Earlier, 24 hours' Irwin Loy reported Vancouver taxpayers would be spending $2,260 to send Non-Partisan Association city councillor Elizabeth Ball to the 2008 Juno Awards in Calgary. And what did she learned from that trip, you may wonder? In an interview with Public Eye, Ms. Ball stated, "It was a tremendous opportunity to see the effects the Junos have on the city. And, obviously, from being there you could see that it is a wonderful opportunity for a city from every aspect that you could possibly imagine. It engaged the city at every level you can imagine - from little children all the way through every business was engaged. The taxi drivers were passionate about it - the people we met in the street. It was absolutely wonderful. And, of course, it was a weekend of work as we took in the backstage tours to examine all the venues which, for me, was the very interesting part of it."

"CTV was very generous in taking us backstage to all of the venues and giving us unparalleled access to seeing exactly how they produce all the major events - which, of course, is incredibly complicated - and allowing us the ability to ask any question we wanted," she continued. "They took us to every single venue in a major tour that allowed us to really see how important it is to make our venues top notch and really make them available and how important traffic access is and how important it is for all aspects of the community to be working together."

And how is she going to be using those experiences to assist Vancouver in preparing to host the 2009 Juno Awards? "I am working with the steering committee and I will be giving the steering committee my notes and we had staff there," she responded. "The wonderful part of it is no one person could cover everything. So it was wonderful because the province was there - which was wonderful. The minister was there - Stan Hagen. Jane Milner - his ADM - was there. And we all were embracing very aspects of it and getting together and exchanging notes...And we're looking forward to having a debrief and getting together. So, of course, I'll be giving council not only my version but being able to share other people's ideas as well."