dedicated to the discussion of issues affecting autoworkers and their families. You need to register in order to post on the site, but it is quite easy and straightforward to do. With almost 1200 members and 58,000 posts - can you afford to ignore the opportunity to speak to a large group of potential voters - for FREE?
Irene Taylor has her website up and running in the race for Ward 5 Councillor.
Irene also has a forum setup for announcements/questions/answers etc.
Thought I would repost this one as the event is coming up next week:
The Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association is hosting several Town Hall style question and answer sessions for candidates running for City Council.
Ward 3, Oct. 17 at The Room, 255 Ouellette Ave. - 7 p.m.
Ward 2, Oct. 18, Patrick O. Ryan’s (upstairs), 25 Pitt St. E.- 7 p.m.
All Candidates Meeting For School Board Trustee of the Greater Essex County District School Board
Wards 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
October 23, 2006
7 - 9 p.m.
Kennedy Secondary School Cafeteria
245 Tecumseh Road East at McDougall
Hosted by Kennedy Secondary School Home & School Association with all members of the Windsor Council of Home & School Association
(H/T Lisa Gretzky)
Sponsored by the Centres for Seniors Windsor
Tuesday, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Edward Street Community Centre, 1150 Edward St.
Open to the public
As election day draws closer, more websites are starting to appear for candidates. Below are the most recent that I've been able to find:
Tony Blak - Ward 3
Ed Kobrosly - Ward 1
Caroline Postma - Ward 2
Dan Petoran - Ward 2
Ken Lewenza - Ward 4
Bill Marra - Ward 4
Daniel Roncone - WECDSB Ward 4
One more blogger has been added to the list:
Lisa Gretzky - Ward 1,2,3 Public School Trustee
Edit: if you know of any other Candidates' websites or notice them printed on lawnsigns, drop me a line at bluebloggingsoapbox@gmail.com I've tried searching under various combinations for each candidate in order to find as many sites as possible.
Free Offer: I can send an invite for a Gmail account to anyone on Ken Lewenza's campaign team who wishes it. That way they can set up a Gmail account for campaign use instead of Ken's City of Windsor email address.
Edit 2: looks like Ken has his full website up now, complete with a non-City email address.
The Windsor Star has started an Election Blog - Election Notebook. "Roseann Danese follows this year's municipal election, and posts all the behind-the-scenes news and notes."
Unfortunately, CanWest seems to be the only paper left in Canada that hasn't clued into RSS feeds as yet, so there is no way at present to add the blog to the WE Speak page or in any other way syndicate the content. (Actually there are ways to scrape the content and syndicate it, but the time and effort involved for me just isn't worth it). I've added a link to the blog in the sidebar.
Hint for CanWest - if you want to drive more traffic to your website and therefore increase exposure and clicks for your advertisers - syndicate.
If you're a Windsor Star advertiser, you should encourage them to syndicate at least their blog content.
To further highlight Blogging Candidates, I have added a sidebar link list.
These candidates all have active blogs that are open to comment. You can visit and post comments or questions for all to see. These candidates have demonstrated a committment to open communication through their use of a new medium like blogs.
In times like this, when many people are cynical about politicians and the political process, they deserve some recognition and support for their efforts, regardless of the end results on election day.
Following the lead of Alan Halberstadt, it looks like other candidates are beginning to recognize the value of blogs as a communication tool.
Here are the blogs that I've been able to find so far:
Mayor
David Wonham
Ward 1
Greg Baggio
Al Teshuba
Ward 2
Chris Schnurr
Ward 3
Alan Halberstadt
Ward 4
none
Ward 5
none
All of the blogs listed have valid RSS feeds and have been added to the aggregator at WE Speak. If you click on the " Election " tab on the front page, you will get a summary of all the election related blogs.
If you don't see your favourite candidate listed, contact them and encourage them to blog.
I missed these additions on Friday:
Ward 1,2,3
David Ferguson
704 Gladstone Avenue
N9A 2R2
(519) 254-0730
Ward 4,5
Cheryl Lovell
3085 Wildwood Drive
N8R 1S7
(519) 735-4101
Email: cherlove@cogeco.ca
Steve Micallef
1703 Ford Blvd.
N8T 2C9
(519) 944-2668
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