Dave Meslin leading City Idol contestants on a tour of City Hall’s second floor in May 2006.  Photo by HiMY SYeD.
By Jonathan Goldsbie, Spacing
An A+ way to sheepishly admit something of which you’re not proud is to put out a release at 4:16 on a Friday afternoon.  Hence, we can infer that the City is not terribly keen on the press picking up on the draconian new measures taking effect in just over a week’s time that will fundamentally alter the way that the public — advocates, lobbyists, …

By JENNIFER LEWINGTON, The Globe and Mail
As soon as the bell rang yesterday to kick off the Toronto election race, a contingent of fresh and familiar faces quickly put their names on the ballot for Oct. 25.
First among the 40 who signed up on day one of the municipal campaign, up from 24 on the first day of the 2006 contest, was former Liberal Party national director Rocco Rossi, bidding to succeed Mayor David Miller.
“I will be able to put the team and the money in place to put a …

KarolynCoorsh joined the wiki and wrote about Torontopedia in the September 2007 editions of the Bloor-Bay Town Crier (page 5) and Midtown Town Crier (page 8 ) community newspapers.
http://towncrieronline.ca

By Carrie Brunet, InsideToronto
The Internet may be the last refuge of anonymity for many, but two local Toronto-boosters are hoping to make their site a place where neighbours meet and neighbourhoods grow.
Annex residents Himy Syed and Karen Sun have created Torontopedia.ca. The site, using similar technology to Wikipedia, allows users to add to or edit existing content online. The content is, of course, Toronto-centric.
“We ask that people use their real names,” said Syed. “You wouldn’t introduce yourself to a neighbour by saying ‘Hi, I’m CoolDude123.’”
Instead, Syed would like to see …

Torontopedia makes page 2 of the June edition of The Annex Gleaner community newspaper.
This is a shorter version which first appeared in The Liberty Gleaner.

Torontopedia written up on the front page of the May/June edition of The Liberty Gleaner community newspaper.

By The Mississauga Muse
This week in the Blog entry, “Who Runs this Town?” Announcement –City Idol documentary World Premiere” I shared a press release from the good folks at Who Runs this Town?
It began:
“For anyone who is interested in city politics, civic engagement, social exclusion and creative activism, this film is for you!
“City Idol” will have its world premiere at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival…
and later stated:
“World Premiere: Thursday April 26th, 9:30pm. Royal Cinema”
Well, my husband and I decided to go see it. I went because some of the …

By Marc Weisblott, The Globe and Mail
The cast and crew of the City Idol competition watched the Toronto municipal election results come in at Paupers Pub in the Annex, even if the television coverage hardly had the suspense of a World Cup match.
Citytv proclaimed David Miller’s re-election as soon as they signed on-air, and went to rival Jane Pitfield for an instantly incredulous reaction: “They’ve already decided on the winner?”
The effort to make no-contests like Kyle Rae’s inevitable victory in Toronto-Centre Rosedale sound suspenseful was a pretty fruitless allocation of CityNews resources, especially when …

By Ron Nurwisah (aka Boy Reporter), Torontoist
The last time a vote was this close the Supreme Court had to be called in. Last night’s Downtown and East York final for City Idol went to three ballots and a run-off before Desmond Cole (shown here in between Boy Reporter and fellow finalist Karen Sun) was picked by a raucous crowd at Lula Lounge to be downtown Toronto’s first City Idol.
Cole will be running in Ward 20 alongside former TV broadcaster Adam Vaughan and NDP nominee/Olivia Chow assistant …

By Ron Nurwisah, Torontoist
Come next Tuesday, Toronto will have its first four City Idol winners. Last weekend part-time Grad student and Ministry of the Environment employee Bahar Aminvaziri won the title of City Idol for North York. She’s declared that she’s running in crowded Ward 26, vacated by Mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield.
This Saturday, Scarberians will be picking their own City Idol. The event starts at 6:30pm at the Scarborough Civic Centre.
Monday sees the final for Downtown-East York. I’m one of the six finalists and ridiculously amazed …

By Jennifer Lewington, The Globe and Mail, page A13
Some fresh political faces with ambitions to pack off a few city hall lifers this Nov. 13 election day dropped by the clamshell this week.
With a Toronto protocol official as guide, candidates in the City Idol talent contest — the non-profit grassroots group formed to liven up local politics — got the cook’s tour.
On Thursday, about 15 of the 43 political wannabes dropped by the mayor’s office, checked in with election services and sat in briefly on a live session of council. …

By Sameer Vasta, blogTO
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan takes her focus away from Bush and instead derides Harper at an anti-war talk in UofT’s Convocation Hall. Himy has a great set of photos from the event, like the photo above.
The Star reports on the lack of jobs for students this summer, while unemployed journalism students look for jobs at The Star.
A 12-year-old boy dies after falling from his 16th floor apartment, and some parents still refuse to put screens in front of their windows.
City Idol contestants dress in costumes and …

By Dale Duncan, Eye Weekly
The Music Hall is almost packed when the lights dim and David Meslin walks onto the stage to kick off City Idol, the first in a series of events during which audience members will choose four candidates to run in November’s municipal election. The show is starting a bit behind schedule, and the crowd of nearly 600 people is getting anxious; after all, they have decided to spend their Friday night listening to a marathon of 82 back-to-back speeches by wannabe politicians.
It’s pure coincidence auditions for …

By Mike Smith
The buzz in the Danforth Music Hall on April 28 rivals that before a concert. It doesn’t feel like I’m about to witness municipal politics. City staffers mingle with local hipsters and artistic agitators of all ages. Tracks by local-kids-made-good Metric play over the sound system, nuggets of cerebral alt-pop presaging candidates straining to cram inventiveness into 60-second speeches.
This is City Idol, brainchild of Dave Meslin and the Who Runs This Town? project, in which nigh on 100 hopefuls will compete for a modestly funded municipal election campaign.
Meslin …

By St Dan, BlogTO
We live in a city where 44% of the population is represented by 2.5% of the councilors; where 60% of the population don’t exercise their civic franchise; where a councilor is nearly as likely to be acclaimed as to lose their seat; and where most people don’t even know when the next election is. Dave Meslin wants to change all that. I sat down with him at Cafe Diplomatico to talk about City Idol, his new project to increase public …

By Dale Duncan
Eye Weekly, February 16, 2006
BUZZ
Political karaoke

With the federal election finally out of the way, political nerds are now free to focus on the municipal race. Unfortunately, Toronto city council elections don’t usually attract a throng of loyal followers. Those who get off on municipal elections are a dying breed, a trend that’s reflected in our low voter turnout.
In 2003, only 38 per cent of Torontonians bothered to vote. According to Dave Meslin, this lack of participation has a lot to do with the way our city elections …