Apartment613

Photo courtesy of Dani_Girl on Flickr.

Ontario held two provincial by-elections last Thursday, one of which was in Ottawa. Former mayor Bob Chiarelli won for the Liberals in the Ottawa West-Nepean, while former Brockville mayor Steve Clark is now the Conservative member for Leeds-Grenville. While the win at first seems like positive news for the McGuinty government, the relatively small margin (43.46% vs. 38.99%) by which Chiarelli beat his little known rival, Beth Graham, might make the Liberals a bit nervous.

U.S. Ambassador, David Jacobson, and federal Transport Minister John Baird announced Saturday that the ‘Jersey’ barriers will be gone in little more than a year and replaced with “a visually appealing” compromise. The project, which will cost a little over $3 million, will be split between the federal government (2.5 million), the City of Ottawa ($125,000) and the U.S. Embassy ($500,000).

The paralympics are getting underway next Friday in Vancouver. This meant that another Olympic ceremony was held at at Parliament last Wednesday. Multiple paralympic gold medallist Arnold Boldt became the first torchbearer for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, taking up the flame from the Olympic cauldron at a lighting ceremony on Parliament Hill.

Canada’s getting plastic money! No, not an influx in credit cards. Rather, the Bank of Canada announced last week that Canada’s paper-cotton banknotes would be replaced by newly designed plastic ones next year. The new notes made from a polymer material, will be harder to fake, recyclable, and two to three times more resistant to tearing.

Photo courtesy of titanium-white in the Apt613 Flickr Pool.

Senior and disabled persons advisory groups have been pushing city council for more priority seating at the front of the bus, complaining that parents and their strollers were taking too much space. The advisory groups wanted:

• Wheelchair users, people with disabilities and seniors to be officially given higher priority than parents with strollers for seats at the front of the bus.
• Strict limits on the size of strollers allowed on buses.
• Parents to be “strongly encouraged” fold their strollers as a “default policy.”

But it appears they won’t be getting it as the he city’s transit committee decided not to vote on the recommendations. They’ve concluded that parents with strollers can use the space up front, but if a disabled or older person arrives, should give up the seating. I think that makes sense.  Couldn’t we all just get along and live in a civilized manner?

While the real estate market appears to be cooling off in the rest of the country, Ottawa’s bucking the trend. “In the Ottawa board, the numbers were down anywhere from 18 to 24% (through the winter months of 2008/2009),” said de Varennes. “What we’re seeing this year is a complete reversal from all of that.” Over the past year, the average sale price of homes rose 11.5% to $318,425 in Ottawa.

It appears that Robert Gauthier has dropped out of the mayoral race over a cow. Yes, a cow. Gauthier said he’s disappointed the city won’t follow the “rule of law” and force an Orleans cheese boutique to remove a plastic cow from the roof of its shop. More than 1,500 citizens have signed a petition to keep the cow there. Nonetheless, Gauthier believes in the rule of law, and added: “I don’t have time to get bogged down in stuff like that.” What a strange way to exit, Mr. Gauthier.

There are now five design firms vying to redesign Lansdowne Park. Have a look at their portofolio and pick your favourite! They are:

• Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates of Cambridge, Mass.
• Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg of Vancouver.
• The SWA Group of Sausalito, California.
• West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture of Toronto.
• Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui & Associates of Montreal.

Photo courtesy of jhscrapmom on Flickr.

An early morning fire has destroyed a large part of the CTV Ottawa offices on Merivale Rd on Sunday, causing more than $2.5 million in damage. The entire newsroom was gutted, and the first floor, which includes the television studio, sustained extensive water damage. No deaths or injures were reported and the cause of the fire is still unknown.

With Jake Gyllenhaal coming to town shortly, Ottawa’s got a big Hollywood production coming to town. According to Radio-Canada, this bodes well for the upcoming year in terms of cinema and TV productions coming to the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

Winterlude began with a bang last Friday - For a list of the wonderful, corporate sponsored events, check here.

The city’s proposing a new bylaw to better ‘control’ its rowdier citizens. Loud or boisterous language and disorderly conduct would be banned on Ottawa roads and sidewalks under a new bylaw change. The culprits would receive a $300 fine. Until now, the only way to deal with lewd behavior is for police to lay charges of mischief under the criminal code meaning that anyone convicted would get a criminal record.

In an unlikely twist, it looks like the Hartman’s piano may be coming back - but at a different location in the store.

Finally, should we be worried about eating shawarmas? According to the Ottawa Citizen, 42% of the sampled shawarma eateries inspected by city of Ottawa public health inspectors had “critical deficiencies”. Please fix this!

Photo courtesy of titanium-white on Flickr.

On Thursday evening Ottawa City council passed the 2010 budget - a full post on the subject is forthcoming. Some highlights: a 3.77% tax hike, reinstating the Crime Prevention Ottawa and scrapped recommended bus route cuts and reductions in stump removal and funding for tree trimming as well as approving a transit pass pilot program for Carleton and University of Ottawa students.

The province of Ontario has agreed to foot the $3 million bill for the construction of a new 30-bed shelter for women and children.  The shelter will be Interval House’s second home. Unfortunately, it is much needed as Interval House is “turning away one to two a day when we’re full, which is 90 per cent of the time.” according to executive director Karen MacInnis.

A fifth candidate has officially entered the race for Mayor of Ottawa. Stanley Pioro of Richmond has decided to run and if elected, has big plans like  rolling multiple departments into one and slashing the number of managers. He’d like to do the same with OC Transpo, he said, and fire the board of city-owned Hydro Ottawa.

While my happless Habs keep losing, the Ottawa Senators won their 9th in a row Saturday afternoon. A new team record!