As I mentioned some time ago, the City of Edmonton undertook a pilot project this year to involve a group of citizens, randomly selected and representative of the city's population, in a long-term education and consultation process that would help the City Council guide its decision-making in the 2010 budget process.The results of that process are avaialble here.

Credit where credit is due.The government has proposed amendments to Bill 19, the Land Assembly Project Area Act.Some of the problems with the old act were that it provided no guarantee of compensation to landowners for restrictions placed on their land, it provided no limit on how long those restrictions could last, and it seemed to exclude the act from the requirements of the expropriation act.

The City of Edmonton is running an interesting pilot project in democratic method right now.  They have formed a Citizens' Panel, consisting of 50 randomly-selected residents of the city, and have arranged to provide those citizens with an education into the issues facing the city, it's current vision, its expenditures and revenues, and ask it for substantive recommendations that will be taken into account in writing the 2010 budget later this year.

For almost a month now, I've been involved in this group of people that has been called the "futility faction", the "revolution group", the "edmonton group", and any number of other silly things. This is the group of people that Daveberta has recently blogged about being involved in. Dave was the one who invited me to join.

David Swann has appointed Mo Elsalhy the chairman of a committee that is supposed to report in one month on what the Alberta Liberal Party needs to do in terms of a renewal process.

I posted recently on what I think David Swann should do with the leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party. I wrote at the time "If Swann was asking for my advice, and I know he's not..."Well, that post caught the eye of Justin Archer, who has been deeply involved in the ALP for a while now, and he asked me if I'd be interested in making that argument to David Swann in person.

I've been in contact with Ignatieff's campaign team in Alberta over the past few weeks.  There has been what is for me an uncomfortable attempt to change the Ignatieff leadership camapign team into a sort of a permanent election readiness team for the province.

Remember how I was getting involved in a leadership race that would pick the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada?  Turns out, now this race could also pick the next Prime Minister.If you're suddenly, inexplicably more interested, here's the link. :)

So I got in touch with Ali Jonzon, who (if I remember correctly) was Michael's national youth campaign chair last leadership.  I first met Ali working on Paul Martin's leadership bid back in 2004.  She passed my name along to the person organizing Michael's Northern Alberta campaign.  So now, I'm running Michael's campaign in Edmonton-Sherwood Park.