By Jeff Samsonow

‘sup?

It’s been awhile since we took a look all around Edmonton for news of the election. That will mean two things: lots for you to read and lots for me to work on. I don’t like that second one.

First up, that airport.

Yes, Envision Edmonton handed over 90,000+ signatures on a petition to have a plebiscite question on our election ballot about keeping the City Centre Airport open. That’s probably enough signatures to cover a failure rate (signatures that are unreadable, duplicates, not Edmonton residents, etc…). That would only leave the question of legality. (Whether they had to have it in withing 60 days of council’s decision.)

Either way, this will be an election issue. Two incumbent councillors voted against the closure last year, Envision Edmonton’s got money for a campaign for the airport to remain open, or against councillors who voted to close it. Or both. (Though there aren’t a lot of pro-airport council candidates with name recognition.)

I hope you like hearing about the airport.

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It’s interesting to think about one of the reasons we wanted to create this website. People don’t know about politics. Oh sure, they see the fighting and headlines, but after school they (we) just don’t get into the nuts and bolts of how our various forms of government work.

For example, we’ll all be electing school board trustees on Monday, October 18. We do that alongside the municipal vote for councillors and a mayor.

I guess CTV didn’t remember that from school, since they declared a current trustee’s jump to the Alberta Party as a move INTO politics. (Dave had something to say about that.)

But then again, who can blame CTV? When the public school board gives the impression it won’t push back against the provincial government, it really doesn’t carry much political weight. They might as well be appointed staff.

Which is why news on this October’s vote should be dominated by the race for trustees of the Edmonton Public School Board. Though, the airport is going to take all of the headlines. There are some candidates running to halt, or slow, the rate of school closures and that’s a big item.

Speaking of school closures, parents at Riverdale are celebrating the fact they saved their kindergarten program after it was set to close.

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Sometimes taxes pay for good stuff, like new sidewalks. Sure, there could almost always be better use of dollars, but a candidate who simply says “Taxes bad,” without specifying which taxes, or which programs to tighten up, isn’t actually presenting a plan.

Talking about plans and platforms, we should always be asking ourselves where a certain idea will take the city. It’s not about where we are, or where we’ve been, but what the ideas and plans will do for us in the future. Whether we’ll actually be the ones to benefit or not.

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There’s another official candidate declaring a run for mayor.

But that’s probably not going to spice things up much. A plebiscite on the airport might give us a larger voter turnout. But maybe we should really spice things up, with gambling.

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There are more places popping up for you to track election information. ShareEdmonton will probably have everything, from links, to tweets (which will also have links), to events, and dates to remember. The Edmonton Journal also has its election site up and running.

It seems more candidates will be paying attention to all this online attention before October 18.

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Don’t forget to make sure you can vote. Otherwise you can just nap until October 19. If you can vote, there are some rules you’ll need to know when you show up to mark a ballot October 18. You’ll probably also want to know what the heck your ward candidates have to say.

City election workers are probably going to be spending the next month getting ready, going over all of the new rules, and trying to have a handle on the big day.