Seen and Heard in Edmonton

Meet Troy Pavlek, a close observer of civic affairs, and the man behind the Basket of YEGs podcast and the city-council-tracking site yegvotes.info.

Troy is the kind of guy who listens to city council meetings in the background at work. He’s also a software developer, and he found treasure in the city’s open data catalogue, which he uses to compile how each councillor votes.

Basket of YEGs started when Troy decided to interview some of the candidates in the Ward 12 byelection. Now he interviews people about all kinds of civic issues, such as the residential speed limit or Edmonton’s real estate market. Watch for an upcoming episode with Coun. Andrew Knack. You’ll also get a soupçon of future political news, if you listen carefully.

You can also get it in iTunes, on SoundCloud or on Stitcher.

You’ll find Troy on Twitter (@troypavlek), and Basket of YEGs is on Facebook. Troy is active on Reddit, too, as you’ll hear in the podcast, so you can see what’s being said there on the Edmonton subreddit.

Troy recommended Mack Male’s MasterMaq blog, and Michael Ross’s Extreme Enginerding. We also mentioned Edmonton Weather Nerdery.

(P.S. If you were expecting the audio from the podcasting meetup with Justin Jackson, it didn’t work out, but here’s a full transcript, with links.)

This week’s Seen and Heard in Edmonton is brought to you by CKUA, which is in the middle of its spring fundraiser. Mayor Don Iveson kicked off the campaign with a baritone rendering of the donation line — you have to hear it.

Donate to radio tuned into Alberta at ckua.com, or call 1-800-494-2582.

Musical credits: Beethoven’s Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2 No. 1, played by Daniel Veesey, from freemusicarchive.com.