<html><head><base href="data:"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><base href="data:">FYI<div>R<br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Robert Milligan <<a href="mailto:mill@continuum.org">mill@continuum.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">August 11, 2010 6:26:43 PM GMT-04:00</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Editor-in-Chief Lynn Haddrall <<a href="mailto:lhaddrall@therecord.com">lhaddrall@therecord.com</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Cc: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Publisher Paul McCuaig <<a href="mailto:pmccuaig@therecord.com">pmccuaig@therecord.com</a>>, "President & CEO David P. Holland" <<a href="mailto:dholland@thestar.ca">dholland@thestar.ca</a>>, "Chair John A. Honderich" <<a href="mailto:jhonderich@thestar.ca">jhonderich@thestar.ca</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>Various Concerns & Suggestions Re: Content of the WR Record Newspaper</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">Lynn,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">Especially as a former Media Consultant and independent light rail transit (LRT) researcher, I have a concern that some staff writers (perhaps mostly the key writer) appear to be subtly biased against the idea of an LRT backbone for our Regional transit system. I sense/surmise that this is true because of a combination of the harbouring of a dated ideology (I'm a pragmatist myself) and information-lack that impairs understanding and good judgement. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; ">The following web-article about Charlotte NC's very enlightened <b>Republican</b> Mayor brings out situational nuances -- political, operational, ... -- that could help your staff raise their level of LRT-consciousness. And this example of the seeking out of higher community thinking & action from around the World could catalyze further similar steps towards helping distinguish your newspaper from its profit-draining competition -- be it other newspapers, traditional electronic media or the internet. <b>"How Charlotte’s mayor championed light rail"</b></div><a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-25-planning-politics-how-charlottes-mayor-championed-light-rail/P2">http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-25-planning-politics-how-charlottes-mayor-championed-light-rail/P2 </a>(If any staff or free-lance writers decide to use some of the information in this web-article for future stories, perhaps it could be done with adequate context.)<div><br></div><div>Please note that I strongly support an LRT only if the current system design is enhanced so as to optimally intensify road corridors <b>and</b> optimally attract middle-class ridership from their cars. My analysis suggests that neither interrelated LRT goal would be sufficiently realized. </div><div><br></div><div>Our Region's cherished leading-edge innovative image would be thereby tarnished. And this great lack of success would be rubbed in our face every time we hear of a story written/broadcast somewhere in the World about our LRT's unexpected failure to adequately innovate in our LRT system design.</div><div><br></div><div>Being a constructive critic, I have found and developed many new IDEAS that could "tweak" the current LRT system design -- it does have great potential for leading-edge enhancement -- towards a very high degree of goal realization within a reasonable budget. <b>That the Record shows absolutely no interest in what I have written -- except for an incompetently edited 200 word letter-to-the-editor -- does show gross negligence in serving the best interests of our Region!!</b></div><div><br></div><div>Increasingly the general public are being recognized as a source of good critiques and IDEAS that could help advance our community. While you are to be commended for your <b>Community Editorial Board</b> (which I lobbied for over many years beginning with former publisher KA Sandy Baird) -- <b>whose membership would be better if voted on by the readers </b>-- there are many people in our community, beyond professors & other prominent people, who can critique and suggest IDEAS towards community advancement. Greater involvement of these people in writing op-ed articles would also help make the WR Record more relevant to more people, especially if web linkages are integral. </div><div><br></div><div>The potential for greater citizen involvement -- especially involving new technologies -- is suggested is this report from the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; ">Reinventing Technology Assessment: A 21st Century Model". <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal; ">The subtitle says it all, "Using citizen participation, collaboration and expert analysis to inform and improve decision-making on issues involving science and technology". </span></span></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1414&fuseaction=topics.documents&group_id=271875">http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1414&fuseaction=topics.documents&group_id=271875</a></div></div><div>"</div><div><br></div><div>(I would hope that <b>Chair Honderich</b> would have a special interest in the continuing innovative success of Waterloo Region where his father <b>Beland </b>-- a great social innovator -- grew up on a farm near Baden. <b>John</b>, your help in making the WR Record a better community-advancing medium would be most appreciated -- more future-considering progressivism please as in the above Charlotte piece).</div><div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/business/media/10honderich.html?_r=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/business/media/10honderich.html?_r=1</a></div><div><br></div><div>Note: bcc's to other parties who may be interested are also being sent.</div><div><br></div><div>Best wishes,</div><div>Robert Milligan (New Dundee in Wilmot Township)</div><div><br></div><div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><b>Robert Milligan</b> is a member of Transport Action Ontario (formerly Transport 2000). He has a BSc in math-physics. a Graduate Diploma in Education and has completed many other courses including ones in industrial engineering, operations research, journalism and environmental health. He was a high school teacher, business systems analyst, media consultant, and environmental health analyst. Much of his time in retirement is now given freely to action-research for public projects, especially those with significant environmental and health features.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>