After having a Wednesday night Pow wow at Taloola, the 2011 strategy for Scaledown was planned and I thought I’d discuss so readers cans see the thought process behind what is planned.

FIRST OFF, THE BEST NEWS IS NEW AND IMPROVED CONTRIBUTORS, Wait until you see what we have in store for you. Each Scaledown Contributor will bring years of experience in a variety of different fields and expertise. I believe that Scaledown was the first blog to introduce the concept of a blog posse to Windsor (multiple bloggers contributing the same blog). Well now the posse as a collective is going to be unmatched in Essex County for the amount of areas of expertise and the quality of that expertise

1. Does our name, vision, mission still reflect what we want to achieve - Yes

We might be tweaking our mission but scaledown is about residential intensification in the core, improving quality of life in our existing neighborhoods without needing to build new ones, grow outwards or rezone agricultural land for housing and commercial. Although, we do have some differing views from proposed new scaledown writers that do say let business builds where it sees a business case. But for the most part this is about our city using ridiculous and wildly exaggerated population growth projections in its planning process that we already know are false

2. Separating and Compartmentalizing controversial confrontational political side How do we avoid the “Bosco meltdown” of 2010 - First off Not one of my proudest moments (stand by what I said) but taking an absense of leave from scaledown as well as a lot of decluttering of my life has allowed me to grow personally. However, as depressing as this is for me, I guess this problem is not just all about me (so much for my narcissism). This is about segregating our political commentary so as not to distract and demotivate the informational resource that we all want scaledown to be.

One point was brought up that we use the example of the website www.pps.org but my views is that as not confrontational as that site may seem, I would bet anything it would still draw out some flames if it were a Windsor website.

We agreed that presenting the information in scaledown differently would allow both. Political commentary would be its own section and any posts in the need a better name “Information/Reporting/Resource” section that led to political commentary would be transferred to that section so as not to distract

We all want Scaledown to be action oriented. Maybe a separate projects section vs, information vs commentary

Or a Physical space vs community vs. politics sectioning

I’m gonna draw a few options up and see which ones look best

3. Focused Projects or what I call “The big Bang”- We’re going to pick a few projects and create a blueprint to achieving them. Not going to announce them just yet but We’re going to pick 2 of the Mayor’s Campaign promises and be a positive force for seeing them achieved. That means discussing all aspects of these items, being an information resource for councillors, the public and the media. We’re also going to layout what steps we feel need to be taken to achieve success in as much practical detail as needed.

We just don’t pontificate about Windsor, Scaledown achieves tangible results.

Some of our past Windsor Accomplishments

• Guests we’ve brought to Windsor, (Chris Turner and So many wonderful guests brought to Scaledown Radio by Chris Holt)
• Changing makeup and then participating in Development Charges Task Force
• Ward Boundary Review
• Instant turnaround Political Rallies for causes (day of vigilance for fire truck manufacturing heritage bldg torn down)
• Meetings with city officials and councillors to advise, lobby and inform on different issues
• I’m sure I’m leaving some out

You aint seen nothing yet, oh no You just ain’t seen nothing yet

In the mean time, Don’t change that channel Cause We’re coming at you

Or should I say Scaledown 2011 - Same Bat-time, Same Bat-Channel Tune in for something completely different

Oh, and P.S. I am not a spokesperson for my fellow bloggers so I’m hoping they chime in this post to add or correct anything they would like