Have I got a deal for you
The snake oil salesman always arrives in town under a new guise. The latest costume involves the snappy P3 suit featuring never-before imagined efficiency at the wastewater plant and shit that not only smells good, it increases share value as well. Money is no object when it comes to selling this new fantabulous poop-to-profits proliferator (special thanks to Dr. Seuss), especially when the money is yours and mine. I refer to last week's two page advertisements in both local papers about the unbelievable benefits of allowing corporations to turn our crap into gold.
If it weren't so disturbing it would be down right entertaining to watch the machinations of the well funded corporations and those who put themselves at their service, ie: our own municipality and the odd councillor willing to put their name down for the crap-to-gold snake oil scheme. And who can blame them? It all sounds so good and wholesome in the expensive ads--misleading and inaccurate information notwithstanding.
A few weeks ago, those opposed to the privatization of our wastewater treatment plant (somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,500 voters – more than the number of votes our mayor and all but one of the councillors received in the last election; and probably far more than most will receive in the next one), were accused in the press of being emotional about the issue. Yes, it's true, dreaded emotion has reared its head in Whistler politics. Of course, when you don't have pockets full of money (both your own and the public purse when it comes to the fancy new P3 scheme), a bit of emotion can be a good catalyst for educating yourself on an important issue, getting your voice heard and pounding the pavement to spread the word.
Those favouring the new (and I might add, stylishly bottled) P3 elixir, meanwhile, have the luxury to sit back beneath a banner of so-called 'reason' while they re-arrange the facts and whitewash the history of public private partnerships into a fairy story. If you want to know how effective the snake oil salesman's product is, it's always wise to look at the previous towns he's visited. Ask the people of Hamilton; Ontario Moncton, New Brunswick; Stockton, California; Georgia, Alabama or Lexington, Kentucky how their privatized waste water or water systems have worked out.
If council is willing to stall this process even longer by going to referendum rather than throwing out the P3 scheme ($250,000 a month by their own estimation), then the propaganda battle will begin to unfold over the next three months. The corporate interests will buy more expensive ads, offer information workshops hosted by high level PR companies (also not cheap) and generally set the propaganda mill a-churning. The opposed citizens will speak out, write letters to the editor and pound the pavement, fueled by that irascible human trait known as emotion.
All that remains to be seen in Whistler now is who our elected officials and paid employees answer to: local citizens with an emotional attachment to their community, or outside corporate interests with deep pockets, bottomles stomachs and some of the finest smelling snake oil you ever did pass your nose over.
Stephen Vogler
Whistler
Dear RMOW Mayor and Council:
AWARE has avoided wading into the wastewater treatment plant delivery model debate as our mandate is for environmental protection and moving toward a more sustainable future. The ad placed by the municipality in Whistler papers on June 8 raises new and unexpected environmental issues that concern us and our membership.
If the Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade delivery model, traditional public versus a Public Private Partnership question goes to a referendum and if the traditional public operation model is chosen is it true that
"the Municipality would need to implement a scaled-down project..." and that "environmental standards might need to be more lenient, such as theconcentration of suspended solids the plant discharges into the Cheakamus River"?
We are looking forward to hearing council's answer to the above at the June 19 meeting, as we were of the understanding that it was decided several years ago that the plant upgrade would proceed in any case, and that the issue in question was the delivery model.
If council has now decided that a vote against a PPP will lead to a 'scaled back project' and might lead to 'lower environmental standards', the community needs and deserves to know that that is the new direction of council.
The Board of AWARE
Al Whitney, Bryce Leigh, Carson, Jaime MacKay, Keenan Moses, Marie-LN
Fortin, Sholto Shaw, Wendy Horan
The Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton (CCCoS) learned about the possibility of Whistler entering into a P3, and we don’t want your community to go through the same thing that Stockton experienced. We hope that Whistler can learn from Stockton’s example.
Before privatization, Stockton Municipal Utilities Department (MUD) had provided quality water, wastewater and storm water service for a reasonable cost with no major violations and no significant increase in cost of operation since 1997. During the mid 1990s the City embarked on the possibility of a public/private operation ignoring MUD’s sound business plan.
During the discovery period, CCCoS was formed to observe the entire process and also qualified an initiative that would let residents vote on water privatization; however, two weeks prior to a win on the March 2003 ballot, Stockton’s City Council voted 4-3 to enter into a Service Contract with OMI/Thames. This action pre-empted the wishes of the citizens to have a formal say in the outsourcing process.
CCCoS along with two other organizations sued the City Of Stockton for failure to follow the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) during the public hearings. We won in Superior Court but the Court of Appeals returned it back to address an 11th hour issue by the opponents. That hearing date is scheduled for August 2006.
In the meantime CCCoS has issued two annual Evaluation Reports that focused on the performance and failings since the city officially entered into the 2003 Service Contract. We found non-compliance in the following areas which could trigger notices of violation:
• Lack of structure and qualified personnel for monitoring the Contract
• Lack of Contract enforcement
• Requirements for Transition period were not met before Start date
• Increased water rates
• Lack of customer service
• Staffing capabilities and supervision
• Unaccounted-For water exceeds Contract percentage
Lack of Standard Operating Procedures to ensure public health
While privatization is promoted to assist local governments upgrade aging infrastructure, economic analyses and actual operations in cities demonstrate that this is wishful thinking. Atlanta, Georgia and Lexington, Kentucky are two of many examples. To ensure that the citizens’ utility services are protected and the rates citizens pay remain reasonable, the public must have oversight of their municipal water — their most precious resource and one needed for life itself.
Sylvia Kothe
Chair, Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton, California
Last week the RMOW ran two-page ads on the wastewater treatment plant in both local papers. (I guess money isn’t as tight at the Muni as we thought.)
So there’s another bill for the P3 proposal. How much so far? Let’s take a look…
It costs us $250,000 for each month of delay. (The RMOW’s own figure). That comes to $6.5 million since staff first rejected the P3 proposal 26 months ago. If they decide to go to a referendum, three more months of delay will be another $750,000. (Plus $35,000 for the referendum.)
Then there’s $300,000 we’re giving to the bidders. And $50,000 for the Blue Ribbon Panel. Plus two years of paying staff of the engineering department, media relations, legislative services, and senior management to work on the P3. Wonder what that cost.
We’re also going to have to pay for a new Shadow Bid, because the first one we got from the province, the one most Councilors are basing their decision on, was "merely illustrative". (I’m not making this up.)
And there are hefty bills for the lawyers, Partnerships B.C., the big PR firm, and now the Project Management Team — I’m still trying to find out what all that’s costing us. Plus the phone survey, advertisements, the website. What are we at — eight or nine million? And don’t get me started on all the hidden costs to come. (Ask your Councilor about trucking our sewage waste to Squamish.)
In other words, the P3 has already cost us $8 to $9 million . That’s more than the savings we were supposed to get from the whole project over 12 years. How did we get into this mess?
It’s simple. Whistler rejected the province’s P3 proposal two years ago because of the technology, risk to the community, and staffing problems.
But the provincial government didn’t like Whistler’s decision, and suggested we might want to reconsider it. (If you honestly believe this meant ‘reconsider’ and not ‘change’, look at what the province did when the SLRD rejected the Ashlu River project.)
Which is why the politically savvy RMOW management of the day handpicked a panel of nine ‘experts’ who quickly determined (surprise, surprise) that the province’s P3 proposal was actually a great way to go.
So now we have Council on the verge of approving a 12-year, $58-million project… based on an inadequate proposal from the province that we’ll pay to redo. (Developers must be scrambling for their phones, eager to find out if they can have this new low standard applied to their proposals.)
Meanwhile, the award-winning private sector partner we’ve worked with for twenty years, Dayton and Knight, is out of the picture. Not even offered a position on the project team. Seems it wasn’t good enough that this North Vancouver firm has delivered all its projects for Whistler on time and on budget. Used local contractors whenever feasible. Introduced innovations that saved us millions. And suggested solutions to the current plant problems as far back as 1996.
You see, one of its competitors was given the job. And not just any competitor, but an Alberta-based competitor the province uses for other P3s. A competitor, by the way, that just happened to be a member of the handpicked panel that decided the province’s P3 model was the way to go.
This smells worse than Function on a bad day. Call the Mayor. Call your Councilors.
Tell them to stop wasting our money. No more ads. No referendum. Let’s get back to the decision staff made before the province started interfering. Get back to the private sector partner that brought us here with integrity and style. And let Victoria go play with its own wastewater.
VC Powel
Whistler
Re: Copy Cats and pirates
Cat Smiley, stop trying to intimidate your competition.
Your product cannot be ‘unique’ if it is imitated, so which is it?
Having experienced yours and your competitions’ classes I can the only similarities are the days and times. In a ‘tiny town’ this clash of schedules seems inevitable.
Trying to belittle your competition through a war of words and accusations of piracy is pathetic.
People will choose which suits them best, your drill sergeant, army style or your competitions’ smiles and words of encouragement that took me to a new personal best.
Kate Willcocks
Whistler
Kudos to you Cat Smiley for again standing up for what you believe in! Its about time you mentioned something about the copying that is so obvious to anyone who regularly reads the back of Pique. I have friends that joined and had nothing but positive feedback — in fact they really liked being pushed to work harder and push limits to what they never thought they could achieve.
For most it is hard enough to run successful business in Whistler, I'm sure that having gossip invented by other companies who feel threatened, doesn't make it any easier. Slogans that read "cry babies welcomed" when most folks know Boot Camps is "no yelling no cry babies" sound like either a cheap rip off of the originals or a dig, either way, it doesn’t brand well.
At the end of the day it comes down to what fitness needs work best for the client. I have heard the bad mouthing about Cat and what happens at Boot Camp only by people who have never met her or been. I have even heard it from a trainer who wanted my business.
At the end of the day, all she is doing is trying to help her clients meet their goals in an innovative, creative way.
Jenn Patterson
Whistler
Sustainability gets Wings! I was fortunate to be a parent volunteer with the Spring Creek Grade 6/7 class last week at Sea to Sky Outdoor School for Sustainability Education on Keats Island. What a great opportunity for all involved – that parents like Karen Williamson, Susan Allen and Sherry Baker would make it a personal mission to fundraise for this event; that our teachers, Janet Penny, Lenka Hennessey and Carla Arnold would organize and steward our 46 darlings is above and beyond the call of duty. But to witness what the kids were exposed to proved that their efforts were well invested.
"Wings", a.k.a. Tim Turner, and his band of Island educators weave a message of ecological appreciation as textured as a ‘60's macramé. This is entrepreneurial education at its best! Funded on a shoestring – powered by a mission – Sea to Sky takes the kids on a deep ecological four-day journey. Set in the wild splendor of southern Keats, the kids adopt a name drawn from nature and slowly they gain reverence for both the island and their new identity.
Through a creative mix of teaching, story telling, theatre, music, games, gathering, collaboration and caring they live and learn toward a culture of sustainability. The word itself is woven into layers of laughter, lectures and song. The "clans" feel the challenge that 20 per cent of the population consume 80 per cent of the earth's resources; how to measure and shrink their ecological footprint; how to ponder the tipping points of climate change; how to use the new compass to make better choices.
As the week ended and Spring Creek School earned the coveted "Zero Waste" recognition, one could only hope every kid in the 2010 corridor will have this learning opportunity. For though it was clear we would return to a host of old habits, it was equally clear that the seeds had been sewn for a new kind of leader. Help them grow.
Brent Leigh
Whistler
The Joe Ashton 4 Youth Foundation would like to take this opportunity to thank all our supporters, corporate and individual, and youth group members, for their generous hearts in donating money and time helping to make our participation in our third AG Foods Community Fundraiser May Rewards Program yet another huge success.
Also, congratulations go to Doris Zurcher, winner of the laptop computer draw donated by Pemberton I.D.A. Pharmacy, as well as Loonie Draw winners Cody Ptolemy and Amy Allen.
Thank you AG Foods, and thank you everyone.
Lori Ashton
Pemberton
Out Flanked
I'm writing this letter to the guys with motorcycles who are riding on the Flank Trail. Please don’t!
There is a sign saying no motorized vehicles for a reason.
You chew it up, make it loose and really hard to ride on a mountain bike.
We appreciate the work the Muni does to keep it in good shape. Please don't wreck it!
E. Early
Whistler
Plastic is easy, but not cheap
Well said Brenda Bartosh (Not so fantastic plastic, June 8). Plastic Bags need to be charged for in order to cut back their use as has been done in Denmark for many years where everyone has cloth shopping bags.
Plastic is available when needed for a small fee (about 10 cents). Garbage is taken to large extremely efficient furnaces to make hot water and piped to everyone for heating and washing.
All glass is recycled. Nowhere do you find litter on the streets. Some of the central heat is used to make electricity although they are on a hydro grid from Sweden. They also make 29 per cent of their electricity from wind power.
Cloth shopping bags are already gaining us here as I and my three grown children can attest. It does need a boost and a little help from all levels of government.
Plastic bags are said to be convenient but only for the grocery store's checkout. They are certainly not easier to carry than cloth bags.
Terry Smith
Garibaldi Highlands
