What’s going on with 10 major projects around the GTA

http://www.thestar.com/yourcitymycity/article/813841--what-s-going-on-with-10-major-projects-around-the-gta?bn=1

Wonder what ever happened to plans for Downsview Park, Union Station or that aquarium at the CN Tower? So have we. Here is an update on 10 major initiatives either planned or approved around Southern Ontario:

RIPLEY’S AQUARIUM

PROJECT: A proposal for a 14,000 square-metre Ripley’s Aquarium at the base of the CN Tower is going ahead.

UPDATE: The city’s planning department is hopeful that final approval from city council will come in August. At issue is a technicality with the bylaw that pertains to the land, which currently does not specify it can be zoned for an aquarium. Several other changes to Ripley’s original proposal, such as the shape and exact positioning of the structure, will also need to be made.

“We’re quite happy with the work (Ripley’s) has been doing to meet our requests,” says Linda Macdonald, a planning manager with the City of Toronto. As for changes to the bylaw, “it’s not a huge change in terms of what could have been built there; we just want the language to specifically state that it could be zoned for an aquarium and the location will be moved just a little bit to the east at the base of the CN Tower. We will report to the full council for the August meeting so we can get approval before the fall election.”

UNION STATION

PROJECT: The $640-million renovation of Union Station, which will feature two new GO Transit concourses, a new 14,860-square-metre retail level below, refurbishment of the station’s main hall and a new sheltered pedestrian corridor connecting to the PATH network northwest of the station.

UPDATE: The project is underway and on schedule, but you probably won’t notice much work yet. “We’ve mobilized construction and we’ve issued small contracts for delivery items and prework,” says Richard Coveduck, director of design and construction for the City of Toronto who is overseeing the project’s construction. “We’re on schedule.” The massive project, which is getting about $300 million from the federal and provincial governments, is set to be completed in 2015.

NEW COMMUNITIES OF OAKVILLE

PROJECT: Heralded in 2006 as a development breakthrough featuring high density with a natural habitat and plenty of recreational space, Oakville’s ambitious plan is steadily coming to fruition. The 3,100-hectare development from Dundas St. to Highway 407 between Tremaine Rd. and Ninth Line will eventually house 50,000 new residents and include a workforce of 35,000.

UPDATE: The first residential subdivision, at the northeast corner of Dundas St. and Neyagawa Blvd., was approved in March and earth has been moved to make way for more than 500 units. On the other side of Neyagawa, the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex, with four hockey arenas, soccer fields, a cricket pitch and a skateboard park, will open in September.

Zoning is also in place for a new hospital to be built at Third Line and Dundas St., but Oakville’s senior planner, Robert Thun, says it is hard to say when the rest of the development will be scheduled. “A lot of the infrastructure issues, sewage and roads, things like that, are up to Halton Region to move on.”

WASAGA BEACH

PROJECT: A $400-million Wasaga Beach development that was to include hotels, condos, restaurants, a large conference centre, an indoor amusement park, and a monorail to connect it all.

UPDATE: The plan was scrapped after a fire in November 2007 razed the area where the development was to take place. Twenty-one buildings were lost, which made the planned redevelopment of the area along the town’s popular main beach next to impossible. But the summer resort community on the shores of Georgian Bay did get the WasagaDome. Unfortunately, the multi-use entertainment facility at the middle of Beach Dr. that opened in July 2008 is one of six properties owned by Beachfront Developments, which recently went into receivership. The Dome was just renamed Waterfront Dome under new management and, because of the recent financial problems, is not expected to open for the season until July 1.

COXWELL SEWER PIPE

PROJECT: To tunnel a new path for a massive sewer pipe that serves about 750,000 residents in central Toronto. After a huge crack in the underground pipe was discovered using a robotic camera in 2008, the city decided bypassing the problem area was the best approach. The bypass portion begins adjacent to the parking lot for Taylor Creek Park, and will run beneath the ravine before it connects to the existing sewer at Coxwell Ave. and O’Connor Dr.

UPDATE: The project’s construction phase began about two weeks ago. The total length of the bypass will be about 500 metres and it is to be operational by January once it is connected to the pipe in the existing tunnel. Cost for the operation is $29 million, but the city says that is a fraction of what it would cost if the cracked pipe collapsed and sewage flooded into the Don River.

TORONTO ISLAND TUNNEL

PROJECT: Plans are still alive to build a pedestrian tunnel under Lake Ontario to the Toronto Island Airport, but government may not be involved. The Toronto Port Authority abandoned attempts to get federal stimulus funding for what in 2009 was pegged to be a $38-million project. The TPA determined the 2011 deadline for construction completion to qualify for the funding could not be met.

UPDATE: The Port Authority has now turned to private investors to raise the cash, in what it is calling a P3 (public-private partnership) initiative. The process is underway with public consultations, a private environmental assessment and search for a private partner to put up at least half of the $45 million now budgeted for the project. The TPA has stated it will raise the other half and will implement a “user pay” system to generate revenue.

GARDINER EXPRESSWAY

PROJECT: Plans for the eastern part of the Gardiner Expressway remain in limbo; however, Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto have devised an extensive environmental assessment process that includes a public consultation initiative to find a solution.

UPDATE: Four possibilities are being considered for the stretch of the Gardiner from the Don Valley Parkway to Jarvis St.: Removal, replacement, enhancement or maintaining what is already there. Waterfront Toronto is conducting an extensive environmental assessment to determine how best to integrate plans for the Gardiner with the rest of the developments in that area along the waterfront. To gather input, at least 16 public meetings are planned across the city. Details can be found at the Gardiner consultation website: www.gardinerconsultation.ca.

DOWNSVIEW PARK

PROJECT: Much has happened since the original “Tree City” design won an international competition about 10 years ago to convert 230 hectares of the old military base in North York into one of the world’s largest urban parks. Unfortunately, not much activity has involved actual development.

UPDATE: The land is still owned by the federal government, but the Downsview Park board has come up with a new plan, unlike the original, which saw almost all of the land used for green space and recreational facilities. Instead, the new plan includes residential and commercial developments across the north end of the park, part of the east and the southwest corner. In total, 7,300 residential units will be built, along with commercial and mid-size industrial space. About half of the overall area will be kept as park space or used for recreation. The board is in the final stages of negotiation with a company to develop almost 1,000 residential units in the Stanley Greene neighbourhood in the southwestern sector. Plans have hit a snag, however, as city council has presented a long list of changes to the board’s plan for the area (because the land would be sold to a private developer, the city would take over jurisdiction from the federal government).

Until requests from the city have been dealt with, the park’s development is on hold.

EAST BAYFRONT

PROJECT: East Bayfront development, between Lower Jarvis and Parliament St., and Lake Shore Blvd. to Lake Ontario, which includes 6,000 new residential units, 3 million square feet of commercial space and a continuous 1 kilometre promenade along the lake.

UPDATE: Waterfront Toronto will be holding two grand openings this summer to mark the early phase of the 10 to 15 year development plan for the East Bayfront project. Sherbourne Park (to be renamed July 16 after an open vote on Torontoist.com) and Canada’s Sugar Beach, set to become one of the country’s few urban beaches, are on schedule to open this summer. Construction of the Corus Quay entertainment building is also on schedule to open around the middle of this summer. The 280,000 square metre building on the shores of Lake Ontario, near the foot of Lower Jarvis St., will house Corus Entertainment’s studios.

EXHIBITION PLACE

PROJECT: A major facelift of Exhibition Place began in 2008 with the $49 million renovation of the Automotive Building, which was completed in October 2009 and reopened as the Allstream Centre. Major work still on the go includes reconstruction of the Princes’ Gates, the Direct Energy Centre and the Better Living Centre. A 320-suite convention hotel is also still planned.

UPDATE: Exhibition Place board chair Dianne Young says the various construction projects, with a budget of $24 million, are all ahead of schedule, with the first phase of work on the gates (a $6 million refurbishment) to be done by the end of May. The rest of the projects are to be completed by next spring. A $100 million, 320-suite convention hotel to be built by New York-based HK Hotels has passed a financial review by the city; if a site plan is approved, ground could be broken as early as the end of 2011.

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR RAISING HEALTHY RABBITS

http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=66974

Believe it or not, even if your back yard is no bigger than a queen-sized mattress (about 30 square feet), you can produce 200 pounds of homegrown meat every year ... by raising rabbits!

Domestic "hare" is a tasty, amazingly versatile food, too. Its flavor is often compared to chicken, and—like the barnyard fowl-rabbit is good fried, baked, stewed, cooked in casseroles, and prepared in many other ways. And the mammal's firm, fine-grained flesh actually makes for more healthful eatin' than does the bird's. In fact, rabbit has more protein—and less fat and fewer calories —per pound than any of our popular meats!

Rabbits are a wise choice for the small livestock fancier for other reasons, too: The critters are quite easy to raise, feed, and—because of their clean habits- care for. They're also quiet (which is an absolute "must" consideration for folks who're rearing animals in an urban area).

Of course, if you do get into caretaking a batch of the furry beasts, you'll want to keep your livestock as healthy and productive as possible. And—to help you in such efforts—I've prepared the following ten rules for raising disease-free rabbits (based on my earlier piece, "Ten Commandments for Healthy Livestock", published in MOTHER NO. 58, page 72).

I. RECOGNIZE YOUR MARKET

The main reason for raising your own rabbits is, obviously, to produce meat. So before you get started in your venture, you should know just how much food you can expect to get. A good doe (female rabbit) will yield four or five litters with six to nine youngsters a batch—per year. Each of the young animals should reach a weight of 4 to 4-1/2 pounds (at which point they'll dress out to between 2 and 2-1/2 pounds) by the standard butchering age of eight to ten weeks. Therefore, a single doe can contribute 60 pounds—or more—of meat for your larder in one year. That ain't a bad output from one 10- or 12-pound animal. (What's more, unlike the steer that yields all its 500 freezer-filling pounds of "harvest" in one lump sum, your rabbit meat will be produced-in meal-sized portions through outmost of the year.)

You won't need to throw out your rabbits' innards, either. In my household, we slice the kidneys in half, deep-fry the segments, and serve them—with beer—as hors d'oeuvres. Rabbit liver can be cooked and chopped up into a tasty sandwich spread, or fried with mushrooms and bacon. Even the offal from your butchered fryers can be utilized ... as a tasty treat for dogs or pigs.

Rabbits produce more than meat, too. You can, for instance, shovel their high-quality manure straight onto a vegetable plot. "Thumper pellets" have more nitrogen and phosphorous than does horse, cow, or pig manure ... but won't burn plants, as chicken droppings will.

You could also set up a ground level bin under your elevated rabbit hutches and start a worm farm in the collected droppings (many rabbit producers have successfully combined bunny and earthworm raising operations). Furthermore, the animals' pelts make excellent hats, collars, and mittens. And—along with all that—you may even find someone who'd like to buy your leftover rabbit feet for good luck charms. (We have to bury ours, since everyone around here feels lucky enough just being able to live in Kansas.)

Always remember, though, that you are the real market for the bounty your bunnies produce! Sure, you might eventually want to try your hand at commercial breeding ... but don't undertake such an enterprise until you've had enough experience to understand fully the labor, costs, and marketing possibilities involved. (I'd also strongly advise that you avoid any firms that advertise "get rich with rabbits" schemes in which the companies offer to buy back the bunnies you raise.)

II. BUILD YOUR ANIMAL HOUSE WELL

Domestic rabbits don't need a lot of space to hop around in, but—if they're to be as healthy and productive as possible—your animals will need some room in their cages. Each doe or buck should have a hutch that's at least 3 feet long, 2-1/2 feet deep, and 1-1/2 or 2 feet high. You can construct the sides and top of a "rabbit palace" out of small-gauge chicken wire, but be sure to use only sturdy (and easy-on-the-furry-feet) 1/2' X 1" galvanized hardware wire for the cage floor. The entire box can be framed on the outside with wood or metal (be careful ... rabbits will chew on any exposed wooden members) and should be constructed so that it stands well off the ground.

Your hutch will also need a door that's large enough to place the nesting box through (an entrance of about 14 inches on a side will do) and to let you reach every part of the cage's interior. You can build the portal from a piece of welded wire, and hinge the "opener" to swing inward.

Rabbits tolerate adverse weather and harsh climates fairly well. However, you should construct a rain- and snow-shedding sloped hutch roof and—if your area has harsh winter gusts —some form of windbreak. Actually, the animals suffer more in hot weather than they do in cold. Prolonged heat exposure can be fatal to your furry constituents, so be sure the rabbitry is positioned so it'll get adequate shade during sweltering midsummer days.

Along with a good hutch, you should supply your rabbits with a feeder, a waterer, and a nesting box. The food container can be nothing more than a heavy earthen crock, or a coffee can fastened to the side of the cage. On the other hand, you might prefer to buy one of the commercial automatic feeders that attach to the outside of the hutch and are therefore difficult for the bunnies to contaminate.

Waterers can be as plain as a frequently cleaned and replenished dish, or as elaborate as the commercial drip waterers. (You can construct a homemade automatic device by suspending a filled and inverted bottle over a watering pan. Just make sure the jug's lip is slightly under the pan's water level.)

Lastly, you should make a nesting box for each doe to use when she "kindles" (gives birth). This bunny nursery can be built out of wood and sized to be about 18-22 inches long by one foot wide by one foot high. Also, fasten a 3- to 9-inch wood strip along the bottom of its otherwise unobstructed front end— to keep the newborns from rolling out— and leave the top partly open to allow ventilation.

III. KNOW WHAT A NORMAL ANIMAL LOOKS AND FEELS LIKE

When you begin to look for your "seed stock" (most rabbit breeders start out with two does and one buck), you'll soon learn that the long-eared animals come in many different breeds and sizes. How. ever, most "hare raisers" across the country agree that the mid-sized (10 to 12 pounds) New Zealand White and California varieties make about the best backyard livestock.

Of course, you'll want to be certain that your potential purchases are all healthy, so examine each bunny—closely— before you buy. The inside of the critter's ears should not have the dry scabs that are caused by ear mites ... its hocks and feet should be free of sore spots ... its nose shouldn't be wet, runny, or crusty ... and its droppings should be firm and round. If the animal looks fit in these (and other) obvious respects (doe rabbits should have eight or more nipples, for instance), you can be pretty darn sure you've found a healthy critter.

By the way, NEVER lift a rabbit by its ears! Always pick up the fluffy furbearer by gently grasping a handful of skin at the scruff of its neck and—at the same time-placing a supporting hand under its bottom.

IV. CHOOSE THE BEST ANIMALS

Many of the individual traits that go into producing plenty of meaty bunnies for your table are passed on from one generation to the next, so be sure to buy superior specimens. Only purchase bucks and does with excellent production records (or youngsters bred from such prolific propagators). In addition, you can tell a lot about what sort of offspring your breeding stock will engender by feeling the potential parents. Most of a rabbit's meat comes from its hind legs, so gently squeeze any buck or doe's rear thighs to judge how plump and meaty those areas are. Give a "squeeze test" to the back—between the critter's pelvis and ribs—as well. This loin muscle section should be long, wide, and firm.

V. CULL THE WORST ANIMALS

It's an easy matter to remove the poor producers, negligent mothers, and seriously uncooperative breeders from your rabbit herd: Simply butcher and eat the critters. Unfortunately, though, even the most productive parents will decline in "breed ability" after five or six years, so your older animals should also be regularly culled.

VI. FEED THE CRITTERS CORRECTLY

Water is the single most important element in a rabbit's diet. A doe and her litter will consume a full gallon each day, so keep plenty of clean liquid refreshment in the hutches at all times.

When it comes to selecting a "chewable" feed, you should be aware that protein is the food ingredient most critical to assuring superior growth and production. Adult rabbits require a diet with at least 12% of the valuable foodstuff, while nursing mothers and growing youngsters need a 20% protein ration. A rabbit on a protein-deficient diet will grow more slowly, and—if it's a doe-bear fewer young and/or produce less milk.

Most rabbit raisers use commercially prepared feed, because the storebought pellets provide plenty of vital protein and are a completely balanced diet as well. To be dead honest about it, putting together a do-it-yourself rabbit feed that includes all the correct amounts of digestible nutrients, protein, minerals, vitamins, and sheer food energy—and at the same time avoids poisonous weeds, mold, or other toxins—is simply too difficult a task for the average guy or gal.

You can, of course, supplement your critters' meals with an occasional helping of root crops, green vegetables, and bits of hay. (WARNING: Greens will give young bunnies a severe case of diarrhea.) Keep in mind, though, that any time you add such a treat to your rabbits' ration, you will undoubtedly be decreasing the total percentage of protein in the animals' overall diet.

Baby bunnies should be given free access to all the feed they can eat ... to help them grow as quickly as possible. But don't overfeed your adults, because obesity is one of the most prevalent causes of infertility in both male and female rabbits. An adult buck or "dry" doe should be fed about three to six ounces of pellets a day, a pregnant female needs five to ten ounces daily, and nursing mothers may require as much as 20 ounces. (It's best to tape "ration sheets" right to your feeders ... so you know how much food each animal should get.)

One last note about rabbits' eating habits: You may one day notice that the critters are coprophagous (in other words, they eat their own fecal matter). This "recycling" process is a necessary part of the animals' digestive cycle that provides—among other essentials—niacin and riboflavin, so don't interpret the habit as a sign of ill health. On the other hand, don't worry if you never see co prophagy, either ... rabbits tend to engage in this (as well as most other feeding) at night, and are able to get the job done even in wire-bottomed cages.

VII. BE AWARE OF YOUR ANIMALS' CYCLES

All rabbit raisers should pay close attention to their critters' reproductive life patterns. Mature "hoppers" can be bred year round. Does actually don't ovulate until ten hours after they're bred, so every mating union should be a fertile one ... providing neither animal is overweight and the buck has not been exposed to too much hot weather (as with many animals, excess heat causes shortterm sterility in male rabbits).

You can tell whether your doe is "in the family way" by giving her a checkup two weeks after her mating. At that time place the animal on a table, restrain her with a one-handed scruff-of-the-neck grasp, and "palpate" her belly with the other hand: that is, squeeze gently and slide your hand from the lower rib cage back and up to the pelvic region, feeling carefully for any marblesized placentas.

A doe will usually give birth within 30 to 32 days following conception, so place the nesting box in the animal's hutch no later than 27 days after her mating. You'll be able to wean the fast-growing youngsters within two months following their birth—and the doe can be rebred before this separation—but be sure to give the mother a good two weeks' rest between the end of caring for her past litter and the beginning of raising the next offspring.

VIII. KEEP MEANINGFUL RECORDS

Now if you can imagine the difficulty you'll face in trying to keep track of when to wean and when to mate and when one doe is due to kindle and which of your bunnies came from which doe—and do all this while those busy rabbits are multiplying faster than electronic calculators—you'll readily understand the need for keeping good accurate records. (Without such information, it's flat impossible to tell which rabbits are your most—and least-productive breeders.)

You can design your own buck and doe breeding forms, or use the ready-made record-keeping charts available from Purina Chows. (To get a packet of 45 record cards and 30 record sheets—10 of each for bucks and the rest for does—just write Ralston Purina Company, Dept. TMEN113, Cashier 3T, Checkerboard Square, St. Louis, Missouri 63188. The feed company will send the material at no cost.) Plus, if your flock starts getting really large, you may even want to tattoo each rabbit's ear for identification.

IX. CODDLE THE YOUNGSTERS

Newborn bunnies don't need much human attention because their momma will take care of everything ... except providing the nest box (that's your job). Do be sure to give the nursery a good supply of clean straw or wood shavings:

three or four inches worth in summer, and twice that amount during the winter. Then put the box in the hutch three or four days before the doe is due (any earlier than that and she may turn her delivery room into a toilet). The mother will then contribute some of her own fur to the nest to make the home even more comfy for the expected young'uns.

The day after the bunnies are born, check the box and remove any deceased babies. Then—after the little critters are three or four weeks old remove the nest box itself and let the new residents get used to the hutch. (Remember that—before the portable nursery is brought back for a new batch of youngsters—it must be thoroughly emptied, cleaned, and disinfected.)

X. HELP YOUR ANIMALS PREVENT THElR OWN DISEASE

I sometimes get tired of pounding my fist upon the table and shouting, " Sanitation! Sanitation! Sanitation! ". But doggone it, if you buy and raise good rabbits ... feed your critters correctly ... and keep your rabbitry clean, clean, clean, you'll avoid 99-44/100% of all rabbit disease problems.

However, there are a couple of persistent health bugaboos that may require particular attention. For example, ear mites—that hide out in the crevices of your hutch and love to nibble the insides of rabbit ears—are often a problem. You can control the pests by plopping a few drops of mineral or olive oil into your bunnies' "antennas" once every six weeks or so.

In addition, the rough wire hutch floor can sometimes produce sores, scabs, and even inflammation on the animals' feet ... especially their hocks. You can help remedy that problem by placing flat 6" X 10" boards over part of the pen floors (away from the animals' favorite toilet comers) so your bunnies can rest their weary toes in comfort.

That about sums it up. You now know all the basic information you'll need to breed healthy, productive rabbits. Once you've tried raising the prolific critters, I think you'll be surprised—as I constantly am—that more folks don't take advantage of the good, healthful eating that the long-eared livestock can produce for rural, suburban, and urban dwellers alike!

How to Save Local Newspapers

http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/2010/04/how-to-save-local-newspapers/

Meet Bobbie Carlton. She’s come up with an idea that every newspaper publisher in New England should have had but didn’t. Her success demonstrates how news publishers can reinvent themselves and survive – maybe even thrive – but only if they have completely rethink what they do.

Carlton isn’t a publisher. She’s a career public relations professional who set out a little more than a year ago to figure out a way to drum up new business in a dismal economy. She knew that there were still plenty of innovative companies in the area that were starved for visibility. Finding investors and customers in a crummy economy was a time-consuming, trial-and-error process. The few conferences that were available for such purposes were either expensive or subjected applicants to long and seemingly arbitrary approvals processes.

Carlton hit on the idea of a cheap, frictionless approach she called Mass Innovation Nights. The events would be free to everyone. Entrepreneurs could show their stuff and hope to catch a big break.

Carlton borrowed meeting space from a local museum. She partnered with Dan Englander of High Rock Media to build a website and a Twitter account and started promoting Mass Innovation Nights entirely through online word of mouth. There was no hype and no inflated expectations. If the event bombed, then attendees got what they paid for.

Only the event didn’t bomb. MassInno, as the affair is now known, is a raging success, with exhibitors now competing for limited space. The most recent meetup was tweeted more than 600 times and drew more than 400 attendees. Carlton is toying with the idea of syndicating the idea across the country.

Today, Carlton has so much business coming in from startups that were boosted by Mass Innovation Nights that she’s having to refer work elsewhere. That makes her a popular person in the depressed local PR economy. Partner High Rock is booming, too.

Why was one woman able to exploit a simple idea at almost no cost while media institutions with hundreds of employees stood by and watched? Because newspapers didn’t think it was their job. They believed they were in the advertising delivery business, not the business of growing the local economy. Newspapers that continue to think this way will shrivel and die over the next few years. But there is a path to salvation. It’s in doing what Bobbie Carlton is doing on a grand scale. But how many publishers are willing to make the sacrifices to seize that opportunity?

The Folly of Paywalls

Newspaper publishers are confronting their current business challenges in the wrong way. They’re trying to battle online competition by becoming more like their competitors, building massive online presences to serve global audiences when their advantage is inherently local. They’re also hyper-focused on a source of revenue – advertising – that will only become more competitive and less profitable in the future. They need to change the rules.

The eyes of the industry are currently trained on The New York Times, which is trying to re-bottle the evil genie it released 15 years ago when it elected to give away its content for free. The Times’ paywall experiment will be modestly successful because it is The New York Times. Publishers in Baltimore, Dallas, St. Louis and hundreds of other cities will be unable to exploit the idea, however, because they lack the Times’ brand and international reach. Paywalls are a waste of time.

Instead, publishers should concentrate on diversifying their revenue streams away from advertising and into local business services that promise stability, growth and a future. This is a market in which they have a natural advantage. Small business is the one great untapped revenue opportunity left in America, which is why giants like American Express and Bank of America are practically throwing money at the market. But these global companies lack the local connections and the feet on the street to truly become partners in small business success. Local newspapers have that advantage.

Most major metro dailies have long regarded local business advertising as the cherry on top of the sundae of display contracts from national advertisers and department stores. Local businesses fueled the classified section, but counted for only a small part of the total revenue picture. Now national advertisers are marketing directly to customers, classified advertising has collapsed and local businesses are publishers’ only hope for a future.

The Local Opportunity

Apture™

by K Sandberg

Look at the merchants in your local community. Most don’t know the first thing about marketing. Few are even very good at managing their businesses. Marketing is tough for little guys. They spend their dollars on a mishmash of coupons, flyers, Yellow Pages listings, classified ads and occasional radio and television. Few of them track ROI or have any means to assess the performance of these investments. Online, they’re practically invisible. They know nothing about search marketing or customer relationship management (CRM). In short, the kinds of sophisticated analytics and tools that big companies use are out of reach to mom-and-pops. Lots of businesses want to market better, but they don’t have anyone to teach them how or give them a cost-effective platform to do so.

News organizations can be that platform. They can start by delivering a basic package of marketing and business services on a subscription basis and expand as local conditions dictate. They can potentially manage many of the overhead and backroom activities that sap small business owners’ time. Here are five ways news organizations can monetize this opportunity. There are plenty more where these come from:

Website Development – Few small businesses know anything about the Web. Outside of restaurants and entertainment providers, most have websites that are little more than online brochures, if they have websites at all. Their sites aren’t optimized for search, don’t deliver calls to action and have no means to retain visitors as subscribers. Forget about analytics. If small business owners want to adopt new platforms like blogs or Twitter, they either pay outside consultants or figure out the tools through extensive trial and error.

This is a huge opportunity for news organizations. These companies have long-term relationships with business customers, local credibility and expertise in publishing. They can deliver advanced online features like e-commerce, e-mail marketing, search optimization and analytics at low cost by leveraging economies of scale. There is no reason why the local newspaper publisher can’t also be the dominant provider of online services to local businesses.

Apture™

by Joe Loong

Affinity Programs – Every hotel, airline, national retailer and supermarket chain has a loyalty program these days. The reason is simple: they work. Customers who carry affinity cards typically buy between 10% and 30% more product from the merchants who offer the programs than from those who don’t. Unfortunately, few small-business owners have the option of participating. The administrative overhead is high and customers won’t carry cards for every merchant in their community. News organizations could set up these plans as cooperatives, allowing groups of noncompetitive businesses to participate at a modest cost. Commercial grade analytics could be bought and scaled to provide reporting that demonstrates the return to business owners. Revenue would come from the fees paid by the participants and potentially even subscribers to premium buyers clubs.

Events – Lots of small businesses would like to use event marketing to share their expertise and meet new prospects, but if you’ve ever tried to stage a promotional event, you know what an ordeal it is. The details and hidden costs can be overwhelming and few small businesses have the means to manage the leads that result. Again, publishers can come to the rescue. By building expertise at event management and applying it to different businesses within the community, publishers can provide targeted thematic events (for example, outdoor recreation or pet care) at a scale and cost that makes them affordable to local businesses. They can gather and manage leads that result and create marketing programs that optimize them for their customers. The news organization becomes a business partner and consultant, not just an outlet for advertising. There’s even the possibility of generating fees from event attendees in some cases.

Value-Added Advertising – Craigslist has won the war for the low end of the recruitment advertising market. Publishers need to stop mourning the loss of this commodity business and move the bar higher. Christopher Ryan and Steve Outing published a manifesto for competing with Craigslist more than a year ago. Unfortunately, few publishers seemed to have noticed. We won’t try to reinvent their wheel; ReinventingClassifieds.com has some great ideas publishers can apply to take advantage of their local reach and marginalize Craigslist.

For example, they can offer real estate agents or car dealers video walk-throughs of the products they sell. Or they can provide peer recommendations like Angie’s List (more than one million members at $35/year). They can tweet ads and push them to mobile phones. They can even provide transaction and fulfillment services that Craigslist can’t. In short, they can do all the things that Craigslist doesn’t do and build these features into a monthly subscription service that makes them all but invisible to the customer.

Transaction Fees – If you’ve ever used Ticketmaster, you’ve experienced the sticker shock of discovering that those $40 Nine Inch Nails tickets carry an eight dollar “convenience fee.” But you pay it because it’s easier than standing in line for two hours. Publishers can tap into that revenue stream.

The local garden show probably isn’t interested in ticket brokering. It may outsource the task to TicketMaster for the sake of convenience but it would really be interested in using a local organization that could combine fees with demographic marketing, behavioral targeting and amenities like e-commerce. Who better to deliver that experience than a service provider that knows the local community? Do you think restaurant or hair salon owners would like to have automated scheduling? The newspaper could provide that, too, with fees from the buyer, the seller or both.

Bottom Line

The five scenarios outlined above are just a sample of the opportunities available to local publishers once they stop thinking of themselves as advertising vessels and become partners in the success of local businesses. At their core, newspapers are marketing tools. Instead of simply providing advertising space, publishers can become marketing consultants, value-added resellers and service bureaus. They can offer the kind of expertise and analytics at a price that mom-and-pops can finally afford.

There are many more possibilities: Publishers could offer accounting, tax preparation, creative services, executive recruitment, business telephony, technical support, facilities management, order fulfillment and so on. Where they lack in-house expertise, they could partner with local providers under an approved-vendor program. Does this mean publishers might compete with their prospective advertisers? Sure, but how many of those companies are advertising now, anyway? Members of the approved-vendor program could potentially buy bigger schedules from the publishers who feed them business.

Back to the Future

Few publishers will choose to pursue the business model outlined here. It’s too hard. Departments such as circulation will need to be downsized or eliminated. Sales people must be retrained or released. Experts must be hired in new areas and partnership networks will have to be formed. New services will have to be created and priced, software licenses acquired and technology infrastructure put in place. These changes are painful, but reinvention isn’t pretty. It’s easier to sit and hope that paywalls will succeed in letting you do what you’ve always done. Good luck with that.

If this transformation sounds radical or risky, consider that it’s already been done. More than 20 years ago, many computer companies faced the same kind of near-death experience that confronts newspaper publishers today. Their core hardware products, which generated 80% margins, were suddenly assaulted by cheap, standardized components. Many of these companies died or were acquired, but a few, like IBM and Hewlett-Packard, took the strong medicine that was necessary to transform themselves. Today, IBM derives more than half its revenue from services, a revenue stream that barely even existed 20 years ago. Its 2008 revenue was a record $103 billion. HP made the shift even earlier. Twenty years ago, it was less than one-fifth IBM’s size. In 2009, it was bigger than IBM.

Thanks for sticking with us through this long essay. Now tell us what you think. Are we off the wall or could business services be the prescription that nurses this dying industry back to health?

An inside look at 573,948 Toronto homes

http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/realestate/article/806963--an-inside-look-at-573-948-toronto-homes

Pssst . . . wanna buy Toronto? Got a cool $254 billion?

That’s the total value of Toronto’s 573,948 single family homes, according to the property assessments, although in our current, overheated real estate market the actual sales figure could be 20 per cent more. That huge number is based on an exclusive Star analysis of the Municipal Property Assessment Corp’s (MPAC’s) property assessment data. Our number-crunching provides a snapshot of Toronto real estate that’s never been taken before, and has unearthed some startling statistics:

• The biggest house in the city, with more than 31,000 square feet of living space, is 100 times the size of the smallest, with a mere 294.
• Condos make up 75 per cent of homes built since 2000. In 2008, condos were 86 per cent of new homes.
• Condo buyers are increasingly paying more for less. Assessments for newly built condos have skyrocketed to more than $400 per square foot — 40 per cent above the overall average of $288 — while the size has dropped 20 per cent over 10 years to an average of 795 sq. ft. in 2008.
• More than 4,600 condos are less than 500 square feet.
• The assessment rate for new detached houses — which are being built bigger — is 10 per cent above the overall average at $300 per square foot.
• New, semi-detached houses offer the best deal per square foot. Assessment rates are less than $200 per square foot, 20 per cent below the overall $251 average.
• In 39 of Toronto’s 532 census tract neighbourhoods, the average assessed value of a detached house is more than $1 million. Across the city, 24,000 detached houses are assessed at more than $1 million — and 33 at more than $10 million.
• In 20 neighbourhoods, the average assessment is less than $300,000, and in one area, less than $200,000.
• The largest condo in the official records is more than 8,000 square feet, 40 times larger than the smallest, with less than 200 square feet.
• The average assessment of single-family homes in Toronto is $442,935, based on the estimated resale price in January 2008. The average resale price of single-family homes in Toronto in the past year was $447,609, and for April was $479,340, according Toronto Real Estate Board figures.

These numbers paint an extremely detailed portrait of Toronto property values.

Catherine Farley can be reached at cfarley@thestar.ca.

Eliminate Public Schools

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/eliminate-public-schools/

The following is a fictionalized scenario of what might result if the public schools were eliminated. At the moment this idea has a near-zero, if not zero, chance of happening, particularly in those states whose constitutions now contain or have been construed to contain provisions enshrining a “positive right” to an education, meaning a positive claim upon the labor and property of others, a claim backed by the left’s stock-in-trade, the coercive force of the state. As resistance to ever-bigger government increases, with a commensurate greater appreciation for individual liberty, state constitutions will be re-examined, perhaps even amended. What follows is not a prediction, only an exploration which in turn may lead to better ideas. Finally, readers should bear in mind that eliminating public schooling is not the elimination of education, but rather the expansion of both freedom and education.

“Alright, George Bailey, you’ve got your wish. The public schools were never invented. Now stay calm, and don’t fret about the many strange but freedom-affirming phenomena you’ll encounter as you stroll through a re-invigorated Bedford Falls. Ready?”

Freedom for Taxpayers. Property taxpayers would no longer support a system which even its supporters readily admit must be “structurally improved” [Statist-ese for, “Give us more money”]. Anything in constant need of major improvements, not just routine adjustment, which produces uneducated “graduates” year after year (JayWalking anyone?), for decades on end, is irredeemable, netting very poor investment returns for taxpayers despite huge outlays. Since a sizable percentage of local municipal budgets (usually well over 50%, typically with supplemental “help” from state capitols) is dedicated to school funding, the elimination of this line item will give meaningful property tax relief.

Freedom for Municipalities. In the view of some – though at this point in time not nearly enough – all education is intrinsically coupled with morality, religion, and the reason of life itself. Necessarily it cannot then lawfully be a proper function of government if we’re to be serious about individual liberty and separating church and state. Governmental involvement in matters with religious overtones and nuances including differing worldviews conflicts with the Establishment Clause and state constitutional counterparts. Freed of school budgets, cities and towns will confine themselves to matters within their appropriate purview, generally subjects associated with public safety.

Freedom for Parents. Parents, relieved of a portion of their property tax burden, will have greater disposable income with which they may choose a private school appropriate for their child. Including a home school. Today, families wanting alternative schooling for their child/ren pay two tuitions, one to the chosen school directly, another to the municipality to support the public schools.

Freedom for Students. Relief to students who simply do not want to spend time in school for whatever reason (e.g., attitude, disinterest, safety concerns). Relief from One-Size-Fits-All-ism. How these now-emancipated students will choose to spend their newly-acquired time and freedom will be left to them and their parents. For the student willing to learn there will be choices galore as a thousand points of light evolve following the demise of the public schools. Throughout their history Americans have shown themselves to be both generous and ingenious. From scholarships and tuition assistance (remember, property tax relief will enable all citizens to spend their property tax relief as they see fit, not as government sees fit) to an array of different school types, all manner of ideas will come forth on “what to do with all those children.” To believe otherwise is to concede that we have lost our way as well as our senses of freedom and personal responsibility, and that only overseeing superintendent-esque nannies can save us.

Repealing the truancy and compulsory attendance laws frees students enabling but also requiring them to become personally responsible for usefully filling their time, simultaneously serving as a sobering means of correcting immature attitudes via a dose of reality. Students and parents will of necessity become discerning consumers of those educational services which they desire. Consider this example. A parent/s believes that comprehensive sex education, including awareness of all different perspectives of human sexuality, is an important educational value and that such information should be taught, at all grade levels, to his/her/their child. These parents will choose, through free association and without compulsion, schools accommodating their expressed wishes. While acknowledging the rights of those parents to choose as they may, other parents might avoid those choices, preferring instead other educational values which for them may include emphasis on math & science, fine arts, building trades, mechanics, religious instruction, and so forth. They too will decide through free association and without compulsion. Open choice aka freedom aka liberty will enable each educational consumer to receive the specific educational values which he/she/they seek/s without the application of governmental force upon others who do not share or want those educational choices.

Freedom for Teachers. To those who tsk-tsk the viable idea of doing away with the public schools, they should know that eliminating the public schools will not be the end of education. To the contrary it will encourage genuine learning. In an atmosphere of non-compulsion students who want to learn a chosen curriculum will present themselves before teachers who want to teach. The discipline problems of which teachers complain, including bullying, will largely disappear. Teaching to willing students is a joy unto itself. Having been a teacher in several venues – as seminar instructor on tax law matters to other accounting, tax & legal professionals; as host of numerous client seminars; as a homeschooling parent – I am keenly aware of how fulfilling it is to teach receptive students.

Freedom from Incompetence or Indifference. Every large public school system has its “rubber rooms” (search, “rubber rooms Stossel”) to which incompetent, insubordinate, or dangerous teachers are assigned, at full pay, while their cases for dismissal wend their way through a labyrinth of union contract provisions. Why such rooms? Because in the perverse world of public schools it is next to impossible to get rid of bad teachers. Despite the overriding concern, stated endlessly by politicians, bureaucrats and unions, of how much they all want to “educate the children,” the game is really about protecting government and its employees. Big government types, invariably “led” by Democrats and lapdog teachers’ unions, are the biggest offenders. Bureaucrats and union members have little concern whether children learn or not; their principal worry is their own paycheck. And please, let’s not hear about the many fine, dedicated teachers, blah, blah, blah. Even if true, these teachers are like students and parents: trapped in the grip of the union–big government vise. The fine intentions of these teachers will never loosen this grip; only an adherence to limited government and a commitment to personal responsibility will do that.

Freedom for the Uninvolved. Elimination corrects an inequity visited upon those who have no current direct stake in the educational system. Why should those who have no school-aged children be burdened with the schooling costs of those who do? If you choose to raise children, your obligations include clothing, sustenance, housing, and education. Before setting out, the cost is to be counted. The decision to start a family was yours, not that of your elderly, childless, or empty-nest neighbors. It doesn’t take a village to raise a family: it takes a responsible mom and a responsible dad. As matters now stand your neighbors, not exercising any influence in your family-raising decision, are sent the bill for educating your children. All sorts of rationales are given for continuing this unfairness. They reduce to one: We benefit when all citizens are educated, or in bumper sticker language, If you think public education is expensive, try ignorance. This slogan’s encapsulated arrogance assumes that people are incapable of acting in their own best interests and would forever remain inert until the Nanny State intercedes and affects a rescue, all for their own good you must understand. Who else but leftists sell people for such short money? If those who are inadequately prepared understand that the principal difference between themselves and others who have better prospects, employment, or social standing, is education, common sense says that the former will know what to do.

Freedom to Choose. Each of us has different driving wants and needs; we choose cars accordingly, based on factors which include cost, safety, options, color, type (sedans, wagons, SUVs, minivans, pickups, light & heavy duty trucks, et alia). Yet the choice of schooling, also subject to a variety of factors, is far more determinative of an individual’s life direction than the choice of a car whose life span is a matter of mere years. Freedom prevails when parents and students, acting as consumers, make thoughtful choices for their purposes among competing alternatives with funds that would otherwise have been taken from them and wasted on a scheme that has failed for decades. Even leftists endorse educational choice, but only for themselves. When given the chance, leftists never choose the public option. Obama’s daughters go to private schools, as did Chelsea Clinton, as did Ted Kennedy’s kids. If this is leadership by example, then the people too should be able to choose. “Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do.”

What is more, genuine educational choice (without a public option) will defuse, at least in the school setting, many of society’s divisive issues, issues brought into the public schools through raw political power imposed on students, a captive, generally powerless audience. Without forced public schooling there would be no more of the seemingly endless battles on church-state separation and courses on human sexuality. Gone and unmissed will be battles over religious songs and symbols, whether religious days special to a particular faith should be recognized as school holidays, refusals to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, prayers at games or graduations. Mandatory sex education and associated hot-button topics such as abortion counseling, creationism, evolution, environ-ism, and countless other subjects which at best are only marginally tangential to core academic subjects, will be dealt with in a manner agreeable to students and parents since they as consumers will be freely choosing schools compatible with their wishes and expectations in these areas.

Tuition will be reasonable as schools will no longer be forced by law to deal with the selfish demands of public employee unions. Rather than serving the interests of their employees and administrators, schools will compete as every other successful consumer service competes, by placing the customer, here parents and students, not employees, as Priority #1. Sometime in the 1980s I heard Lane Kirkland, a then important union leader, speak at an American Federation of Teachers function. After his prepared remarks he took some questions one of which touched on the declining academic achievements of students. His blunt and forceful answer remains with me to this day. Paraphrased, “When children become union members paying union dues, then I’ll care about children’s education.”

Ending educational compulsion will bring freedom and freedom will bring responsibility and accountability. Schools in the post–public school era will be burdened to please their customers, parents and students, if they wish to succeed. Today, failing public schools are neither punished nor eliminated; rather, in the eccentric world that defines the “public domain,” they’re rewarded by being allowed to continue, often with increased funding, in order to “self-correct.” Bailouts may be new to Wall Street & Detroit carmakers, but bailouts have long been a part of failed public school systems.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss the beneficial effects accruing to the American system of federalism, which will naturally flow from the elimination of public schooling.

Regards,
Paul Galvin