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Where there is sizzle... there can also be fire

School days, school daze. How I loved 'em. How I don't miss 'em. For all the years I was in school — and we're talking about a lot of years — there were two constants, two immutable laws as unshakable as gravity.
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School days, school daze. How I loved 'em. How I don't miss 'em.

For all the years I was in school — and we're talking about a lot of years — there were two constants, two immutable laws as unshakable as gravity. That it required my entire time at school to both understand and appreciate them suggest I may have been a slow learner. Had I been able to grasp their deeper meaning earlier, I probably would have continued my journey through higher education but I'd have realized these were the two most important rules of life, or at least My Life.

The first rule was unbridled optimism. I began every school year with the swaggering confidence of the righteously converted that I would stay ahead of the curve. Not the grading curve; that part came easily. The curve to which I refer is the Procrastination Avoidance Curve. Surveying my neat pile of school supplies and text books, I vowed to keep up with assigned reading, do my homework as soon as I got home from school — or later in the game when I had a free period — and finish things like term papers well before their deadline. I would be that obnoxious guy who was always prepared.

The second rule — belonging simultaneously to the school I was attending and the School of Hard Knocks — was that I didn't have a hope in hell of abiding by the first rule. I was hardwired to procrastinate. I generally fell behind in assigned reading sometime well before the end of the first week. There were semesters in university when I didn't even buy the books before reading week. Homework was often scribbled while I rode the bus to school. The self-defining phrase "all-nighter" was coined to describe my typical wrestling match with term papers.

It has ever been thus. Sometimes I think the only reason I became a writer was because I'd never get anything done if it weren't for deadlines. I know I've become comfortable with my shortcomings because I'm convinced people who get things done ahead of deadlines are simply too dense — or too eager — to understand the meaning of the word deadline. But like Popeye, I yam what I yam.

One of the things I am is a big supporter of education. One of the things I'm not is a big supporter of promotors who continue to use the "Trust Me" strategy while failing to provide anything like the necessary information to make a rational decision about whether their project is trustworthy or not.

And that's where we still seem to find ourselves with WhistlerU. It's been nearly 18 months now since the proponents of Whistler... excuse me, Whistler International Campus (WIC), threatened to quit the game and take their ball home if council didn't make a quick decision on their rezoning application.

Lest you've forgotten, this is what they said then. "This project needs to move quickly through the process with clear community support.... Therefore OKA Holdings is requesting that Council consider a fast track approvals process for both the rezoning and development permits for the first phase of development, and reasonable expectations with respect to offsite improvements."

Alas, several rather large questions are yet to be answered and there appears to be no hope of ever getting them answered in anything like the detail required to make a rational decision about WIC. But in the absence of detailed information, the proponents of WIC have created an on-line petition anyone who is comfortable making decisions in the dark can sign to support their efforts.

As with any slick sales effort, the proponents are trying to whip up support by selling the sizzle, not the steak, or burger, or horsemeat, whatever this thing is. As with any sizzle, the pitch is attractive. Or is it?

Sizzle #1. WIC won't cost taxpayers of Whistler a cent.

Drawing specious parallels to the Audain Museum, WIC proponents are saying, "Hey, why worry? This isn't going to cost you a penny." Be that as it may, let's consider what it is going to cost us. It's going to cost us our, perhaps imaginary, limits to growth. The site for WIC has virtually no bed units. Yet, their three-phase development plan requires 1,460 beds to become reality. With 1,500 students and 407 jobs, WIC has the potential to not only add bed units, but also boost the population base of Tiny Town by about 20 per cent.

While they may not be asking for money, make no mistake, Whistler has skin in this game. By being asked to blow the lid off our bed cap — insert reverential moment of silence here — and boost our population base, notwithstanding the 1,500 would be a rotating cast of characters, the town becomes a de facto equity partner. To put up that kind of equity based on the skimpy business plan submitted to date, you'd have to believe Blackberry has a rosy future.

Sizzle #2. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

WIC will create 407 "well-paying, year-round jobs." Since WIC seems to have a pretty good handle on the job numbers, perhaps they'd share with us what, exactly those jobs would be. What's the breakdown, guys? I only ask because I don't know a whole lot of people in town with master's degrees and Ph.Ds gathering dust. I'd be interested to know how many of those jobs will require new residents... who require housing... and schools... and other community services that don't cost a cent.

In a town that has to import people to do the jobs extant, I'm a bit unclear how much sizzle the jobs thing really amounts to as opposed to the additional strain those jobs will create.

Sizzle #3. What can go wrong?

It would be an understatement to say higher education is in a state of flux. Skirting disaster may be a more apt description. There has never been a broader choice of institutions of higher learning, many of them private and an alarming number of them being run more like carnival games, graduating hapless degree holders burdened with unsupportable debt and no tangible job opportunities that will give them a hope in hell of ever paying it back.

In the absence of a clear, detailed, realistic business plan, how can a town being asked to partner up on such a project make an informed decision? What happens to WIC's physical plant if things go south? And don't answer that question by saying it couldn't possibly happen. We'd prefer real-world answers, the kind one might expect if one were being asked to invest in such a project.

Whistler is developing a strategy to embrace learning opportunities. WIC may be part of it. Maybe it's time for council to make a decision on their rezoning... the only one possible based on the insufficient information available.