You might have seen these eye-catching "posters" for the No Longer With Us campaign to promote Housing First. (Click for more details.)

I think I’m starting to like “today’s date-Edmonton Headlines” as my go-to title. I reserve the right to insert puns.

If you get caught on the LRT without transit fare, or put your feet on the seat, or give drivers the stink-eye (that one may be made up), you’ll be facing a larger fine. Now, with the most important problems solved, if Edmonton Transit could just increase service to the most populated and busy areas of the city, get GPS on the buses, and keep things clean we’d see the monthly cost be a deal compared to personal vehicles.

Festival organizers are looking to the City for a little help in killing mosquitoes. That would mean breaking out the chemicals to “fog” parks.

The river valley is getting money that was supposed to go to other park projects. Go river valley go!

The footage is grainy, but Edmonton Police hope it will help them catch a downtown groper.

A landmark that used to sit outside of CFRN TV is on its way to the new Royal Alberta Museum. Speaking of that new museum…give the provincial government a little input, would you. Oh, you can’t?

You might have heard about a Sun News Network item on some Edmonton artists’ housing this week.

The Bestest of Edmonton? You’ll have to make the jump to find out.

Vue Weekly’s got its Bestest of Edmonton, sort of. Well, you’ll know what I mean when you read it. It does highlight some great Edmonton stuff though!

A few Edmontonians are on their way to Greece as part of the first Canadian team to be invited to the Handball World Championships.

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Alberta’s assisted living care is in the news this week, after a couple of dozen seniors are being evicted by a private company that’s got a contract with Alberta Health Services, and now there’s an ask for more provincial money.

It sounds like British Columbians have a much better idea of what’s happening to children dying in government care than we do in Alberta.

The outgoing Information and Privacy Commissioner has some advice for the many leadership candidates in the Progressive Conservative and Alberta Liberal races. Probably more on the PC side though, since that winner becomes premier.

There could be more Alberta oil flowing through the Rockies to the west coast.

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There are, potentially, some changes for aboriginals living on reserves when it comes to human rights.

Canada Post still slow to deliver. I’ll say. You jerks are forcing me to use UPS today to get this weekend’s show over to Shaw on time. Jerks.

Want free tickets to next year’s Boonstock? You just have to pick up garbage left behind by this year’s crowd.

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Hmm…seems a little light for a Thursday, doesn’t it?

Let’s see, Vue Weekly stories are in there…I double-checked the Edmonton Examiner (which comes out Wednesday)…ran through the Google Alerts… Maybe it’s just a quiet summer Thursday.

Oh, wait.

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Will and Kate

Man, with all those journalists in Slave Lake, yesterday was the day for City Council to pass some crazy bylaws.

I’m making a meaningful effort to get out on my bicycle more this summer. I’ve got the darn thing, we have short summers, I should get out and ride.

So, Saturday night I went for a ride through the valley.

I cycled along the river on bike trails, paths, roads, and some single-track, through Emily Murphy, Hawrelak, Buena Vista, and Sir Wilfred Laurier Parks.

The thing that always blows me away about the river valley is how quiet it can be. You are in the middle of the city but it feels like you’re out at the lake, hours away. It’s so quiet, so surreal, to be in such a non-urban setting.

So, this afternoon or evening, even with a small chance of rain, wander down to the closest part of the river valley. Or hop on transit and find your way to our amazing urban wilderness.

If you’re looking for cycling routes to, and through, the river valley, you can always check out the City of Edmonton’s bike map (PDF).

You can see something you'd never see otherwise, in the valley.

This deserves a webpage.

While looking up information on Ezio Farone Park I noticed the City of Edmonton only has webpages for its major parks. You know, the Hawrelaks, Gold Bars and Coronations.

The Ezio Farones, the Dr. Wilbert McIntyres and Kildares don’t get a webpage.

I want them to get their own webpage!

OK, there’s a slight twist to them not having a webpage. There are a bunch of different pages you can slog through to find picnic sites, or sports fields, or your neighbourhood’s parks.

I’ll note with my work on the Strathcona Centre Community League, however, that people tend not to know the “official” name of their neighbourhood. The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) and Next Gen can back me up on that, since it came up at their recent event to get younger people involved in community leagues. (More on community leagues soon enough my pretties.)

To make sure I wasn’t make an outlandish request, I poked around a couple of websites from other Canadian cities.

Certainly I checked on Calgary. They are like us, and only have webpages for their big parks. The community parks, nestled nicely into your neighbourhood, don’t have much more than a name and address mention.

A city of similar size to Edmonton (though not in a similarly sized capital region), Winnipeg, also doesn’t give its medium and small parks a page of their own. Though, they do provide information on the amenities of each park, which I think is a nice touch for anyone looking around at a neighbourhood to live in, or looking for a place to schedule the weekend pick-up football games.

Toronto beats them all. It appears all of their parks have their own webpage (except skateboard parks…) and at least one has its own website. I even did a measurement check on how big an acre was, to make sure these parks weren’t only the ones with giant swaths of land.

So, I’m writing this to the world (it’s the Internet after all) but I’m going to drop a line to the City of Edmonton and ask for a little more detail on our parks on the Internet.

We need to know more about the Garneaus, Montroses and Nellie McClungs. Those are parks we can have a BBQ in or saunter down to when we want a new place to read a book.

Are you with me or am I looking for too much from our city’s website?

This park has an amazing glow. Photo: Janine Edwards

While visiting one of my fast-becoming-favourite Edmonton-based websites, I was surprised to find an editorial on closing the Edmonton City Centre Airport. I think everyone is missing the big picture here in all this debate.

A little south of the “Muni,” just behind the RCMP (K-division HQ), is a quaint little park. And do you at the edmontonian know which park this is? Airway Park. That’s right. AIRWAY. As in, a park near an Airport.

If we as a city close the Muni, we will have to re-name this little park. I know what you’re thinking now… you’re re-thinking your decision to close the airport. And I don’t blame you.

Re-name a whole park! That will cost us $100′s of dollars! They might even have to create a new tax.

Without Airway Park… where will our children play? Where will the Edmonton Rugby Union or Down Under Club meet?

And I don’t think you were aware of the ESSPA. The Edmonton Senior Slo-Pitch Association has a long history here in Edmonton (it dates back to 1983).

From their site: “The livelihood of our Association has been due to the commitment of our members who have had to make difficult decisions to ensure Senior Slo-Pitch thrives Edmonton. After long and arduous searching for a suitable sight a five year lease agreement was reached with the City early in 1990. This allowed ESSPA to use two diamonds (3 and 4) at Airway Park (113 St. and 113 Ave.) These two diamonds have since been developed to top grade diamonds complete with infield shale, safety fencing, dugouts and sprinkler system, mostly by volunteer help from our members and with the assistance of the City of Edmonton. Approximately $100,000 (material purchases, contract labor and labor in kind) has been spent developing these two diamonds. Although other groups use the diamonds, they are maintained by ESSPA.”

The very livelihood of ESSPA rests on Airway Park. And you want to shut it and make these poor seniors suffer? Or re-name it and confuse them?

Airway Park has softball history, and is used for multiple sports. Photo: Janine Edwards

And what of these two plaques? What would you do to them?

I haven’t even touched on the costs and time we’ll need to expend to update the above websites, Google, and the like. Who will pay?

I’m surprised at the edmontonian for not researching into the debate throughly enough.

Save the Edmonton City Centre Airport. Save Airway Park.

- Janine Edwards, Edmonton

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