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A diabolical plan... or Tiny Town's shame?

Well now, is everything in order? Rail? Check. Chicken feathers? Check. Tar? Check. Rope? Check. I am shocked. Shocked! Some transgressions are simply too egregious, too pernicious, too vile to let slide with a simple firing.
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Well now, is everything in order? Rail? Check. Chicken feathers? Check. Tar? Check. Rope? Check.

I am shocked. Shocked! Some transgressions are simply too egregious, too pernicious, too vile to let slide with a simple firing. Some require action, payback, Old Testament frontier justice. If ever there was a case crying out for swift, sure, brutal retribution, surely this is that case.

I mean, the temerity, the absolute turncoat abandonment of loyalty. It's like finding out your head of security is a double agent and has been undermining your best efforts at world domination all while smiling pleasantly at you, enjoying your hospitality and sneaking the occasional lascivious glance at your wife's cleavage.

Conflict of interest my ass. This is treason!

Jayson Faulkner, a person until whom recently I considered an honourable man, a friend, has, it turns out, been secretly plotting the ultimate destruction of Whistler, a town he professed to love, having raised children here, operated a groundbreaking retail business, volunteered countless hours, contributed generously to charitable causes and even went so far as to get himself elected to municipal council. Who knew? He seemed so... so... upright. Why, I've even had conversations with him where he — undoubtedly part of his treasonous ruse — supported actions which seemed contrary to his own self-interest but good for the overall community.

I feel so violated.

It turns out now that all this time Jayson's been working with a secret cabal to destroy the resort by plotting to steal away all of our sightseeing tourists. Caramba! What's that you say? He only recently accepted the job of general manager and partner of the Sea to Sky gondola project in Squamton? You poor deluded rube. That's just part of the illusion. Don't you understand how these clandestine operations work?

Let's look at the facts. Fact: Jayson disposed of his business interests in Whistler. Why? Simple. He knew once he'd hatched his plot there would be no retail future in the deserted, ghost town of a resort that once was the mighty Whistler. He got his money out while the gettin' was good.

Fact: Presenting a well thought out — perhaps too well thought out — platform of financial reform and open government, Jayson duped a large number of Whistleratics into voting him on to council last November. Like a computer virus, he insinuated himself into the belly of the beast, the best place to strike a mortal blow.

Fact: He undoubtedly mesmerized still wet-behind-the-ears mayor, Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, and manoeuvred her into appointing him to the board of Tourism Whistler. My God, the man knows no limits. Having planted the seeds of destruction in the political heart of the town, he was in a perfect position to destroy the very life-giving succor TW provides, marketing efforts without which Whistler would be virtually unknown outside the Lower Mainland.

Fact: Shortly thereafter he mysteriously revealed his role in the nefarious StoS Gondola plot. Not just general, or is that generalissimo, manager but partner, or as his other "partners" might refer to him in the private confines of their secret meetings, comrade. Don't for a minute believe I'm going to fall for that, "Well, I needed a job," line, comrade general.

So, once again, we have the far-sighted, if anonymous board member(s) of TW to thank for saving our collective bacon. Ummm... bacon. Clearly they — he, she, them, whatever — were not duped by Jayson's seemingly agreeable, professional, even self-effacing act. They knew this was no sheep in sheep's clothing. They could see the future and they knew, beyond a reasonable doubt, there was no potential conflict of interest. There was a very real conflict of interest. Nay, there was a plot to destroy the town and render the Peak 2 Peak Gondola a worthless charm bracelet, linking two deserted mountains in an abandoned town with magnificent homes worth no more than a close-out sale tent at the store formerly known as the Escape Route.

And what about that name. Escape Route. Clever. Diabolical. Why all this time, all these years he'd been telegraphing his ultimate intentions and laughing at us.

But having found this scoundrel out are we to sit by and simply let him step down from the board? Will we let him continue his nefarious plot as a sitting councillor? If his plans of gondola domination go forward won't they clearly destroy the entire town? How can we let this happen? Have we learned nothing from the hystory (sic) of this plot revealed? Are we, as Whistleratics, about to repeat the mistakes of the young nation of Canada after the Plains of Abraham? Will we let the vanquished thrive among us?

Hell no! And so, I humbly proposed we tar and feather him and run him out of town on a rail. Furthermore, I propose the honour of dealing resolutely with this rascal go directly to that brave board member who anonymously called him out. Let he, she, them cast the first fistful of feathers against his scourged, tarred body. Send him off to Squamton where he belongs and be done with him.

I know, it may seem extreme. Oh sure, there will be those of you who argue there is no real conflict of interest here. At least no more conflict than, say, a company who operates stores in Whistler and stores in Squamton. But that's different.

How? Let's see. How is that different? Oh yeah, here it is, straight from the chair of TW's board himself, "From a tourism point of view, my goal is to attract people to the region...," no wait, that's not it. Maybe, "... I think anything that is adding product to the Sea to Sky corridor is good...," nope, not that either. Oh, here it is, "Now, I don't operate an attraction though." Yeah, that's it. The StoS Gondola is an attraction, one that would clearly compete with our attraction. That's how it's different.

Well, no, now that you mention it I don't clearly understand how that's different than competing retail operations or people who run restaurants in both towns, or hotels, or law practices. No, wait a minute, law practices don't cater to tourists. I'm confident saying that one is clearly different.

Okay, if you want to get all high and mighty about it I have to agree with you; making allegations like conflict of interest and not having the stones to own up to your allegations is a bit chickenshit. But it's a small town and let's be honest, it's way safer to stay anonymous and let people speculate about which of the 13 board members it was who complained. I mean if you could let people think it was someone else instead of you, why wouldn't you?

Shameful, you say? Well, that's your opinion. Everybody has to come to their own conclusions about this episode of the Tiny Town Chronicles. My mind's made up.