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Mitch Rhodes

Campaign Slogan: I Am Accountable to You Age: 45 Occupation: Chartered Accountant/Writer Volunteerism: Treasurer of the Whistler Health Care Foundation, President of the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment (AWARE), board member

Campaign Slogan: I Am Accountable to You

Age: 45

Occupation: Chartered Accountant/Writer

Volunteerism: Treasurer of the Whistler Health Care Foundation, President of the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment (AWARE), board member for the Whistler Centre for Sustainability

Skier, boarder, golfer

Other Hobbies: Hiking and camping

Web site:

Last book read: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Why are you running for council?

I had an interest in running for council probably a year ago. When I talked to different councillors, because I do have dealings with them on various capacities in my volunteer jobs and I’m always familiar with the issues, I would ask them what it was like to be on council. I thought that with my ability to listen well, along with my professional capabilities and my personal capabilities, I might be a good person who could sit on one of the council spots. My sphere of interest is quite wide. I’m not really a one issue or one sector candidate because of my professional designation as a chartered accountant, my dealings with the environment, my interaction with health case and my personal interest in the arts. Besides that I think it would be energizing to assist in setting the direction of such a vibrant community.

What are the major accomplishments/failures of council since the last election?

Undertaking major initiatives such as the Olympics and Whistler. It’s Our Nature has been council’s major accomplishment but the process of engaging the community on those major initiatives has been ineffective and even detrimental and that’s been council’s greatest failure. So it’s not so much what they take on, it’s how they go about it. What they take on is quite good and encouraging. One example is the Olympic bid.

People against the Olympics are at 35 per cent and I think a lot of that is because of the way the community has been engaged. We didn’t have input on the legacies, they were just presented to us. I think that if we could realistically address those Olympic concerns and have some assurances around them, then support for the bid could actually go up. I think if the bid was in the community or if the municipality was forced to take the idea to a public vote then the bid would be that much better.

Likewise, the World Economic Forum was, I believe, a real opportunity to engage the community in a certain way and it wasn’t done and that’s why we ended up with that really high profile meeting with the community just enraged. That could have been avoided.

The process undertaken to engage the community has not been what the community has wanted. One of my platforms is the idea of Direct Inclusive Democracy which I call DID and I would love to be able to say Whistler DID. And it’s the idea that if people wish they can come to a Web site that is secure and actually vote on issues that are facing council. The way that I see it is that if enough people came and decided to vote, then I would suspend my personal beliefs on the issue and vote the way that people had decided.

What are the key issues facing the next council?

What makes this place work is the diversity and the mix of the people who are here. The fact that you have ski bums side by side with executives of Fortune 500 companies – that dynamic, that tension, that vibrancy is what makes this a thrilling place to be. If we don’t have specific and targeted and strategic ways to try and maintain that, it’s just going to slip into a place for the wealthy and then that makes for a much more hollow, less dynamic atmosphere and then therefore it’s not as an exciting resort destination.

My platform idea is to establish an affordability/housing task force and that would be community wide so you would have people from as many sectors as you could draw in and as many people and stakeholders as would want to participate. All of those areas need to be drawn into this task force plan and discussion. And I would also like to have it be a mandate of council that in the first year of their term of office that the plan be delivered to the community.

Another major issue is fiscal responsibility and that comes back to my platform item of having a contingency plan. The idea is that Whistler has experienced 15 years of economic growth and all economic models point to the reality that that cannot continue. We could very well be on the downslide of that economic slope and in all of our municipal budgeting we only see increases. There’s no plan for what happens if that doesn’t become a reality.

I think it’s much better to be over prepared than not prepared.

Also council must get the Official Community Plan in place. The Official Community Plan is really establishing a long-term vision for Whistler and who we are and where we’re going. It’s hooked in with what they’re trying to do with the Whistler. It’s Our Future program and then taking the results of that and putting it into a format of what’s required to the province for an Official Community Plan. That whole process needs to be undertaken. It is a requirement and therefore it is a key issue.

Why should people vote for you?

People should vote for me because of my ability to listen and to consult. My business experience brings the ability to create a vision and execute that vision and it’s time that we got down to execution. We’ve done enough visioning in the community and now it’s time to really start acting on those visions.

Also, through my volunteer activities I’ve been exposed to a large sphere of interest, whether it’s overseeing the donations of books to the school and public libraries, or defending sensitive wetlands or buying new equipment for the Health Care Centre. My involvement has allowed me to understand a wide range of community needs. And of course I have my professional capabilities as a charted accountant. My integrity is very good and strong. I’m also a creative problem solver and facilitator. I think those are the reasons why people should vote for me.