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Pique N' Your Interest

All aboard the Crazy Train

It’s called ‘crazy time’ – that period of time every three years when people throw their name into the ring and decide to run for public office.

This year may be crazier than most with nine, yes nine, community members running for the spot of mayor. There is still time for more to declare and even time for others to change their minds. The nomination period ends this Friday.

Only seven candidates are in the race for six council seats, so far.

Let’s review that again. Seven people are running for six council seats and nine people are running for one mayor’s seat.

Does that strike anyone else as odd?

Here’s the thing. We know from the last time around when Dave Davenport was the only community member brave enough to challenge Mayor Hugh O’Reilly that the community has some reservations electing a mayor with no previous council experience.

It was one of the Davenport’s weakest points in what was otherwise a very strong campaign against O’Reilly.

The community wants its candidates to put some time on council, learning the ropes, getting familiar with the odd system that is our Canadian bureaucracy before electing them leader of the pack.

Knowing this, I find it strange that more people are running for mayor this year than for council, where arguably your chances of getting a seat on council are much higher than winning the mayor’s seat.

Maybe the candidates think it’s either time to go big or go home. I’ve seen people play poker that way and it can be a risky game.

Maybe they believe that by running for mayor they have more of a shot of getting their message, their platform out to more people.

Or maybe they think with Mayor O’Reilly, who was a very popular mayor, out of the picture, they have as good a shot as any at winning the race.

Who knows?

But it’s got me thinking about the job of our councillors and why so few are stepping up to the plate this year.

Covering council for the last three years I can say without hesitation that it’s a thankless job. They work hard. They get paid a pittance. And the kudos are few and far between.

But when you talk to councillors and some of the candidates running they talk of a passion of serving the community, of doing what’s right for Whistler, of stepping up to the plate.

They are braver people than I.

But I have a few concerns as we head into these next three years.

I’m concerned that the workload is going to be more than council has ever seen before. They are going to be asked to be on more committees, task forces, attend more ribbon cutting ceremonies, and take on more Olympic duties.

We know based on a committee’s recommendation this year that their pay isn’t going up any time soon.

And while it may seem as though they show up every Monday night, make a few bold statements, cast their votes, and head home, there’s really a lot more to it than that. At the end of the year they get about $18,000.

It’s hard to work above and beyond the call of duty sometimes when you’re not getting paid enough to do it.

How do you keep a council motivated to keep working hard for the community when you don’t pay them enough to do that?

My other major concern right now, looking at the candidates declared thus far, is that we have one woman running for mayor and one woman running for council.

The women candidates are few and far between.

I’m thinking about this balance more and more after a passionate speech in Whistler by former Deputy Premier Christy Clark about the need for more women in politics. Women, she said, have fought long and hard to have a voice in this country. Even though they are 52 per cent of the population there is a disproportionate representation at the political level.

Now that’s not to say that men can’t do as good a job as women but it’s 2005 for crying out loud. Where are all the women?

My final concern is that this is going to be a nasty election despite attempts to keep everything above board.

The problem is that there are some hot button issues on the table, issues that get the blood boiling. Voters will be curious on several issues such as:

• where do you stand on London Drugs?;

• how can you solve our economic woes?;

• are we getting any employee housing, any time soon?

These are all valid questions and all topics the candidates must be prepared to answer.

And so by next week we’ll know exactly all the candidates who have jumped aboard the Crazy Train. There could be more women. There may be more candidates for council.

Good luck to all of you. And before it gets nasty you all deserve a big thank you from the rest of us for stepping up to the plate and taking a chance.