Kingston waterfront news: April 2010
REMINDER that April 30th is the deadline to fill-out the City of Kingston's truly asinine Poker Run Feedback form.
$1.5 BILLION is allegedly the cost of the proposed offshore wind project, in today's Whig. It's to be centred on Pigeon Island.
The article is actually funny, especially the the parts about KEDCO. Read the whole thing.
One possible interpretation of the article: arrogant city-slickers chatting-up a hick-town newspaper reporter.
PLEASURE CRAFT OPERATOR TESTING is available at the Marine Museum in partnership with the Kingston Power and Sail Squadron.
Further information: Ann Blake, Executive Director 613 542-2261 or ablake@marmuseum.ca.
GONE WITH THE WIND by Waterkeeper Mark Mattson in The Mark.
The short takeaway: lobbying by industry has become much too powerful in the decision-making "process" in Ontario.
THE APRIL ISSUE of the Thousand Islands Life e-zine is online. It includes an interesting story about phone service on Wolfe Island.
DIRECT LINK to the City of Kingston's multiple-choice Poker Run Feedback survey.
It's a shame that the environmental aspect of the Poker Run seems to have singularly hijacked the conversation. "The environment" has always been a side-issue, and everybody knows it.
The survey offers no selection akin to "the Poker Run is OBNOXIOUS" which would be close to the median viewpoint on the matter.
UNCHARTED TERRITORY: the province is supposedly working on standards for offshore wind projects, in today's Whig.
300 MW WIND PROJECT APPROVED offshore of Wolfe Island in today's Globe and Mail.
Er, what??
Apparently this has been approved but nobody seems to know where, or any other details for that matter. For comparison, the existing wind turbines are rated at 197.8 MW.
POKER RUN PUBLIC MEETING to...
...gauge community views regarding the cultural and social impacts of the Poker Run at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, in Memorial Hall, City Hall, 216 Ontario St.
A funny coincidence: April 22nd is Earth Day.
Given past Downtown Kingston shenanigans, it will be interesting to see who chairs the meeting.
Certainly the meeting location, and meeting start-time, are ideal for our self-serving report-publishing Downtown Kingston friends.
COLLINS BAY MARINA reports they started launching boats last Thursday, on April 1st.
That's ten-days earlier than their previous record of April 10th, back in 2006.
GOOD ATTENDANCE -- some 6,000 visitors -- at the first 1000 Islands Boat Show, from Boating Business.
SAVE KINGSTON'S WATERFRONT! is a new Facebook group you can join.
Currently the group appears focused on saving Douglas Fluhrer Park from the Wellington Street Extension though, certainly, there's more to save.
AN ILLUSTRATION of something that's so-wrong with our waterfront. The shoreline is a continuous physical barrier, with no breaks with access in mind.
CATHCART REDOUBT on Cedar Island is looking very, very good after its repointing and renovation.
ESTIMATED
ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT of the 2009 Thousand Islands Poker Run is on Council's next agenda.
The KEDCO report is based on a survey (conducted by the Downtown BIA) and phone interviews (with spokespersons for Poker Runs America and Power Boating Canada).
All strong proponents of the Poker Run.
Despite the claim of attracting 14,500 spectators, KEDCO and the BIA could gather only 91 survey responses. These are noted as follows:
It should be noted that conclusions based on 91 results is "statistically insignificant" and does not adequately reflect the overall economic impact of the event. In this case, the economic impact report is inaccurate and would not be considered as part of a post-analysis report.
So the survey results are not reliable and are of no value. However, this doesn't prevent KEDCO from extrapolating conclusions and tabling them with six- and seven-digit precision.
Does the report contain some reliable information?
Apparently not. The report doesn't tell us how many boats were in in the 2009 Poker Run.
The number of boats according to The Whig last August, was "more than 60" which is far less than the hundred or hundreds usually touted by organizers.
Wouldn't you expect KEDCO to provide, at a minimum, data that could be used, for future comparisons?. By omitting the number of boats from this economic impact report -- one of the only available objective measures of event quality and scale -- KEDCO effectively delivers a report with little future-reference value.
The report claims that the 2009 event had 304 participants, or 360 participants depending on whether you read paragraph 3, or paragraph 4, on page 7 ( page 11 of the council PDF). How "more than 60-boats" turns into KEDCO's "304 participants" or "360 participants", including spouses and children, we do not know..
In view of the non-disclosure of the number of boats, the lumping of driver's spouses and children to inflate the number of "event participants", this all appears very suspicious.
Furthermore there's no mention of any negative survey responses. Several survey questions have "good" at the low-end of multiple-choice responses but a possible response of "poor" was only related to the questions related to "music quality" and "the variety of events".
In many respects this KEDCO report, as tabled, tells us a lot about KEDCO and the BIA in the Rosen-era.
In effect, the report says "we have no reliable data" and "we don't tell you even the easiest objective metrics" but, nonetheless, "the poker-run generates MILLIONS".
Related to that, the report's cover-page is notable because of its Disclaimer and the Release of Liability Statement, which we haven't seen before from KEDCO.
Do you think this might be, partly, because of fallout from KEDCO's Economic Benefits of the LVEC report from 2005?