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You better watch out! I had the luxury of receiving a $15 parking ticket on Main Street on Dec. 4 th this year at 4:39 p.m.

You better watch out!

I had the luxury of receiving a $15 parking ticket on Main Street on Dec. 4 th this year at 4:39 p.m. That is on a Tuesday! I had quickly run in to pick up my dry cleaning and run one other errand, which might have taken me all of 15 minutes, max. I interpret this as a direct stab to us, as locals; to go ticketing stalls during an unfortunate extended slow time for many. I am not sure how long the new parking fees have been in place there, but obviously I missed the warning, if there was any.

Is it just me or has the parking in this town gone over the top? It is absolutely ridiculous.

• The construction of The Four Seasons Hotel has left Club Intrawest, Chateau and other employees in the upper village having to find alternate parking either at Base II or day lot 4.

• There are traffic jams underneath the conference centre.

• Parking stalls at the Glacier Lodge are being sold for over $25,000! (I think that beats the Intrawest record at Legends for revenue per square foot.)

• Corporations buying up parking stalls and charging up to $15 per day or $300 per month.

• Rumour has it that the day parking lots will be paved next year and there will be daily charges there too.

Where are the employees that make this town tick going to park? This is not a move forwards in sustainability and affordability. Chalk it up to an additional cost on top of the already high cost of living that we endure as residents. I guess it is just another tactic of forcing the people who have helped create this town to move away. Maybe we should consult the Walt Disney executives or the municipal leaders of Aspen?

It is sad I have lived here over five years and I promote Whistler to the best of my ability. In fact it has become my business. However, I feel that the support in this town for the people who live here, except a token few friends and suppliers, is non-existent. Or maybe I am not in the right circles here.

Instead of just complaining I have two suggestions. Perhaps the municipality could:

1) Adopt the similar parking policies that Vancouver has. People with local mailing addresses come to the municipality with proof of residence for a sticker to place in their vehicles windshield.

2) Use some of the funding from the "financial tools" that Hugh O’Reilly talked about in the Dec. 13 Pique to cover the costs.

I am not going to hold my breath on that last one.

Hey, would this not be a great issue to address in the councillor show down?

If there are others who agree with some or all the issues I have expressed I urge you to please submit your concerns to the council as well.

Neil Mark

Whistler

 

Let's put Games into perspective

Re: Economic Impacts from hosting the 2010 Games

1. B.C.'s GDP between 1990 and 2001 equalled some $1.26 trillion. Based on this figure, the estimated 12 year $6.2 billion economic impact from hosting the 2010 Games equates to only 0.5 per cent of B.C.'s GDP (economic activity) over a 12 year period.

If one was to forecast B.C.'s GDP from 2004-2015 (assuming a conservative annual increase of 2 per cent) then the economic impact on B.C.'s GDP from the Games would only be 0.33 per cent.

In other words, take 100 drinking straws and drop them on a table. The 100 drinking straws represent the entire economic activity of B.C. over a 12 year period. Pick up one of these straws and cut 1/3 off of it. That small piece of drinking straw (1/3) represents the economic significance of hosting the Games in British Columbia in terms of B.C.'s overall economic activity.

The Jones Lang LaSalle report on Olympic Games stated that the economic impact from hosting the Games is relatively insignificant. Here's what the report says: "Not only is the economic impact (from hosting the Games) relatively insignificant, it is also heavily focused in the host city itself."

2. If comparing the 2010 Games estimated economic impact with Canada's total GDP from 1990 to 2001 (12 year period - $10.14 trillion) then the economic impact from hosting the 2010 Games would only be 0.06 per cent of Canada's total GDP. That's 6/100th of one per cent!

If one was to forecast Canada's GDP over the next 12 to 15 years based on 2 per cent annual growth in economic activity then the significance of hosting the 2010 Games would be even less. (Source for GDP figures 1990-2001, Statistics Canada and BC Stats, Economic Activity: British Columbia and Canada.)

The figures stated in the provincial government's Economic Impact Study are over-optimistic and are clouded in boosterism. Despite having access to documents available to me, the province continues to find ways to sell the sizzle...

1. The economic impact from hosting Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games was estimated to be worth Cdn $6.8 billion over a 12 year period. The Summer Games are significantly larger than the Winter Games and Sydney's population saw a growth of 1 million people over the last decade (1990-2000). Sydney is now spending an estimated $4 billion on widening roads, building new bridges/tunnels and two new freeways in the next four years.

2. Salt Lake City's games were estimated to have an economic impact of Cdn $4.4 billion. This includes Cdn $1.2 billion in federal taxes going towards transportation infrastructure. (Which was much greater than the promised Cdn $300 million by the Canadian Government.)

3. The "Final Report," dated Nov. 22, 2002, of the 2010 Games Economic Impact which the B.C. government states was an "independent study" is under suspicion. Seems the president and CEO of InterVistas, the company that conducted the "Final Report," sat on Tourism Vancouver's board of directors when the board unanimously decided to give $1 million to the 2010 Bid Corp in 2000. See Tourism Vancouver's Annual Reports for Years 2000 and 2001. Tourism Vancouver, as of fiscal year end 2001, has given $433,000 to the bid corp.

But then any "independent study" on economic impacts that contained the following unqualified statement would make anyone suspicious: "This real but unmeasured cost is balanced somewhat by the equally real but unmeasured benefit that will accrue to residents during the Games. That benefit will be hometown pride and an international hosting experience. This will last a lifetime."

Let's stop ignoring B.C.'s other economic engines and focus the public tax dollars, time, energy and talent on re-building B.C.'s economy based on our strengths and not our fantasies. If the provincial government is willing to commit anywhere from $60 to $400 million a year for 30 years paying for this 17-day party and its "presents," wouldn't those same dollars provide for much needed affordable housing, health care, education and public safety without having to host the Games?

Phil Le Good

Vancouver/Squamish

 

A survivor’s tale

As 2002 draws to a close I am going to try and make good on at least one of the last New Year's resolutions. I made a promise to say thank you. This will be at least a humble beginning.

Over the last five years my life has changed a great deal. Namely and quite happily, I have been soaking up life, totally cancer free. The summer of 1997 was hard. Chemotherapy, tears, smiles, belly laughs, love, family and friends were all stewed up together, to make for quite a memorable mix. That summer I worked at Nicklaus North Golf Course. Fellow maintenance workers, among many others through recent years, took it upon themselves to open their hearts to someone they barely knew. I am forever changed and eternally grateful. Wherever life finds you these days, I wish you happiness and continued faith in the beauty of life you all so easily shared with me. I wrote this piece with all of you in mind.

Up On the Roof

Each July for the last four years I have found myself drawn to newspapers, radios and televisions. The Tour de France just happens to be racing through the French countryside and Lance Armstrong is doing his best to show that there is life after cancer. I for one don't want to miss a single moment.

At the same time I have been lucky enough to watch as two eight-year-old boys forget about needles, scans, and tears, and try to ease the grip of one thing we can't always fix. They are flooded with a pure innocent ecstasy for life, living with a presence few people ever fully embrace. I have felt the deepest sense of respect and admiration for the women who proudly don for the world their bald heads. They press the most beautiful smiles through the pain of chemotherapy. I have been filled with helplessness holding a child that I could not heal, only to be recharged by their honest sense of reality and pure strength of spirit. I feel blessed and honoured to have shared these special moments with people battling cancer. Simply stated, they are all heroes. Everyday people living inspired lives. But for all those who have felt the complete emptiness of a doctor's fateful words, "You have cancer," there is another kind of hero. A hero we hear far too little about. This is a story about one of those special people.

I know that it was always warm. Clouds would hang over my head, dancing, bouncing across the sky. A low hum from the city below, echoed all around me. The slamming of brakes, far off sirens, distant horns, the whole city slipped right past my feet. Everything and everyone carried on just as they should. On a regular summer day, backed by an effortless breeze, high above all your heads, I sat with my Dad.

A long, narrow, wooden path turned out in a myriad of directions, long bleached by endless tramplings and countless sun baked days. Each plank had the distinct feeling of being a piece in a giant board game. All around you as far as you could see, just pebbles and black tar. We truly were "up on the roof." In a moment of sheer brilliance and compassion, someone had thought to use this empty hospital rooftop for walking, sitting and drifting off into the clouds of our minds. Off to one side, volunteer gardener's had created a perfect home for small dreams.

Once the door was open, you left beyond all that pale, too clean to be clean air. You began to forget a world of scentless, spotless hygiene. Here you could burst out into a sky waving, literally screaming with life. This was a special place where a cloud might twist into the shape of a giant nose or a perfectly puffy map of China. To sit there, I could think aloud, talk about my swollen toes, my seemingly endless case of indigestion. I could joke about how my sparse head of hair looked more like a distorted high school geography project than I think anyone was willing to say. The eyelashes, or lack of, were by far the worst fate. You never realize just how important those funny, floppy hairs are until they are gone. Dust is your mortal enemy.

All the bumps and lumps, sweaty nights, grumbles and hair-filled drains I could have shared with my Dad up on the roof. Instead, we talked about news from around the globe, which no doubt just kept rolling along, as I seemed to stand still. We laughed about family vacations, the salmon that got away, curious killer whales, tangled fly lines, canoes and crazy rain, sacred spots and just how much of an honour it was to search them all out. Sports, food, politics, memories, and funnily enough, even the future came up the odd time. Inevitably, my time would be up, my daily "cocktail" would drip to barely full and I would have to start my monotonous search for the nearest nurses’ station.

Sometimes, up on the roof, we just sat, no needles in my hand, sharing lunch – sushi, wonton, maybe a simple bagel with cream cheese. Rarely did we disturb our feasts to talk about doctors, drugs or late night accidents. We covered almost every topic but cancer. It felt amazing. We smiled and laughed. That is what I remember most about my Dad and I up on the roof. As you went off back to work Dad, I sat feeling safer, I felt like I could breathe. I could have asked for no greater gift.

My experiences with cancer have taught me, among many things, that heroes and heroines come from all walks of life, in all shapes, sizes and colours. They are the honest doctors that look you straight in the eye, the nurses that smile when you tell them about the mess you just made on the floor. Other times they are girlfriends, boyfriends or partners who just hold your hand. Heroes who patiently wait with open hearts, for your return after surgery. They are your co-workers who shave their heads to make you feel as if nothing had changed. They are those brave strangers in grocery store lineups who ask how you are doing or smile instead of staring or turning away in fear. Sometimes they are your Mom or Dad, who sit quietly by your side, just listening.

I am a cancer survivor, to some I guess I might be considered a hero. But there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be loving life in the same way today, were it not for the unconquerable love and tireless support of the plain clothed Super-men and -women who have stood by my side.

In a way cancer is a gift, it can inspire us to see the magic in each and every moment. With the help of countless amazing souls, I am doing my best not to waste a single second.

Grahame Marpole

Pemberton