Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

The Road to Redemption

At the one year anniversary council reflects on the path so far
features_featurestory1
Council members recently gathered as part of a community award celebration. Photo: Joern Rohde/joernrohde.com

From the leaders of nations to the mayors of small towns, politicians everywhere are tarred with the same brush. We tend to distrust them off the bat and insist that they prove themselves to us — show us that you're looking out for our best interests, convince us that you're putting the community first, assure us that you're not just another... politician. Whistler's politicians are no exception. And so, one year ago when they took office, despite the overwhelming victory, council had its work cut out for it. Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden reflects on the last year.

Someone has broken ranks at the council table.

It's not clear who went "rogue" in the closed door session and what topic prompted him, or her, to vote against the majority.

But two weeks ago at the last in-camera council meeting someone, who will remain anonymous, ended the yearlong all-for-one streak by raising a lone hand in opposition of the majority vote.

It was a 6 to 1 vote, the first of its kind.

"We've been making fun of that person ever since," jokes Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, at home in her municipal office, which has become a sanctuary of sorts, a place where she "feels good" the minute she steps in the doors.

What was the juicy topic of the day that finally forced one over the edge, to the dark side of opposition? We'll never know.

Finally, however, a little shake-up, a little verve, and a show of spark.

Cracks at the council table? Hardly.

Councillors becoming more comfortable in their job? Perhaps.

Or, a simple matter of time; someone had to break the streak at some point. Better behind closed doors than a public split vote.

Reflecting on the last whirlwind year in office at the one-year mark, the mayor agrees that it's strange that there has been unanimous agreement on every decision from asphalt plant litigation and pay parking to Ironman bidding and balancing a $70 million plus budget.

"It is odd," she says. "It's outside of my experience. This is my fifth term on council and I've never seen this before."

The memories of her past terms are dotted all over her office — official pictures of past councils, framed front-page newspapers of significant milestones. They serve, perhaps, as reminder — that the world of politics, small town politics no less, is a fickle business. Add in a bad snow year and a downturn in the economy and council, once flavour of the day, can quickly become a lightning rod for all of the town's woes. Nancy knows.

So what accounts for the united front on this council on all matters, big and small, controversial and mundane?

If they're not all on the same page on any given issue, they're somehow managing to reach consensus and find common ground in order to move on to the next chapter.

"We all, to a person, want to get the job done," she says.

And what a job it's been these past 12 months.

The initial six-month honeymoon phase has morphed into a second six months where it's been harder to tick off all the boxes, harder to please everyone, more difficult to make fast decisions. There have also been huge coups this second half of the year — the Audain art museum potential, the five-year Ironman agreement, to name a few — but they've been tempered with some challenges too.

There was the late summer/fall angst of asphalt plumes for residents of Cheakamus Crossing and the stalemate with the plants' owner in moving it.

There was frustration, reaching the boiling point this fall, over the divvying out of provincial resort monies, specifically heated words with the proponents of the Whistler Film Festival and its ask for Resort Municipality Initiative (RMI) funding.

The threat of legal action when council delayed a decision on the Mons industrial rezoning.

The ongoing threat of legal action from First Nations who are hoping to develop in Whistler, contrary to Whistler's Official Community Plan (OCP).

"It would be unrealistic to think that it would be just clear sailing the whole three years," admits the mayor. "We've made tough decisions and we've got further tough decisions in front of us — no question. But I think the majority of community members believe that we're doing a good job. I think we're doing a good job."

It seems so long ago now but it's this council that was responsible for the free village parking in Lots 4 and 5, announced before their council seats were even warm.

And it's this council that delivered zero tax increases in the spring, something the critics said couldn't be done — "hollow promises" to get elected was the criticism at the time.

And it was this mayor too that proclaimed Whistler was "open for business." Those words could have come back to haunt her but to date she's keeping most of the critics at bay.

Opening up her small black notebook, one of several that keep her busy life on track, Wilhelm-Morden turns to a page dating back almost a year now. Her neat blue handwriting covers the top of the lined paper, answering a question posed by facilitators at the first council orientation workshop last December.

What are you hoping the community will say about you each individually at the end of the three-year term?

"And I wrote down that I was hoping that the community would say that I had delivered my top ten that I had campaigned on, that I had retained the trust the community (had put) in me as reflected in the election results... that I worked well with my team, that I consulted and collaborated with the community, and that I helped bring optimism and prosperity back to Whistler.

"Just a few things," she chuckles, looking up from her book with a smile.

"I looked at that again 12 months out and I think that, if asked, the community would say a lot of those things, so I'm very pleased with the last 12 months."

She closes the book resolutely, the firm action softened only by the jingling of her silver charm bracelet that chronicles parts on her life. She was given it as a child and of the dozen or so keepsakes on it are charms that her husband, Ted Morden, her high school sweetheart, the boy she followed out to Whistler, gave her when she was a teenager.

Fitting then that she's just started wearing it again because her term in office to date appears to "charmed."

But that would belie the sheer volume of hard work.

It would also deny the fact that in the past year the mayor suffered through the biggest challenge of her life — almost losing her oldest daughter Sarah in a fluke illness.

From the outside there were no signs that the mayor was in crisis this past June. Sarah had a staff infection that attacked her vertebrae in the lower part of her spine. It was... touch and go.

But Wilhelm-Morden has trained herself not to display weakness, a critical part of her job in a man's world of litigation.

She also knew that as much as council was at the top of its game in June, the critics were in the wings ready to pounce with an "I told you so."

"I didn't want people to think that I had bitten off more than I could chew," she says.

Meanwhile, for the first time in her professional career she had three back-to-back trials.

From the outside everything appeared relatively normal. Inside, things were spinning out of control.

Sarah spent two weeks in the hospital in Vancouver, ten weeks on antibiotics and she still has not fully recovered, losing one of her discs entirely with continued numbness down her legs and back of her feet.

That was just four months ago now. Four months that could have changed the mayor's life forever. And in a way it did. She's faced down terror of losing a child, the pressure of carrying on in the face of despair. And she came out the other side.

There is a quiet air of satisfaction to the mayor these days. It's the at-ease composure of someone who is settled into the job and who knows that while she hasn't pleased everyone this past year, she's pleased some. And then some more.

Her critics said she couldn't do it — do everything needing to be done as a mayor, and continue to work as a personal injury lawyer at her local practice Race & Company.

She can. It means she works seven days a week, juggling mayoral duties with her caseload. Two months ago, for example, she finally resolved the controversial Blackburn case — a case that hit close to home in Whistler, involving two stranded skiers in the B.C. backcountry. (See pg.13 for related story). That was the same month she was at UBCM in Victoria, lobbying Whistler's case on the gamut of things before provincial ministers.

While a little more at ease with the community's expectations — expectations that were spelled out in no uncertain terms with the election results that swept her into office with six rookie councillors — she still feels the heavy burden of the responsibility of delivering as the mayor.

Do you still have...?

"Mayor-mares?" she says raising her eyebrows.

"Oh yeah."

Really?

"Of course."

About...

"Well because there are big issues. I am concerned about the relationship with the First Nations. I continue to be challenged by the Cheakamus Community Forest and the whole logging old growth. How can we get ourselves out of that box? And then securing Audain. We're negotiating with him. It all looks good but we don't have it in the bag yet. So... there are things to worry about."

But much to be proud of too.

While securing Whistler as the home for a world-class art museum courtesy of Audain Foundation still keeps her up at night, it's also one of the huge coups of the term.

And while the foundation approached Whistler for the opportunity, Wilhelm-Morden believes Whistler set the stage for that to happen.

"We had unwittingly laid the groundwork for them to come with the emphasis on cultural tourism, the renewed emphasis on culture generally, the development of a cultural plan. We were ready," she says.

But right up there with that opportunity is the work council has done securing the community trust and repairing the relationship between municipal hall and the wider community.

Setting the municipal financial house in order is also a top priority, as is securing the Ironman deal for the next five years.

"This isn't just being in the right place at the right time," she says. "This is the result of hard work and good relationships between this council and our administrative staff. We are all pulling in the same direction."

While the unanimous streak has somehow come to represent all that is good about this council — working as a team, building consensus, making compromises — the mayor is not under any illusions that the decisions on the horizon won't see more split votes. And that speaks to the meaty things on council's plate: approving the contentious Official Community Plan, deciding once and for all the fate of the university lands and resolving the asphalt plant issue.

Perhaps that means more split votes, more debate, more heat at the public council table in the two years to come. Then again, perhaps not. Only time will tell how the next two years will play out. Right now, everyone is sticking to the official game plan.

ASPHALT PLANT

Some Cheakamus Crossing residents may despair that the asphalt plant is still operating in their neighbourhood, but council has a few ideas under its hat.

This week Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden made clear the plant is by no means off the council radar and, in fact, council is continuing to discuss ideas on how to move the decades old plant from its location next to the new Cheakamus Crossing neighbourhood.

"We have no dialogue with Mr. (Frank) Silveri (owner of Alpine Paving) at the moment," Wilhelm-Morden confirms. "We do have some ideas for ... the asphalt season coming up. But I just don't want to be talking about it in public. I think that's part of the problem with the last council and the mess that they found themselves in — that there was just all this stuff in public that ought not to have been in public and it just made it much more difficult."

Council has been trying to find a solution to the plant problem ever since a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled in early 2012 that the plant is legally zoned to operate where it has always operated. It was a blow not only to the residents, but also council.

Though it appointed a municipal negotiator to talk to Silveri, those discussions fell apart in wake of the council decision not to allow any of the asphalt for municipal projects to come from the Whistler plant. The RMOW road-building contract was still awarded to Alpine Paving, with the caveat that it come from the Squamish plant. Silveri severed dialogue after that decision.

"We've got to resolve the asphalt plant," says the mayor resolutely. "That continues to hang over us. And we've got a few ideas about how to do it. That's one that I still wake up in the middle of the night about."

FIRST NATIONS RELATIONSHIP

In the last year the relationship with Whistler's neighbouring First Nations has taken steps backwards.

Now the threat of legal action from Squamish and Lil'wat First Nations hangs over council as it works to complete its Official Community Plan (OCP) because the two nations are not satisfied with the document and their consultation over it.

"I am very aware of the fact that it's been a good and strong relationship up to now," says the mayor, Nancy Wilhelm-Morden. "And I don't want to jeopardize it. But, on the other hand, there is the larger community interest that has to be recognized as well."

That larger community interest is the enshrined idea that growth in Whistler is finite. The OCP translates that as a "hard cap" on development.

The two First Nations, however, have claimed aboriginal rights and title on the Crown land in Whistler, not the least of which is the 300-acres of Crown land transferred to them through negotiations during the 2010 Olympics.

As a councillor Wilhelm-Morden voted against that legacy land agreement in a gutsy vote in 2007.

"I did," she says. "I was the only one."

Did she see the writing on the wall at that time?

"That's exactly what I was worried about. That without the senior levels of government entering into a treaty with the First Nations we would be left with continuing demands and expectations that we wouldn't be able to meet. So what I was worried about has come to pass."

COMMUNITY FOREST

Whistler's mayor wants a 20-year logging reprieve for the Cheakamus Community Forest to help save Whistler's old growth.

"We can't be chopping trees down that are 1,200 years old," says Nancy Wilhelm-Morden. "We just can't do that. Our forest and our backcountry experience is fundamental to who we are."

With that in mind, the mayor has a plan. Or, at the very least, the beginnings of a plan.

She wants to petition the provincial minister of forests, land and natural resource operations Steve Thomson for the 20-year break while Whistler's second growth matures enough to be of real merchantable value.

The mayor explained that Whistler has a great deal of forest under 80 years old, virtually no forest between 80 to 200 years ago, and then all the old growth beyond that.

There are no concrete plans yet to meet the minister but her personal ask would be if Whistler could hold off on its annual allowable cut, or AAC.

"I don't know that I have council's support in that," says Wilhelm-Morden. "We haven't discussed it yet but we just cannot be logging old growth."

The Cheakamus Community Forest (CCF) was created in 2009 through a joint partnership with Squamish and Lil'wat First Nations so that together they could manage the forest harvesting in the area. Of the 33,000 hectares allocated for the CCF, roughly 40 hectares per year is set to be harvested.

THE BUDGET

One of the biggest coups this council delivered was a zero tax increase in 2012. Will it be a repeat?

Staff is in the process of working on the budget internally before delivering a rough draft to council.

When asked if there was top-down direction given to hold the line on taxes, Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden says:

"Yes, we've talked about it but we haven't actually passed anything along those lines yet. We wanted staff to start doing some preliminary stuff first so we get an idea of just how it looks so that we're not setting unrealistic goals. Personally, I'm hoping that we come in at zero again but let's just see how that plays out."

Councillor Duane Jackson, who along with the mayor sits on the Finance and Audit Standing Committee of Council, was a little more measured in his response.

"I don't think we've made any assumptions yet," he says.

He also pointed to impacts to the municipal budget beyond its control — policing and fire cost increases for example. Other factors are: making allowances for inflation and the potential changes to the budget from the staff restructuring. The capital program is also still being worked on.

But one thing is clear; the lines of communication between staff and council through the ongoing meetings of the Finance and Audit Committee are strong. That committee is only required to meet a few times a year, and in the past, that's all it did. This council has put a focus on budget and finances, dedicating significant time to this committee.

"Staff certainly know what council's objectives are," says Jackson.

When asked if that makes a difference, Jackson gave a firm: "Absolutely."

AUDAIN MUSEUM

It's not a done deal yet but time is ticking for a spring groundbreaking on the Audain Museum. In the meantime, Whistler wants to put pen to paper and ink a deal that will pave the way going forward.

In the next month the mayor is hoping to have a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the municipality and the Audain Foundation that will set the course for a purpose-built museum in Whistler, which will house one of the most significant private art collections in Canada.

Negotiations between RMOW and the Audain Foundation are front-and-centre on the municipality's list of things to do.

The foundation's chair, Michael Audain, and his team, are coming to Whistler this week to meet Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden and Chief Administrative Officer Mike Furey.

"We're working on the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding which we hope to sign off on next month," says the mayor.

The proposed site for new museum is in the middle of the day lots, in the forested area between Lot 3 and Lot 4.

Economic Partnership Initiative (EPI) Committee

With millions of dollars flowing to Whistler from the province, designed to boost tourism, council doesn't want to fritter away the money.

Rather, it wants to get the biggest bang for its buck.

Needless to say, there are high hopes pinned to the new EPI Committee, charged with developing a resort-wide economic action plan that tackles the post-Olympic Whistler reality.

"There's some pretty big expectations with that group so I'm hopeful that we'll see some real big picture recommendations coming from that group," says mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden.

Councillor Jayson Faulkner is the council rep on the committee, which is made up of key resort leaders, such as Dave Brownlie, CEO of Whistler Blackcomb and Barrett Fisher, president and CEO of Tourism Whistler.

There have been three meetings to date, another this week, and a "tremendous amount" of work so far drilling down on the data, and the research to identify the basics around how the community's economy works and figuring out the best return on investment.

Faulkner points to changes in population, changes in room night patterns and visitor spends, changes to bed units and how many more are left undeveloped, all playing a role in the local economy.

"Since 1999 for a U.S. visitor to come to this resort, it's 50 per cent more expensive. Think about it," says Faulkner.

He points to the changes in visitor markets — since 2000-2001 B.C. visits have seen a 47 per cent growth, Germany 55 per cent, Australia 17 per cent, Washington State eight per cent. Meanwhile, California is down a whopping 64 per cent and U.S. destination markets are down 50 per cent.

"So there are dynamics afoot in the last ten years in our business, if you will, if you look at Whistler Resort Incorporated, that are fundamental ground shift changes and the idea that we can continue to just do what we did in the past and expect the same results does not, in my view and I certainly think all the rest of council shares this and it is why we struck this committee, make sense."

Faulkner also cautioned about oversetting expectations. There is no magic wand. There is, however, a lot of hard work ahead and committed councillors and staff ready to rise to the challenge.



Comments