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Pique n' your interest

Whistler Election, the sequel

Although just 1,390 of Whistler’s estimated 10,000 residents turned out to vote on Jan. 11 to resolve a tie between incumbent Dave Kirk and newcomer Marianne Wade, at last Whistler council has six members and one mayor – a complete set.

With such a small turnout of voters, it’s a safe bet that the bulk of the votes went to the candidate who enjoyed the most public support, but also was the most effective in mobilizing friends and family to get out to the polls on Saturday. Just 43 votes separated winner Marianne Wade from runner-up David Kirk, or three per cent of all votes cast.

It’s hardly what you would call a sweeping mandate, but it’s close enough for disco. So let’s boogie.

Promises were made, a pecking order of issues was established, and though the voter turnout on Saturday was depressingly low, we should assume that the public is still at least mildly interested in local politics. Therefore, they’re probably going to expect some action.

While all of the candidates were coming from different places their priorities appeared to be the same. The issue that dominated this election was the continuing crisis of both short- and long-term employee housing.

People are generally realistic in that they won’t expect housing projects to pop up all over town next summer, but they’re going to want to see some progress made to match the strong rhetoric used in the election.

At the core of any council debate will be bed units – will Whistler continue to not count employee beds as bed units, or will they make a meaningful effort to cap the growth of the town using real numbers, thereby making good on their sustainability initiatives?

Personally, I believe a bed is a bed because at the end of the day the total number of beds, employees and visitors, is going to determine how many people I have to evade and dodge on the ski out at the end of the day.

The answer to this problem might be to count employee bed units separately from the whole, make a few minor allowances for growth and protect existing bed units from tear-downs and renovations.

In talking with Councillor Ken Melamed during the campaign, he noted that there were over 20 applications for house tear-downs in Whistler last year. Although a few of those houses were relatively new and in the million-dollar range, a large number of the homes were older, and many probably provided at least some housing for employees.

Picture this scenario: a developer purchases a three-bedroom with a two-bedroom suite, and tears it down. Instead of rebuilding the house as it was, the developer takes away the two-bedroom suite and builds a five-bedroom luxury home. No extra bed units were required, but at the end of the day the pool of available employee bed units is reduced by two.

If those employee bed units were protected, developers would be left with these choices – A) leave the place alone; B) rebuild the place with the suite intact; or C) build a house with three big bedrooms and let the two bed units go back into a pool of employee bed units.

While the municipality can probably expect a few legal challenges as a result of a move like this, who knows? If the future well-being of the town relies on employee housing beds – and the municipality could probably prove this point several times over – the judge might see things our way.

Not that home owners and developers don’t deserve a few concessions. Homes with suites or that are rented to employees should be assessed differently than other homes, and owners should pay less taxes.

One of the problems with addressing the housing issue is the lack of information. Council needs to know exactly how many employee bed units will be required when the town reaches build-out. They need to know how many suites and employee rentals are out there right now, and how many are being lost. They also need to know where the land and money is to develop new housing, and, based on the opinions that surfaced during the election, the majority of people who turned out to the WORCA and Chamber of Commerce candidates meetings, there’s little enthusiasm for a project in the Callaghan Valley.

To fill in all the blanks, a comprehensive study of housing is needed, and yesterday. I know the public has had its fill of consultants, public meetings, and reports, but this is important.

The fact that the Whistler Housing Authority is out of money did not seem to be an issue for most of the candidates, nor should it have been – nobody ever suggested that the employee housing should be free, and it’s fairly standard for people to invest in projects and recoup their money, with interest and a margin of profit, somewhere down the road.

Housing was not the only issue raised during the election, but you can bet that when fall of 2005 rolls around it will be the only issue that the current group of councillors will be judged on.

Crocodile tears for Campbell?

With his unprecedented majority in the provincial legislature and widespread support for his aggressive, pro-business, small government approach to politics, it seemed like nothing could tarnish the armour of Premier Gordon Campbell.

Then he was caught drinking and driving while on vacation in Maui. It seems that the same cold and calculating premier that has cut funding and jobs from the provincial payroll and challenged nurses, doctors and teachers head-on is human after all – not in a caring or compassionate sense, but in the sense that he has a human flaw. Campbell drinks occasionally, and when he has been drinking, his good judgement suffers.

He was tear-eyed when he faced the public, and swore that he would never drink again. His own father was an alcoholic who committed suicide when Campbell was three, and he said he should have known better.

The question now is how this incident replays itself over the next three-plus years of a Campbell government? Do the Liberals wait it out and resume their current course of action, or will they become more human?

The day he returned to Canada, Campbell was hit with a deluge of messages suggesting that he resign. He did not, but his tone made it clear that he had at least thought about it. That would have made him the fourth democratically elected premier of B.C. since 1991 to resign as a result of scandal.

By staying, he’s essentially asking the public to forgive his unfortunate, but human, transgression. If the public does forgive him, then he will owe them a debt of gratitude. Like Scrooge waking up on Christmas morning, he may have learned a valuable lesson about the inherent goodness of people.

He might also be thinking about his legacy. Does he want to be remembered as a drunk driver and cold fish who gutted social programs, or as a man of, by and for the people?

We’ll have to wait and see.