Opinion

irony (i´ra nee) n.

While it comes six months after originally promised and is breathtaking in its scope, Intrawest deserves considerable credit for laying out its plans for Creekside and the remaining bed units it inherited with the purchase of Whistler Mountain.

Friends and neighbours Whistler’s council has been under a lot of pressure recently, with the 19 Mile Creek employee housing project and the issue of chalet- and villa-style accommodation particularly contentious issues.

Andy Warhol said (promised?) that one day everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.

When Barnett Senior built his first cabin in Whistler he said there was no way he was going to have a phone in the building; he came to Whistler to get away from the world and to ski.

Trying to balance the resort and the community (resort fit for a king, but for the average Brit?) By all accounts the recent visit to Vancouver and Whistler of Prince Charles and his sons was an unqualified success.

Land-use issues, also known as development, have been the source of a lot of consternation in Whistler in the 1990s. For years now people have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace and scope of development, but have had little recourse.

Whistler is evolving — not always progressing — but constantly changing, and its citizens are becoming a little wiser after each development or proposed development comes forward.

Whistler has to take a serious look in the mirror. In the constant tug-of-war between community needs and individual rights, it has not been a stellar week for the community.

With the Nagano Olympics coming to an end last weekend, and Tourism Vancouver officials returning from Japan full of optimism about a Vancouver/Whistler bid for the 2010 Games, it’s starting to look like 1960 again.