[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Watching paint dry: a better story than our mayor's race?"][/caption] At just over 130 days away from the ballot and it’s barely registered to most in the city that an election is around the corner. Sure, incumbents are slowly rolling out sleepy reelection campaigns. A few upstarts are getting their cars wrapped and shiny new social media profiles in order. But, the mayors race only seems busy because Jim Watson keeps an inhuman pace. A long standing Ottawa joke is that Watson will attend the opening ofan envelope. It follows that if Watson is the hare, the Alex Cullen team is currently the tortoise. A sleeping tortoise. Which, I suppose is fair considering one of them actually has a full time job right now. f you missed what passes for bluster in the 2010 election: Watson is fretting about costs on the LRT project. O’Brien called him a “little old lady” on CFRA. The media failed to really engage in the misogynistic comment or the issue at hand. Plus ca change.

This half of CityVote is taking a decidedly visual turn for the next little while. I’ll be blunt: I was having trouble breaking out of my “rant mode” with written text. It comes too easily. CityVote and this space needs to be a conversation and my role is to provoke that. I’ve had some amazing people ask me to help them tell their stories. I can’t think of a better way than to teach them how to do it themselves. Making the invisible visible will be the theme of the audio/video project. My team at ...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="Sidewalk lake downtown: a taste of what pedestrians get for their taxes?"][/caption] Common sense. For a lot of people who live in Ontario, I suppose Mike Harris and his right-wing “Common Sense Revolution” ruined those words. But taking a page from progressive movements, I say let’s reclaim “common sense.” It's the essential trait missing among the many elected people on city council who can’t see past the boundaries of their own ward. Perhaps it’s a leadership deficit, forced amalgamation or simple political rivalry that keeps these ...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Reserved seating: commitment-phobes only?"][/caption] Ottawa is a change-averse city. Or is it our elected leaders who are holding back change? Our current city council has been dragging their heals on fundamental debates and decisions about transit, infrastructure, and urban development for over a decade. This on-again, off-again relationship with decision making has turned city council into the cliched commitment-phobic boyfriend. Just as you’re sure council is about to propose a great solution, one of them steps in to break up the near-deal and send debate careening off into committee hell for another six months. When asked if we want change, citizens in Ottawa respond with a resounding “yes!” Until, that is, it’s time to actually vote. Then we return our incumbents to their squabbling and bickering.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="800" caption="Hartman's Piano Lounge in happier times"][/caption]