I want to take my own physical fitness more seriously. If you spend as many hours a day parked behind a computer screen as I do, you know exactly what I mean.
Now this is my list of resolutions for other people to make. Actually it is a list of one resolution.
I would like the City of Corner Brook to resolve to develop a real information sharing plan. I don't mean a file-sharing system for delivering press releases. I mean a plan to inform residents via as many streams as possible.
Trust me, it will help.
Corner Brookers love to complain and no wonder when at anytime you can run into a roadblock you didn't expect. I remember this fall driving up West Valley Road and running into two small gray barricades (not city owned). Since they didn't come close to barring access to Elswick Road the truck in front of me went around them. I carried on to find another ramshackle structure blocking the intersection at O'Connell Drive.
The fact the closure was as impromptu looking as possible is aggravated by the fact that the message wasn't properly available.
What do I mean by properly available? Well, I don't doubt the city made some attempt to get the message out there. I am sure they issued some kind of a release, but that is not enough. It is time for our municipality to be proactive. It is not enough to try and shrug off responsibility and say the information was available. I don't have time to check for city press releases before I leave the house in the morning. I check Facebook and my email though.
Ideally, what would work best in the Corner Brook situation is a note on the bathroom mirror with a list of all of today's pertinent information. Of course this is impractical so the next best thing needs to be done. SMS, Twitter, Facebook and a good old fashioned mailing list are great places to start. Most of this can be done for less than the price of a BlackBerry.
Which is another thing I have wanted to weigh in on. Why is it that council deems it necessary to approve BlackBerrys for its councillors? So they can stay in touch? So they are up to date on everything? I love it.
Now make the investment in getting information out. You can't give residents of Corner Brook a chance to say we didn't know.
There really is no other way to look at the city's latest budget other than as a major tax grab. You can't shrug this one off council. You got an extra four million dollars. Use it.
The College of the North Atlantic has been pumping out web technology grads for years, who either go on to other places or other careers because there is next to nothing available locally in terms of employment.
If the city resolves to take some of the assessment windfall and invest it in the future and build a council that responds to the needs of citizens on a daily basis, I will be a pretty skinny man next year.
Chris Noseworthy is The Western Star's Web Editor. He can be reached via email at anything@chrisnoseworthy.com
