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Notes from all over – silly season in Whistler

"You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark and sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what's broken in the land.
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"You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark and sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what's broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it's broken, you are automatically disqualified."

- Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna

 

Things aren't looking all that great these days in Tiny Town (as my back-page colleague loves to call this place). Disgruntled homeowners. Feuding politicians. Underperforming bureaucrats. Businesses going bankrupt. Residents wringing their hands and wondering when the tax-hikes will end. It's a virtual cacophony of claims and counter-claims, half-lies, misdirection and out-and-out dishonesty.

And amidst all this insider brouhaha, there are troubling signs that the community's life blood - tourists - are not following their assigned scripts either. Sure, August to date hasn't been too bad. But that's mainly due to the uninterrupted stretch of sunny days more than anything else. What about the rest of the year?

In a recent piece on the town's summer business, the Vancouver Sun put it bluntly: "Despite hopes that the Winter Games would bring tourists flocking back to B.C. and especially to Whistler, 2010 is shaping up to be one of the mountain resort's worst years."

Great advertisement, isn't it? But how can you blame them? Year-to-date hotel occupancy, they report, is a dismal 59.3 per cent, lower even than the recession plagued 61.8 per cent in 2009 (and that despite 100 per cent occupancy during the Games)! Who would have guessed?

Anecdotal evidence also points to some troubled waters on the horizon. Hotel room rates are at an all time low. Restaurants are struggling. Longtime employees are being given their walking papers. As for WB's vaunted R2R (resto-to-resto) gondola, the company took full-page ads in dailies across the country last week touting its 2-for-1 pricing.

Interesting...

One would think that Intrawest might be a little concerned with its underperforming asset. Yet in that same Vancouver Sun article, WB marketing maven, Stuart Rempel, seemed oblivious to the signs. "It's truly becoming a new tourism icon for Whistler, B.C. and Canada," said Rempel of his $60 million sideways-transportation "toy."

Now I don't know about you, but I haven't seen a lot of companies offering 2-for-1 pricing on popular items before. Usually, that kind of a mark-down is a sign of panic or slow sales.

I mean, have you ever seen WB offer a 2-1 pricing "special" on lift tickets during the winter season? I rest my case.

The economic roiling of the Whistler waters is troubling for sure. And it's trouble, alas, that no short-term Band-Aid is going to fix. The solution? I'm convinced Whistler needs to unleash some seriously unconventional initiatives to get back on track.

But given the group of people assigned to pilot the resort into more profitable conditions, can we really trust that they have the energy, creativity and boldness to come up with the kind of strategy that will carry us into a new era of prosperity? Sounds more like most of them are looking for an exit strategy...

Maybe it's time to take another partner to the dance. In an interview with current council member Grant Lamont a couple of years ago, the irreverent politician-to-be came up with a grand idea.

"Whistler has never been based on safe thinking," said the creator and head-cheerleader for what many believe is one of the finest point-to-point mountain bike races on the continent. "Look at the events that put us on the map," he continued. "Whether the Cheakamus Challenge or the WSSF, the Peak-to-Valley race or Crankworx, they've always been considered unique, off-the-wall - even 'crazy'. But they've worked for us. Why? Because they're not normal. They're not 'safe'. They catch people's attention..."

The same thing, he argued, could be said for the residents of Whistler. "Why is it that we just listen to the 'safe' people these days when we have so many go-for-it originals in our community?" he asked rhetorically. "The status quo doesn't seem to be providing great results anyway. So why not take some risks? Why not set up a consulting panel made up of a group of un-ordinary Whistler characters whose track records have shown they can deliver the goods? Even if (or because) they do it in a way that's totally different than anybody else..."

He laughed. "I mean, even if they only came up with one great idea a month." A long pause. Another burst of mirth. "Well, that would be one great idea more than before."

Egads! What a concept.

Can you imagine an advisory panel to the mayor made up say, of Chili Thom, Ace McKay-Smith, Hugh Tollet, Sarah Jane Hornes, Tom Pro, Toulouse Spence, Stephanie Reesor, Charlie Doyle, Lisa Richardson, and just to round things out, Rob Boyd? Can you imagine the fun they'd have?  Or the interesting new initiatives they might come up with?

Intriguing to say the least... and certainly worth a try. Are you listening council?

Speaking of extraordinary characters...

In all the anxious hand-wringing over the Olympics' failure to deliver the "promised" economic goodies to our fair town (think about it - did you go to Sestriere or Deer Valley after the Games were held there?), one positive feature of the sports-orgy's influence on our daily lives continues to be ignored. And that's the enhancement of our human resources.

In a piece prior to the Games, I introduced readers to the CSF's (the Canadian Snowboard Federation) Robert Joncas.

"With a Master's degree in kinesiology," I wrote last year, "and an artisan's obsession for detail, the operations manager for the Canadian snowboard squad is a vital cog in the team's Olympic preparations. Whether it's developing a more efficient base material for his riders' boards or tweaking a binding component or simply sourcing a new, more aerodynamic racing suit for Canadian athletes, Joncas's role within the team is a direct reflection of Canada's new fascination with winning medals on the international stage."

It must have worked. For the CSF's haul at Cypress was impressive. With three medals (two gold and a silver), the one-plankers showed the Canadian snowsport world what they truly were made of. Indeed, their Olympic tally was the best of any federation. But when the competitive dust had settled at the end of the season there were still some serious issues to be addressed.

I won't bore you with the details, but leadership was a big concern. With three high performance directors hired in four years (and all the politics that such a regime change sparks), the continuity of the program had been seriously undermined. There were huge gaps in the development system. Up-and-comers were few and far between.

Enter Joncas. A hard-working family man with a high dose of integrity, the Quebecer had uprooted his whole family and moved to Vancouver's North Shore to be closer to the action. Keeping his head down and his foot to the floor, Joncas had negotiated the stormy months prior to the Games with aplomb. And when the racing started, he was right there doing everything possible to ensure his charges were ready to compete at their best.

"It wasn't easy," jokes the bilingual Joncas today. "The weather, the conditions, the state of the courses - everything conspired against us. But we got it done. I was so proud of our athletes up there."

When word came a few weeks ago that he had been appointed the CSF's newest high performance director (the man directly responsible for the fortunes of the national snowboarding team) a sigh of relief could be heard throughout the country. "Finally," one longtime coach put it, "a guy in charge who really knows what he's doing..."

For me, it's not just about Robert's hand at the helm of the team (although that's a great piece of news in itself). For his spouse and best friend, Claude has also found stimulating work in B.C.'s education sector. As for his kids, they've taken to Wet Coast life with a vengeance. Fredericke, his 17-year-old daughter, has already made the Canadian junior boardercross team while his son, David, is thriving on the grom circuit. In other words, they're not leaving this place anytime soon.

Forget all the hype. Forget all the promises. This, my friends, is what an Olympic legacy really looks like. And given their passion for mountain life, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Joncas family in residence at Whistler full time before too long. Stay tuned...