WE HAVE A WINNER!

"Poker boats bring three to five million bucks to the city in three days."

-- Bob Ackley, muscle boat owner.

There's your stereotype, right there.

Read the whole thing.

THE POKER RUN is on the FOCUS Kingston Steering Committee Agenda for their July 15th meeting.

It's amazing that a KEDCO report that KEDCO itself says is inaccurate and statistically insignificant is nonetheless touted, again, by City Staff apparently desperate to supinate for the BIA, greenwash the event, and give all this a positive cultural and historical spin.

Still no word on requiring Poker Runs America to purchase obnoxious-offset-credits.

REMINDER that April 30th is the deadline to fill-out the City of Kingston's truly asinine Poker Run Feedback form.

DIRECT LINK to the City of Kingston's multiple-choice Poker Run Feedback survey.

It's a shame that the environmental aspect of the Poker Run seems to have singularly hijacked the conversation. "The environment" has always been a side-issue, and everybody knows it.

The survey offers no selection akin to "the Poker Run is OBNOXIOUS" which would be close to the median viewpoint on the matter.

POKER RUN PUBLIC MEETING to...

...gauge community views regarding the cultural and social impacts of the Poker Run at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, in Memorial Hall, City Hall, 216 Ontario St.

A funny coincidence: April 22nd is Earth Day.

Given past Downtown Kingston shenanigans, it will be interesting to see who chairs the meeting.

Certainly the meeting location, and meeting start-time, are ideal for our self-serving report-publishing Downtown Kingston friends.

ESTIMATED ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT of the 2009 Thousand Islands Poker Run is on Council's next agenda.

The KEDCO report is based on a survey (conducted by the Downtown BIA) and phone interviews (with spokespersons for Poker Runs America and Power Boating Canada).

All strong proponents of the Poker Run.

Despite the claim of attracting 14,500 spectators, KEDCO and the BIA could gather only 91 survey responses. These are noted as follows:

It should be noted that conclusions based on 91 results is statistically insignificant and does not adequately reflect the overall economic impact of the event. In this case, the economic impact report is inaccurate and would not be considered as part of a post-analysis report.

So the survey results are not reliable and are of no value. However, this doesn't prevent KEDCO from extrapolating conclusions and tabling them with six- and seven-digit precision.

Does the report contain some reliable information?

Apparently not. The report doesn't tell us how many boats were in in the 2009 Poker Run.

The number of boats according to The Whig last August, was "more than 60" which is far less than the hundred or hundreds usually touted by organizers.

Wouldn't you expect KEDCO to provide, at a minimum, data that could be used, for future comparisons?. By omitting the number of boats from this economic impact report -- one of the only available objective measures of event quality and scale -- KEDCO effectively delivers a report with little future-reference value.

The report claims that the 2009 event had 304 participants, or 360 participants depending on whether you read paragraph 3, or paragraph 4, on page 7 (page 11 of the council PDF). How "more than 60-boats" turns into KEDCO's "304 participants" or "360 participants", including spouses and children, we do not know..

In view of the non-disclosure of the number of boats, the lumping of driver's spouses and children to inflate the number of "event participants", this all appears very suspicious.

Furthermore there's no mention of any negative survey responses. Several survey questions have "good" at the low-end of multiple-choice responses but a possible response of "poor" was only related to the questions related to "music quality" and "the variety of events".

In many respects this KEDCO report, as tabled, tells us a lot about KEDCO and the BIA in the Rosen-era.

In effect, the report says "we have no reliable data" and "we don't tell you even the easiest objective metrics" but, nonetheless, "the poker-run generates MILLIONS".

Related to that, the report's cover-page is notable because of its Disclaimer and the Release of Liability Statement, which we haven't seen before from KEDCO.

Do you think this might be, partly, because of fallout from KEDCO's Economic Benefits of the LVEC report from 2005?

THE POKER RUN is Bill Hutchins' subject in last week's issue of Kingston EMC. (Does anyone cover the Council beat better than Bill Hutchins?)

IT'S THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY ALREADY.

Here is the status of online marketing efforts by several prominent waterfront-related organizations for the summer of 2010.

• Poker Runs America: 2010 details online (Aug 6-7-8).
• CORK: 2010 details online, plus tentative dates for 2011 through 2014.
• City Marinas: 2010 rates and dates online.
• Kingston Yacht Club: nothing posted.
• Collins Bay Yacht Club: nothing posted.
• Kingston Dragon Boat Festival: nothing posted.
• K-Town Triathlon: nothing posted.
• Kingston Rowing Club: not online anymore.
  

That's pathetic, no?

For the most part, 2010 dates should be posted within two weeks of the end of the 2009 boating season.

It's long-past the point of anybody caring about your Summer 2009 calendar.

K.E.A.F. SPEAKS OUT about the Poker Run on the Council agenda for next Tuesday.

That's another report that's not available online for the public.

POKER RUN PARTICIPANTS DEFEND EVENT in today's Whig.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR POKER RUNS AMERICA BOATS makes for interesting reading.

You have to call it for what this truly is: a gig monopolized into four downtown hotels -- Radisson, Holiday Inn, Confederation Place Hotel and Four Points Sheraton -- all of these are owned by the usual suspects.

Most meals and the entertainment package appear to be monopolized into those four hotels as well.

Read the whole thing.

DOWNTOWN POKER RUN PLUG-UP planned between Friday Aug 7th at noon to Sunday Aug 9 at 6 PM.

Expect our spineless, gutless council to approve this.