Merry Christmas ......

My Christmas Eve shopping extravaganza is completed. Good time had by all at the mall today. I just realized today that it was the 10th anniversary of my Christmas Eve shopping adventures. How time flies when you're having fun!

Blogging will remain sparse for the next little while. The DraftALeader.com campaign is eating up a lot of time right now and will be picking up steam in the new year. Regular blogging should resume around the end of the first week. I'm heading out on a tour of Ontario during the first and second week of January. While I'm heading down the highway I should have plenty of time to spare for a few blog posts.

A Windsor/Essex bloggers meetup is in the works for the 2nd or 3rd week of January. I'm just trying to nail down a good location with wireless. WE Speak has continued to grow and evolve and I thought now would be a good time for bloggers and readers to have a chance to interact, share tips and ideas and just have a good time. Once I have all the details finalized, I'll post them here and on Facebook.

Merry Christmas to all and a safe and happy holidays for you and your families.

Free Wi-Fi access for Cogeco subscribers

Something I just came across that surprised me. Cogeco has an extensive list of Wi-Fi hotspots in Windsor free to current Cogeco Hi Speed subscribers. I haven't tested any of these out yet.

Windsor	Adult Learning Center	284 Cameron Ave.
Windsor	Beach Grove Golf & Country Club	14134 Riverside Dr. E
Windsor	Big Dick's Tap Eatery	2169 Wyandotte W
Windsor	Bin 151	1515 Ottawa St
Windsor	BMW Dealership	9425 Tecumseh
Windsor	Bridgeview Library	1295 Campbell Ave.
Windsor	Bubi's Awesome Eats	620 University Ave W
Windsor	Burger King	2850 Tecumseh
Windsor	Burger King	570 Goyeau St.
Windsor	Canada South Science City	930 Marion St
Windsor	Coffee House	1473 Ottawa
Windsor	Cogeco Windsor Office	Dougall Ave
Windsor	College Ave. Community Center	3325 College Ave
Windsor	Danny's Coin Laundry	1652 Wyandotte
Windsor	Dieppe Park (West End)	Riverside Dr. W & Caron Ave.
Windsor	Essex Golf & Country Club	7555 Matchette Rd
Windsor	Fountainbleu Public Library	3030 Rivard Ave.
Windsor	Greyhound	44 University Ave. E.
Windsor	Kildare House	1880 Wyandotte St. E.
Windsor	Lakeview Park Marina (Central)	Riverside Dr. E
Windsor	Lakeview Park Marina (West)	9200 Riverside Dr E
Windsor	Lasalle Billeavarga Library	5940 Malden Rd
Windsor	Lilly Kazzilly's Crab Shack	9550 Riverside Dr
Windsor	Maria's Cleaner & Laundromat	3905 Seminole st
Windsor	McDonalds	93 Wyandotte East
Windsor	Mercedes Benz Dealership	9360 Tecumseh
Windsor	Mezzo Ristorante & Lounge	804 Erie St E
Windsor	Nico's Ristorante	851 Erie St. E.
Windsor	Nikola Budimir Library	1310 Grand Marais Rd. W
Windsor	Nissan / Infiniti Dealership	9760 Tecumseh Rd E.
Windsor	Paul Martin Law Library	2475 University Ave. W
Windsor	Peppers Bar & Grill	375 Ouellette Ave
Windsor	Per Bacco Ristorante	1199 Ottawa St
Windsor	Plunkett's	28 Chatham St E
Windsor	Rainbow Laundry	405 Tecumseh Road W
Windsor	Remington Park Library	2710 Lillian Ave.
Windsor	Riverside Arena	6755 Wyandotte
Windsor	Riverside Library	6306 Wyandotte St. E
Windsor	Riverside Marina East	9150 Riverside Dr E
Windsor	Riverside Marina West Area	Riverside Dr. E
Windsor	Roseland Golf & Curling Club	455 Kennedy Dr W
Windsor	Sandwich Public Library	3312 Sandwich St.
Windsor	Saturn / Saab Dealership	10120 Tecumseh Rd
Windsor	Second Cup Coffee	13462 Tecumseh Rd. E
Windsor	Seminole Public Library	4285 Seminole
Windsor	South Walkerville Library	1425 Tecumseh Rd. E
Windsor	Spago Trattoria & Life Style Fitness	13275 Tecumeseh Rd E
Windsor	Spago Trattoria & Pizzeria	614 Erie St E
Windsor	Super Clean Laundry	2675 Lauzon Rd.
Windsor	Swiss Chalet	1690 Huron Church Rd
Windsor	T B Q'S Market Place	1855 Huron Church Rd
Windsor	The Man's Shop	2587 Howard Ave
Windsor	Tim Horton's	650 Guyeau St
Windsor	Tim Horton's	1420 Huron Church Rd
Windsor	Tim Horton's	3300 Huron Church Rd
Windsor	Tim Horton's	1920 Ottawa St
Windsor	Tim Horton's	80 Park st. E
Windsor	Tim Horton's	3901 Sandwich St.
Windsor	Tim Horton's	3998 Walker Rd
Windsor	Volkswagen Dealership	10280 Tecumseh Rd E
Windsor	Volvo Dealership	10648 Tecumseh Rd. E
Windsor	Wendy's	1411 Ouellette
Windsor	Wendy's	7605 Tecumseh Rd.
Windsor	Windsor Public Library	850 Ouellette Ave

Blogging for a good cause

Local tri-athelete and blogger Shelley is looking for some fundraising support for a good cause.

Shelley has been invited to participate in the 2008 Boston Marathon as part of Team Hole in the Wall.

Who knew that this area had such interesting bloggers?

Why you of course!

Please consider pitching in.

AM800 goes blogging

Looks like the hosts (and one producer) at AM800 are dipping their toe into the wide world of blogging.

From the Morning Drive:

Open Mike with Mike Kakuk

At Arm's Length (not really a blog, more of a static page with updates)

From Windsor Now:

Mel Moments

A Canadian Penny for Dan's Thoughts

I've added the feeds for all the blogs to WE Speak and put their banners in the rotation.

Ontario Municipal CAO's Benchmarking Initiative

The Ontario Municipal CAO's Benchmarking Initiative Report for 2006 was released on the 4th of December. A timely release for this report as Windsor continues it's budget deliberations. Lot's to digest in this report.

Through OMBI and other initiatives, our municipalities provide comparable data to allow municipalities to make informed decisions on service quality, quantity and cost. This is known as “benchmarking” and enables our service teams to collaborate and share information on various ways of conducting municipal services, making the best use of valuable resources and producing the best possible outcomes. We have focused on services that municipalities have in common, while recognizing the unique characteristics related to each community’s socio-demographics, geographic location, population density, size and other influencing factors. The benefits of these comparisons are to provide enhanced information for decision making, identification of innovative ideas for service improvement and ultimately better service to our citizens.

The report benchmarks 16 different areas of Municipal government. For today I'm going to focus on just the Library portion, as that is certainly front and centre in Windsor's budget discussions right now.

Edit: Sudbury and Peel are two out of the fifteen municipalities who have posted this on their Municipal websites and issued Press Releases related to the report.

Related Article:

Library Workers face deep cuts
"Every year they seem to come back and say, 'You have to cut more out of the budget, but you can't cut services,'" Fish said. "It's unrealistic to keep coming back to tell the library to get its act together, when we're already one of the most efficient libraries in the province."

(click on individual pictures for full size graphic)

4.1 - How many hours are all library branches open? - Windsor is at the Provincial median for 2006

4.2. - How many holding do libraries have? - Windsor is slightly below the Provincial median for holdings per capita

4.3 - How many times is each item borrowed from library (turnover)? - Windsor is well below the Provincial median for this category.

4.4 - How many times were libraries used? - Windsor is again well below the median in this category.

4.5 - How much does it cost for each library use? - Windsor is second in the Province in this category.

My read on these benchmarks has Windsor providing the same hours and holdings as most of the Province but with a lower turnover and usage rate, delivered at a higher cost. If someone else can provide a different interpretation, I'm open to it.

What this tells me is that Councillor Brister is right. Savings can be had in our Library system without closing branches. Some reductions in hours may help in bringing our costs in line. Although I don't have the data to back it up, I suspect much of Windsor's current woes are related to the opening of the Fontain Bleu branch.

How ironic

John Tory's in town this morning.

Apparently he's meeting with Mayor Francis from 9 to 11 am with a media availability at 11.

So what's it going to be for the local media - softball or hardball?

He spent all day yesterday ducking the media in Toronto, sending Interim Leader Bob Runciman in his stead. John's spent a couple of years studiously avoiding Windsor other than to take potshots at the Casino expansion.

Turn on a little heat and suddenly it's morning coffee time with the Mayor. In spite of the recent weather, Queen's Park is a little hot for Tory these days. I guess Windsor is about as far south as you can go to escape the Provincial media without leaving the Province. Will it work?

A piece of art?

I never was much of an art critic, but regardless, I think I'm going to print, frame and hang this one.

Open Debate

Despite the unacceptable defeat of Dilkens' motion, though, it was refreshing to see council actually hold a spirited debate in public, and comforting to see councillors speaking their minds, voting their conscience and calling for increased openness and accountability.

Debate, dissent and the clashing of divergent opinions are essential to the functioning of any robust democracy. It's nice to see they've finally arrived in Windsor.

So much to say...

so little time to say it in. I'd love to sit down and compose a few good posts, but unfortunately, I'm currently occupied with a project that's taking up a great deal of my time. Back to normal after Christmas hopefully.

A few brief comments:

Hat's off to Drew Dilkens, Alan Halberstadt, Bill Marra and Percy Hatfield. I can't say I'm surprised at the result, but the first steps are being taken. Well done.

Jason Moore's commentary? Well, it certainly filled up my email box and spiked the visit stats on my blog. What does it say when the opinion of the News Director of the only all news station in town is that everyone should just strap on a W and cheer?

I guess my only response at this point is, I thought that's what his station was already doing.

Windsor's well known for producing softball champions, most people just don't realize that many of them have nothing to do with baseball. More on this later.