For this year’s city election in Ward 19 there is no incumbent. We have a great group of young and enthusiastic candidates looking to make a mark on Toronto. We’ve been profiling them in the past couple months, but now’s the time to bring them all together.

On October 5th we will host a debate at The Garrison, 1197 Dundas St West, west of Ossington, where we’ll discuss and debate the issues in Ward 19, and specifically in the Ossington area.

Come join us with Karen Sun, Mike Layton, Sean McCormick and Jim Likourzes and more candidates as we discuss the issues facing the neighbourhood.

Issues that come to mind are:

- The recent patio restrictions south of Bloor St,
- Salt Wine Bar being held closed due to moratorium restrictions,
- Balancing neighbourhood growth with local resident’s concerns,
- How to enforce current local bylaws. (or should they be enforced) and
- Ensuring local resident and business feedback into local issues.
- Building better transit for the neighbourhood

However, we don’t know what issues are of primary concern to you. So we’d like to invite our readers to comment below and tell us what you care about, and what you would like us to ask the candidates for City Council. You are all welcome to attend the debate (or let us know you’re coming on Facebook). Admission is free and it is open to the public.

We’ll be trying to live-blog the event and we may even get it up on UStream so if you miss it, or can’t be there, you’ll be kept up to date.

Robert Washburn, a journalism professor, asked me to write a piece about what we are doing here, which is, essentially, hyper-local blogging. We’re writing about a small piece of the city – of the world – and giving our perspective on the area.

Today that was published in J-Source, and online Journal of Journalism. (doesn’t that sound cool?)

Check it out here.

(read the whole thing- it’s how we got here)