Opinion

Among the multitude of issues the next Whistler council will have to deal with is one currently being foisted on all municipal councils, provincial cost sharing, or lack there of.

Everyone in Whistler knows the 30 centimetre rule: if it snows 30 centimetres overnight everyone has the right to take the day off work. Last month the province introduced the 64 centimetre rule. Actually, it’s part of a provincial law, B.C.

Just as people were beginning to come to grips with Whistler’s ceiling on commercial development we now discover the ceiling on affordable housing development. Not that it’s a new thing.

A humble thought born of too much time spent on one issue: Maybe we have been going at the affordable housing issue from the wrong end.

Glen Clark’s response to criticism from some municipal politicians about the province’s plan to take money from Forest Renewal B.C.: "I think the mayors, many of whom opposed Forest Renewal, are really just playing politics.

In Aspen, the Catholic church is offering to build employee housing — Divine Intervention the Aspen Times calls it. In Whistler, it seems it will take a similar force to make any impact on the employee housing situation.

Last winter the 24 Whistler Search and Rescue volunteers spent about 2,000 hours in search and rescue efforts, and about the same amount of time training.

On Tuesday the new Whistler Secondary will open, a year late, with at least 50 per cent more students than the school was built for and, depending on who you believe, with or without operating funds and equipment for all Grade 11 and 12 classes.

I haven’t a clue what any of the speakers said at this week’s Libertarian conference. I wasn’t there, so I don’t feel qualified to comment or report on what was said.

The recent merger between Vail Resorts and Ralcorp brings five of Colorado’s biggest mountain resorts — Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapahoe Basin — under one corporate umbrella.