Calgarians fill all the needed backpacks!

As stated in my last blog post on the Staples for Education program, the need for donated backpacks filled with school supplies was almost 2,100 - nearly double from the 1,100 that were filled last year.

Thanks to the generosity of Calgarians, the need is met!

Today in a northeast Calgary warehouse, 60 volunteers from The City and partnering community agencies stuffed all 2,100 needed backpacks. To make this happen, Calgarians donated $62,500 (according to today's numbers).

"I'm ecstatic that Calgarians came through with donations and things ran so smoothly today," said Lindsay Miller, social worker for The City's Community & Neighbourhood Services group.

These backpacks will be delivered between August 28 and 31, either directly to their homes or to the agency that accepted their referral.

Donations are still being accepted until September 6 at any of 10 Calgary Staples stores and will be used to support next year's need.

New spay and neuter clinic opens

This morning marked the beginning of a new phase of pet life in Calgary as the new Animal Services Centre Clinic, also known as the spay and neuter clinic, officially opened. Its goal is to reduce the number of stray and unwanted cats and dogs in Calgary.

The first patients to benefit from the clinic will be the cats and dogs now up for adoption at The City's shelter to help make them more adoptable, and then in early 2010, the clinic will also offer no-cost spay and neuter surgeries for the cats and dogs of low income Calgarians.

The clinic will also benefit other pet owners and non pet owners - spaying and neutering cats and dogs cuts down on roaming behaviour and nuisance animals in the community.

"Our goals are to decrease the length of time cats and dogs sit in our shelter waiting for new owners and to reduce the total number of pets that come in to Animal Services," said Bill Bruce, director of Animal & Bylaw Services, in a press release.

"We want to have a city of best animal practices where all pets are wanted and humanely treated. Making spay and neuter surgeries affordable and accessible to all Calgarians is an important step towards that vision becoming a reality."

And the costs? All of the funds needed to operate the clinic will come from cat licensing revenue.

Help kids get the school supplies they need

It’s the fourth year The City’s been partnering with Staples in the Staples for Education program and this year marks the first that they’re struggling to fill the need. Last year they filled approximately 1,100 backpacks with school supplies; the need is now for almost 2,100 but current donations will only fill about 1,500.

How much does it cost to fill a backpack? That depends on the grade:

• Kindergarten to grade 6: $40
• Grades 7 – 9: $50
• Grades 10 – 12: $60-70

While most of the needed supplies are pretty typical, like pencils, pens, paper and glue, approximately 800 high school students need graphing calculators, which cost about $120 each.

Your donation is needed, and it’s easy. Drop off supplies at any Calgary Staples store – there’ll be a box set out next to the entrance – or simply add a cash value when you’re paying at the counter – cash, debit and credit are all accepted. Donations of $200 or more can get a tax receipt through The City.

Check the drop-off locations for a Staples near you.

I went shopping with Lindsay Miller, social worker for The City’s Community & Neighbourhood Services group, to learn more about the program. Check out the video below:

The WorldSkills Cultural Celebration

Most Calgarians know that WorldSkills is coming to Calgary from September 1 - 7. WorldSkills will bring more than 900 competitors to Calgary to compete in 45 different skill categories during the 4 days of competition.

The City of Calgary is a proud host city of WorldSkills and The City will be presenting a WorldSkills Cultural Celebration which will run in conjunction with the WorldSkills competition. The City's WorldSkills Cultural Celebration runs from August 29 to September 5 in the downtown core and on the Coca Cola Stage at Stampede Park. The weeklong Cultural Celebration will feature music, dance, visual arts and unique WorldSkills-inspired performance pieces.

Starting off the Cultural Celebration will be the kick off concert in Olympic Plaza on Saturday, August 29 from 3 - 9 p.m. The event will feature a wide variety of music - everything from southern rockabilly to blues, jazz and country. The kick off will also feature buskers, roving entertainment and the exhibition of photographic commissions by local artists.

For the whole week of the Cultural Celebration, an Artisan Village will be operating at Olympic Plaza where local artists will feature their crafts and masterworks with live demonstrations of pottery, sculpting and guitar making.

Closing the Cultural Celebration will be the WorldSkills Celebration Spectacular on September 5 at Olympic Plaza from 3 - 9 p.m. The Celebration Spectacular will be a carnival-themed concert featuring highflying aerial acts, jugglers, buskers, circus performers and musical acts from around the world. The event promises to be a fitting grand finale to WorldSkills 2009.

Check out the Report to Calgarians for more details.

Urban art set to liven up Shaw Millennium skate park

Did you know that Calgary has North America’s largest free outdoor 24-hour skate park? It’s Shaw Millennium Park, located on 12 St. and 9 Ave. S.W. (next to TELUS World of Science), and it’s getting a facelift this weekend.

As part of a City pilot program, the internationally acclaimed local urban artist David Brunning, aka The Kid Belo, is getting out the spray paint this Saturday, August 22 to launch a mural going up on the Landmark building, and he’s showing some kids the ropes along the way. He’ll be mentoring and working with kids interested in urban art over the next three months as they add their own flair to the mural – every week will have a new look.

Dawn Ford, program co-ordinator with The City, said they expect up to 100 kids out on Saturday. They were invited to participate through the artist’s extensive volunteer network and The City’s youth groups.

The kids will be given a badge to identify them as artists with the project, and their work will be limited to the Landmark building. The artwork will be monitored by the artist and a peer group so that only the best work gets to stay and to make sure it’s appropriate for the park and its users.

Shaw Millennium Park has 75,000 square feet of skateable surface, basketball courts, laser lights and a festival area with beach volleyball. It’s been open since 2000 and has over 35,000 visitors a year.

And yet it’s still underutilized, said Ford. In surveys, youth who use the park say it’s visually boring, so this project is hoped to draw more in; it’s a way for the users of the park to improve it in a way that’s meaningful to them.

The urban art project will be evaluated in spring 2010, and if it goes well, another might be launched next year.

Examining the efficiency of The City’s garbage & recycling collection

The continued success of The City's Blue Cart recycling program has sparked discussions about potential next steps for Calgary's garbage collection - including potential garbage bag limits, pay-as-you-throw options, automating the collection process or potentially staggering collection weeks.

The City's Waste & Recycling Services group has examined each of these potential options and will be reporting back to City Council on potential implementation in early 2010.

Automated collection

In the fall of 2008, The City introduced a cart-based automated garbage collection pilot project to 15,000 homes in six communities: Deer Run, Dover, Mount Pleasant, Huntington Hills, Citadel and Cedarbrae.

Essentially, automated garbage collection reduces the number of operators needed - primarily one person per truck instead of two.

The automated system is safer for the garbage collectors as it prevents exposure to potentially overloaded bags and cans as well as hazardous objects in the trash, reducing potential injuries. To date there haven't been any injuries in the pilot related to the use of automated equipment.

Pay-as-you-throw

Pay-as-you-throw is a system that charges residents based on the volume of garbage they produce. Bag limits, tag-a-bag and multiple cart sizes are all possible versions of a pay-as-you-throw system.

Bag limits would permit Calgarians to set out a specific number of garbage bags or particular size cart for each collection and tag-a-bag would allow residents to purchase tags for each bag of waste or for additional bags over that limit.

Okotoks has had a pay-as-you-throw system for several years and has introduced the voluntary collection of organic materials to further reduce garbage volume.

Alternate week collection

Some Calgarians have suggested that one way to increase the efficiency of Waste & Recycling Services would be to change the frequency of collection - potentially moving toward an alternate week collection system.

The problem is that changing the collection frequency doesn't change the volume of materials that are being generated by citizens, but simply reduces the level of service to Calgarians.

Residents would still produce the same amount of garbage as before but instead of getting it picked up every week, they'd have to store two weeks' of garbage and recycling in their garages or back lanes before it's collected.

If a household typically generates three bags a week that would become six bags in two weeks. Organic waste would start decomposing over those two weeks, presenting potential health, pest and odor issues.

As for recycling, many Calgarians fill their blue carts every week now. If collection moved to bi-weekly they would have to store the excess or take it to a community recycling depot.

Obviously, the capacity of the City's trucks can't change. As it stands now, The City's entire fleet of trucks is needed to pick up garbage and recycling every week. If collection occurred on alternate weeks, the only difference would be that each house would put out twice as much garbage on collection day as before so each truck would only collect from half as many homes before it is fully loaded.

Organics - food and yard waste diversion

About 40 per cent of residential garbage is organic - food and yard waste. In a modern landfill, organic materials produce greenhouse gases when they decompose.

Currently, The City subsidizes the cost of backyard composters sold through the Calgary Online Store and the Clean Calgary Association and provides seasonal programs to collect leaves, pumpkins and Christmas trees.

If Calgary is to achieve its 80/20 by 2020 goal, The City needs a plan to divert food and yard waste, and Waste & Recycling Services is currently developing recommendations for a city-wide organics program for the 2012-14 budget and business plan cycle (which will be The City's next three-year budget cycle, the current budget cycle is 2009-2011).

How about a free concert with that lunch?

The City’s Brown Bag Lunch Music Series is nearing its end, with only one more show to go.

The program brings live music to Olympic Plaza every Wednesday noon hour from June to August, featuring some of Calgary’s best up and coming artists. This summer saw a variety of genres, from folk and country to pop and rock & roll.

The final show is next Wednesday, August 26, and Ghostkeeper will be taking the stage. They blend a little bit of rock with a little bit of indie - check them out on MySpace.

Are you interested in playing next summer, or know someone who is? Watch calgary.ca for details in the new year – the deadline for performer submissions is typically in February.

I was at Olympic Plaza over lunch yesterday, and one of the faces in the crowd gave me his thoughts on the festivities:

Commute times get a break in southeast Calgary

Starting on Monday, August 31, transit riders in southeast Calgary will find their commute much, much shorter. The new Southeast Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is expected to cut some commute times right in half.

Here’s how it'll do it:

• 118 trips each weekday – 59 leaving downtown, 59 leaving McKenzie Towne


• High capacity buses – with frequent, limited-stop service


• Peak periods – service every 10 minutes or better


• Off-peak periods – service every 20 minutes (Sundays, every 30 minutes)


• Current local routes – easy connections with Southeast BRT

Part of what’ll make the system a lot faster are the priority signals at most traffic lights along the route. When a bus is coming, the signals will briefly delay a green light from turning red or decrease the length of the red light.

Southeast BRT will follow the same route as the future southeast LRT line, stopping at all future LRT stations.

“[Southeast BRT] is addressing some of the service gaps that southeast Calgarians are experiencing,” said Jen Malzer, senior transit planner. “It’s really going to benefit anybody traveling outside of the peak period and to industrial or employment areas in southeast Calgary.“

Calgary Transit expects Southeast BRT to service about 15,000 people every day.

Watch the interview with Malzer for more details.

Blue Cart Recycling Update

More recycling, less waste; it's The City's goal to recycle 80 per cent of our waste by 2020, and Calgarians' support of Blue Cart has gone a long way in achieving that goal. More than 90 per cent of Calgarians currently take advantage of The City's Blue Cart recycling program.

Since July 3, all single family homes in Calgary have received Blue Cart collection. There's no doubt that Calgarians have embraced Blue Cart recycling with more than 20,000 tonnes of recyclable materials collected to date - enough to fill 5,000 collection trucks, which lined up end to end would stretch from City Hall to Strathmore. Those materials are sorted and processed at a privately owned plant in southeast Calgary and then shipped to various markets to be turned into new products.

Community recycling depots were converted to accept plastics and no longer require sorting of materials, improving convenience for residents and reducing the amount of trucks and manpower required. The depots will remain in place to serve residents of multi-family dwellings and to handle the overflow from homes that receive Blue Cart service.

The City's Waste & Recycling Services group is monitoring the impact of Blue Cart recycling on the volume of garbage that's being collected and could potentially adjust both recycling and garbage collection routes to maximize the efficient use of the fleet.

Take a tour of the leisure centres

The City’s two leisure centres were recently renovated, and they’ve got a lot to show off. They’ve revamped the waterparks, adding gigantic water buckets, swinging bridges and legendary water slides, and improved the gyms, fitness rooms and change rooms.

The two centres are pretty much the same, but they each have features that make them unique destinations. Southland offers gymnastics, a climbing wall and courts for squash, racquetball and wallyball; Village Square has a jungle gym play area for preschoolers and the legendary Thunder Run waterslide (it’s so high it extends past the roof!).

Both centres have programs exclusively for kids, teens, adults and families. Get full program information at calgary.ca/leisurecentres.

Starting in September, the leisure centre arenas will be going full force on skating and shinny hockey programs. If you’re renting the ice at Village Square, be sure to ask about the fireplace – and then don’t forget the marshmallows!

Get a glimpse of Village Square’s renovations in my interview with Deb Dunnigan, superintendant of products and services at VSLC.

The City of Calgary partners to provide school supplies to low income Calgarians

The City's Community & Neighbourhood Services department has partnered with Staples and several other community agencies in the Staples for Education program which provides school supplies to low income Calgary families.

"It's important for children to have the right school supplies - whether it's the right sort of notepaper, pencil or even calculator, having the right supplies puts children in the class on an even footing and lets them take full advantage of what the class has to offer," says Lindsay Miller, Community Social Worker with Community & Neighbourhood Services.

Calgarians can either donate new school supplies or donate to the program at any Calgary and area Staples store. The cash donations are used to purchase additional supplies which are then placed into backpacks and delivered to low income families. Donations totalling $200 or more are eligible for a tax receipt from The City.

Community & Neighbourhood Services and other community agencies register families who have children that need school supplies. When a family registers, the child's age, grade and gender is recorded and a backpack is customized to their needs.

Miller says that The City anticipates that they will distribute close to 1,500 backpacks this year, up from the approximately 1,100 backpacks that were distributed in 2008.

Families can register for the program through their neighbourhood community office or by calling 3-1-1. The cut off for registration is August 20 and the backpacks will be delivered around August 28.

City crews clean up after last weekend’s storm

Just like many Calgarians, City of Calgary personnel have been hard at work for the last several days cleaning up after last weekend's storms. As of this afternoon, The City's 3-1-1 has received more than 700 calls about damaged trees and branches and City crews are working to clean up as quickly as possible.

According to Allan Nearing, The City's manager, Parks Operations Centre, The City has more than a dozen crews inspecting parks, pathways and roads across Calgary looking for fallen trees and tree branches. These crews are working on a priority system with the highest importance being deadfall posing a public safety risk. Nearing says that his group anticipates that the high priority clean up will be complete in the next day, with remaining clean up being completed through next week.

Calgarians whose own trees have been damaged by the high winds can set out tree debris for regular garbage collection, as long as it's in bundles of under 4 feet in length (1.25 m) and less than 44 pounds (20 kilograms).

Calgarians can report fallen trees and branches by calling 3-1-1 or through calgary.ca/311.

Calgary’s youth rock out this Friday

Calgary’s youth battle of the bands is coming up this Friday, August 7, at Canada Olympic Park. Toast N’ Jam is in its eighth year and typically attracts a crowd of about 2,000, and I had a chance to talk to Greg Dycke, one of the event’s organizers.

Cora: What can we expect on Friday?
Greg: First of all, there’ll be incredible young talent playing some great music, and from every genre, including R&B, folk, rock, death metal and pop punk. We try to create a festival atmosphere – there’ll be a skate park with a mini half pike, a resource fair with about 20 non-profit agencies, like the Youth Employment Centre and Boys & Girls Club, temporary tattoos, a climbing wall – and it’s all free. We have two big special guests: opening will be 40 Gun Flagship, a local rock band led by a great female singer, and closing will be the Arkells, a Canadian band just starting to make it big.

Cora: How many bands are in the competition and how were they selected?
Greg: This year we had 35 bands apply and 14 will be competing – we’re looking at ways to increase the number of bands that can participate in the future. There’s a panel of five judges made up of sponsor reps, including the New Black Centre, The Beach recording studio, Axe Music, the lead singer from 40 Gun Flagship and X92.9. They were looking for musical talent and genre diversity so we get a well rounded show.

Cora: What’s the purpose of the event?
Greg: Young musicians under 18, especially kids in rock bands, don’t have many opportunities to showcase and hone their skills in Calgary. There are very few all ages shows, so that’s where we come in. Some of the best young talent in Calgary have come through this program, like Matt Blais who won in a radio contest and made a CD. This program lets them play in a rewarding environment where they all feel like rock stars – you’ll see it on Friday.

Cora: What are the prizes and how do you pick the winners?
Greg: There’s a whole list of things the judges look for, like musical quality and stage presence, and the prizes are crazy this year – our sponsors really stepped up. First prize includes the Ultimate Rockstar Experience, with eight hours recording time and six hours mixing time with Lanny Williamson, who produced Usher, Paul McCartney and many others. It also includes producing a CD, designing a poster or CD cover, appearing on X92.9, and, to top it all off, the next day they get to open for the Virgin Festival.

Cora: How did you land the gig with Virgin Fest?
Greg: We have a lot of respect from the industry in Calgary because they recognize the struggle for a young artist and the development focus of Toast N’ Jam. When Virgin Fest chose C.O.P. as a venue, we started talking and they were excited about it being for kids under 18 and the chance it gives them to develop as musicians. So they donated prizes, including this opening performance.

So this Friday, August 7, check out some of the hottest young talent in Calgary. Toast N’ Jam starts at 5:30 p.m. and runs to 10 p.m. To get in on the hype, take a look at the Toast N’ Jam page on Facebook.

Peace Bridge: Could The City build it for cheaper?

If recent online comments are any indication, a lot of Calgarians are wondering whether The City could build Peace Bridge for cheaper. Some comments seem to suggest that The City is overpaying for what could have been a relatively affordable pedestrian bridge solution.


To address some of these questions, I spoke with Mac Logan, director of Transportation Infrastructure for The City of Calgary. Logan says that it's a misconception that the bridge could have been built for $5 million. While The City has built pedestrian bridges for approximately that cost in the past, in this case, it wouldn't have been possible.

Logan says that there are a number of factors that came into play in the cost of Peace Bridge, including the width of the Bow River at the point of crossing (the location was selected based on the amount of pedestrian and bicycle traffic).

Secondly, The City wants to maintain the usability of the helipad located in the area, which is used predominantly by HAWC1 and STARS. Essentially what that means is that the bridge can't be suspended by overhead towers, which would restrict air space clearance.

Finally, Logan said that The City wants to ensure that the bridge minimizes the potential environmental impact on the Bow River, so the bridge was designed so that it would not have any piers in the river.

Of course the bridge will have to be built to withstand Calgary's once in a 100 year flood cycle (hopefully we're good until at least another 100 years after the flooding of 2005).

Peace Bridge will cost approximately $30,000/m² which is lower than similar pedestrian bridges in other municipalities, including Edmonton's pedestrian bridge that will cost $33,000/m².

The vast majority of the funding for Peace Bridge comes from the Province's Municipal Sustainability Initiative, which is collected by the province from oil and gas revenues and granted to municipalities across Alberta for projects that meet the demands of growth. The City will only be contributing $125,000 towards the project - 0.5% of the total project cost.

Check out my interview with Mac Logan, The City's director of Transportation Infrastructure below.