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Max for mayor

Oh to be the Japanese government. Sure, they've got a natural and manmade disaster of epic proportions to deal with.
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Oh to be the Japanese government. Sure, they've got a natural and manmade disaster of epic proportions to deal with. Unknown thousands of souls have perished in the blink of an eye, whole towns and villages have simply vanished and the country's economy has taken a 100+ billion dollar body blow. Their vital nuclear power infrastructure is in the process of melting down, a phenomenon known there as the Brazil Syndrome - South Atlantic, actually but a twist here a slight deviation there and it all spills out in the slums of Brasilia.

Fortunately, what they don't have to grapple with is the seemingly impossible, intractable tangle of pay parking. Easy enough to avoid when you just had a tsunami clear the landscape and park cars akimbo, one atop the other. Were it all so easy here in Tiny Town.

Now, I don't want to make light of the incredible tragedy that's unfolding in Japan but short of sending my contributions - may I be so bold as to recommend Doctors Without Borders http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/overview.cfm - there's not much I can do. Contribute globally, act locally. Well, for that matter, contribute locally too; the many Whistler businesses swirling the bowl will appreciate it.

Given the incredible images and stories coming out of Japan of the rapid mobilization of emergency forces, the calm, orderly one-foot-ahead-of-the-other fashion with which the citizenry is beginning to grapple with the incomparable task confronting them, the lack of looting and rioting such a disaster would unleash in many other countries and the government's well-orchestrated response, I'm left to ponder how in the world this town could deal with something a fraction - very small fraction - of the magnitude of that challenge.

And, more specifically, why we can't deal with pay parking. The first iteration, last spring, was a... I hesitate to use the word disaster, but it was a monumental screw-up. So poorly planned it defames the word planning, so poorly communicated it suggests we're a town run by mutes, its only saving grace came in quickly withdrawing it, admittedly after a council meeting overly-well attended by villagers carrying torches and pitchforks.

The second iteration, the current regime, is an unmitigated failure as well. The day skier lots are virtually empty. The garage under the conference centre is empty except for the lowest level where reasonably-priced monthly parking is oversubscribed. Of course this clear demonstration of demand is insufficient to move the muni to open the second-lowest level to those closed out of the lowest. And so it sits empty too.

And yet, for a town of fewer than 10,000 people, we seem to be so mired in incompetence we can't tweak what is patently not working. The long-awaited third iteration - a secret so poorly kept everybody's been talking about it since it was first muttered by the Group of Six - has been, drum roll, postponed. And so, businesses in town sit and wait. Staff dust inventory that isn't moving, talk to themselves to keep from going stir crazy, owners ponder the imponderable. We wait.

They say large corporations and governments are like huge ships - they move ponderously and change directions very, very slowly. I feel as though our ship of state has run afloe. We've hit the iceberg.

But I'm tired of complaining. I'm tired of the businesses in town complaining. I'm tired of the asphalt plant people complaining. I'm especially tired of the people like the owners of Lush complaining about stupid things. Hey, here's a complaint - close your damn door in the winter and stop polluting the stroll with the stink coming out of your shop.

I'm tired of complaining and it's time to take action. It's time to take back government. If we get the government we deserve, let's deserve the government we get. Let's run the place ourselves. I'll start.

For several months now I've implored a number of people to run for mayor and council. So far, they've all turned me down. Most recently, my own former editor, Bob Barnett. Now, I'm not alone thinking Bob would make a good mayor, especially now that he doesn't seem to have much to do around Pique . He's knowledgeable, effective, successful, committed to Whistler's success and, well, everyone I've mentioned it to gets all starry-eyed when they begin to think about Bob for mayor.

Everyone except Bob.

So I give up. I've run out of alternatives. I'm just going to have to do it myself. Run for mayor that is.

Oh, I can just hear you now. "Is he for real?" As real as Santa, baby. "What possible qualifications can Max have for mayor?" Well, my greatest qualification is that I'm not mayor right now. Not a councilor either. I'm the devil you don't know and from where I sit, that makes me a frontrunner.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want the job. If someone else is willing to do what needs to be done, have at it. Oh my god, that sounds remarkably like something Sarah Palin said recently. Noooooooooo! It's already happening.

Okay, so you want to know what my platform is. Well, I have one. Unlike Paul Martin, who, after a lifetime of wanting to be Prime Minister of Canada so badly he practically wet himself whenever the possibility arose, got the job and, as it turns out, didn't even have a platform, I've got one. In spades.

I'll let you know about it slowly, over the next few months. But I'll share one plank of it with you right now: downsizing.

There's a whole contingent at muni hall that believes it is a legitimate role of local government to drive tourism, boost our numbers, launch a cultural tourism initiative. They think our problem is we don't have enough tourists. They think we can become Branson, Missouri, north or something like that. I think they're crazy.

I don't think we have too few tourists. I think we have too big a resort. We outgrew ourselves and now we're fretting about lodging sector occupancy rates of 50 per cent. Frankly, we're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. In the middle of an unprecedented global recession, there's not much - cost effectively, of course - we can do to bring more people here.

But we can shrink our lodging sector. Starting immediately, all those condo hotels on the Benchlands are just condos. Private residences. Boom! Our occupancy just went up to 65 per cent.

WTF, they're taxed as residences. Let them be residences. If the owners want to rent them out, apply for a business licence. Then we'll tax you at commercial rates.

Will they complain? Not when they find out they don't have to pay Tourism Whistler taxes, er, fees anymore.

My platform has many planks. My tent is enormous. All are welcome. Max for Mayor.