Calgary Water Cooler Talk Thread

[suburbia]

Whoa! Just realized that during the throne speech, the NDP stated it will be funding the North Calgary High School, which according to the CBE website will run $62M or so and is highly needed. The high volume of students currently in the north-centre are being bused quite a distance for grades 10-12.

Of course, for young families who live in Coventry, Country Hills, Harvest Hills Panorama Hills, Hidden Valley, Evanston, etcetera, this becomes a voting decision.

1. Vote NDP and get the High School
2. Vote UCP and get cuts to existing education to fund the 1/3rd tax cut for businesses

Some people may challenge option two above, but it is important to understand this in full context. The Ford government has been strongly supported by Jason Kenney's UCP for trimming education, which there has resulted in bigger classes:

[suburbia]

With this latest UCP resignation, that's gotta be over half-a-dozen in a week! Mostly for racist views they shared in public.


LINK - https://twitter.com/carolyndunncbc/s...32527454928896

• Video Link

[suburbia]

Cross posting with the Alberta Politics thread given the broad interest on this one - definitely water cooler material!

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LINK - https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star...-election.html

After all, Donald Trump was elected U.S. president even though voters knew, among other things, that he had sexually abused women, called Mexicans “rapists,” and duped people out of money at his bogus university.

Doug Ford was elected premier of Ontario even though he had been an eager sidekick to his brother Rob Ford when he was mayor of Toronto and embroiled in one public scandal after another.

Jason Kenney, a former federal cabinet minister and leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party is facing the same kind of scrutiny about his moral fibre in his bid to oust NDP Premier Rachel Notley.

Unfortunately for Kenney, the scandal he is caught up in raises serious questions about how he was elected leader of the UCP, which of course put him on the road to possibly becoming Alberta’s next premier.

"And since election day is only three weeks away, it’s possible that if Kenney becomes premier he will begin his tenure under the shadow of an RCMP investigation into that leadership campaign."

[suburbia]

LINK - https://twitter.com/Crackmacs/status...47554339815425

[suburbia]

Sounds like the elections commissioner issued more fines against UCP members for illegal donations and donation laundering. Looks like #KenneyKazi is not a scandal that will die in the short term.

[suburbia]

Busy water cooler!

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LINK - https://www.macleans.ca/politics/the...d-allegations/

They were first detailed in a letter to the RCMP by UCP legislator Prab Gill. Gill alleged that organizers obtained phony email addresses attached to real Albertans, and used those to obtain passcode numbers (PINs) to vote in the UCP contest in bulk batches at “kiosk” computer stations, set up to avoid limits on any one computer voting multiple times. Mann has told CBC Calgary that when he recruited new party members to help Kenney’s campaign, many signup forms didn’t have emails—then someone else added them. CBC’s own legwork add to the suspicion:

CBC News searched for historical registration data using DomainTools and confirmed that dozens of email addresses attached to UCP members were all purchased by anonymous sources in the lead-up to the UCP leadership vote, between Sept. 20 and Oct. 13, 2017. Many of those emails, with domains like link3mail.com and jaringmail.com, all link back to the same web host. It is not known who bought those email addresses. (CBC)

Kenney maintains his party followed all party rules, and says UCP legal counsel proactively offered assistance to police in any fraud investigation. The RCMP are indeed pursuing the allegations, rather than dismissing them outright, according to a party statement to Maclean’s on Wednesday.

Ethical questions are one thing for a frontrunner to bear. Legal questions, depending on how actively the RCMP is sniffing around on voter fraud allegations, are on a whole different plane.

[Corndogger]

Apparently this is how real estate listings were done in the 1950 to 1980 era. Just an exterior photo and a cue card with some basic info. This one is very interesting. Look at how high the taxes were!





Source: https://twitter.com/CGYRealtor/statu...70545170518017

[DizzyEdge]

Interesting! and still standing today.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Interesting! and still standing today.

What's the current market value?

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

What's the current market value?

Not sure about market value but its tax assessment is $970k. What's not obvious about both photos is it's actually on a double lot, so you could squeeze an infill to the right of it.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Not sure about market value but its tax assessment is $970k. What's not obvious about both photos is it's actually on a double lot, so you could squeeze an infill to the right of it.

Not obvious at all. I thought it was on a very narrow lot.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Not sure about market value but its tax assessment is $970k. What's not obvious about both photos is it's actually on a double lot, so you could squeeze an infill to the right of it.

Yup. It looks like it is prepped for exactly that. That being said, I'd say this is overpriced - market value would be lower IMHO (or at least I'd not be interested in the least at this price point).

[Corndogger]

Is this really needed? I'd say a petting zoo at that location would be way more popular and would pay for itself if vendors were allowed to setup in the area.

New urban basketball court bounces into Calgary



Teri Fikowski, CTV News Calgary
Published Thursday, May 30, 2019 5:32PM MDT

Anyone feeling inspired by the Toronto Raptors’ magical run to the NBA Finals can soon head down to East Village to shoot some hoops at 'The Bounce.'

Work is currently underway on the urban basketball court on the corner of 4th Street and 8th Avenue Southeast, beside the National Music Centre at Studio Bell.

On top of the full basketball court, the site will also include ping-pong tables, Snakes-And-Ladders, four square and art murals.

The vacant lot was used in the past as an interim parking lot and at times was turned into a retail park with shipping containers for local businesses.

Clare LePan with the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation says the urban park is a way to repurpose an underused corner of the community.

"A three-on-three tournament can come down and use it, or an outdoor rec team or residents can come and just shoot hoops," she said. "It’s meant to be passive in that way and you can program it the way you choose to."

The project cost around $40,000 and was first thought up when the new Central Library was being built as a way to bring more people in from the popular RiverWalk.

LePan says there will be some event programming but the urban court will be free to the public.

Backboards and the basketball hoops will be installed in the coming days and the entire games park is expected to officially open the first week of June, depending on the weather.

Source: https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/new-urban...gary-1.4444909

[araman0]

Hey everyone, now that the border may be opening we will finally get to visit Calgary after years of admiring your city develop from afar. We usually enjoy staying in a Vrbo or Airbnb in a lively neighborhood where the wife can walk to clothing shops, coffee, etc, and the kids can play in a neighborhood park. What would be the best urban shopping / sightseeing neighborhood with a diverse food scene in the city? It’s looking like 17th may be at the top based on my research so far? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

[DoubleK]

17th or Inglewood are your best bets. Could also look to the hotels in the East Village, short scoot or uber to both of those areas.