Okay, folks, I don’t know WHAT is going on out there, but clearly civic politics has become the hot scene in blogworld. My stats for September show that this blog hit the 90,000-views mark for the first time since I started last August. (90,242 to be exact)
And the number of local-politics blogs continues to increase. I note that park-board commissioner/perhaps mayoral candidate Ian Robertson has decided to start a blog as of Sept. 16, though it only has the one opening post on it so far.
At this point, I’d like to acknowledge all the people out there who are blogging on their own civic-politics scenes, helping spur interest in what’s going on locally and creating a sense of community.
Among them:
Langley Township councillor Jordan Bateman at www.langleypolitics.com, who has been doing this, I think, longer than any of the rest of us
In North Vancouver, http://northvancouverpolitics.blogspot.com/
In Surrey, Paul Hillsdon’s blog, http://www.paulhillsdon.com/blog/
Stephen Rees’ blog on transportation issues in the Lower Mainland, at http://stephenrees.wordpress.com/
ADDED SUGGESTIONS
www.tenthtothefraser.ca on New Westminster politics
Stuart Mackinnon’s blog on parks, www.betterparks.blogspot.com
I understand there may be a Coquitlam blog starting up soon, and I’d be happy to hear about other blogs I may have missed. I still have entire minutes of my day that are unfilled and it would be great to hear about more blogs I and others should be checking.
One additional note in my September report: Most of the hits on this blog appear to be from people who are regular readers and simply come to the site, as opposed to particular posts. But some people do come in through individual posts that interest them. The top-ranking ones in September, according to the hits count on my webalizer analysis were
1. The city’s legal-department memo on the relationship between city and park board
2. My little “bliss post” written following a string of beautiful sunny days in the city (go figure that one out!)
3. The post on complaints about the Canada Line design
4. The post about the city’s drug-policy chief, Don MacPherson, retiring
5. The post about B.C.’s proposed new law that would give police the power to take homeless people to shelters.
Weird, but there it is.