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Shortsighted thinking

This letter was addressed to Mayor Ken Melamed and Councillors Grant Lamont and Eckhard Zeidler. A copy was forwarded to Pique for publication.

This letter was addressed to Mayor Ken Melamed and Councillors Grant Lamont and Eckhard Zeidler. A copy was forwarded to Pique for publication.

I question your vote against the application from Nicklaus North for a permanent change to their Food Primary Liquor License. Please allow me to review the circumstances surrounding the application:

1. The LLAC (Liquor License Advisory Committee) supports the application. This committee is made up of individuals appointed by you and includes representatives from the RCMP, the fire department, the Liquor Licensing Inspector as well as members of the community.

2. The RMOW staff recommended approval of this application with restrictions as outlined in the June 16, 2009 administrative report to council (Report: 09-083 / File LLR 1014). These restrictions were agreed to by the Nicklaus North management. In the words of RMOW staff, "these restrictions are a very good compromise to both the facility and residents." Why would you vote against the recommendations of both your staff and the LLAC?

3. Past councils, Tourism Whistler and the business community have spent untold hours and significant resources trying to maximize hotel stays during the shoulder seasons and summer months. Your vote against this application undermines their efforts.

4. I don't need to tell you how uncomfortable many residents are about the increasing tax issue: last year, 5.5 per cent. Next year, the possibility of a 7 per cent increase, followed by the possibility of a further 5 per cent increase in 2011.
The current world economic situation has put significant pressure on your revenues. Your vote against this application affects an estimated direct visitor spending in the resort of approximately $950,000. This is your staff's number (again I refer to the aforementioned report, Whistler 2020 analysis, page 6).

By the nature of our name, The Resort Municipality of Whistler, we are in the tourist business. Every member of the community should be an ambassador for Whistler and look at ways to maximize guest visits and visitor spending. Obviously the three of you feel otherwise! Quite frankly, I am appalled at your shortsighted thinking. I urge you to reconsider your position when this amendment comes back before you.

Gord Annand

Whistler

B.C. salmon at risk

Thank you for the Salmon Salvation update from Washington and Oregon.
As an ex-commercial salmon troller for 25 years I could spot a Columbia River spring salmon before it was even out of the water. They are truly beautiful animals, and tend to resemble a keg of nails rather than a normal stream-lined salmon.

I am writing to beg your readership to go online and view FarmedAndDangerous.org. Our own Wild B.C. salmon are differently damned and in immediate need of your attention. Can you imagine all the salmon resources in the Gulf of Georgia completely extinct? Not even a scale going up the Fraser. It's a scary thought. I would not be writing this letter if I was not convinced of the severity of this potential fate.

Please invest a few minutes of your time before it is to late.

Jim Horner

Whistler

Something else to try

In his column (I fought the war, Pique June 18) Max said about drugs, "...there will always be people who want to use them." He could be right and probably is; but the life we have now has not been planned. It has evolved through haphazard, reactive mismanagement. Were we to use in contemplating reality the energy we now spend perpetuating the self-destructive "American Dream," we could possibly create a life from which no one wants to escape; and it wouldn't cost a penny. Thinking about our common life is something we haven't yet tried and like max said, "It (is) about time to try something else."

Doug Barr

Whistler

www.thelastwhy.ca

The perpetual war

RE: I fought the war (Maxed Out, Pique June 18)

What G.D. Maxwell fails to realize is that the War On Certain Drugs was never meant to be won, it was meant to be continuous. It was designed to reduce the civil rights and liberties of the general population, accustom them to an ongoing and ever-growing police and military presence in their daily lives, drain taxpayers' dollars, and to keep lawyers rich, cops busy, and jails full. In that regard, it has been a huge success. This could be why the Powers That Be refuse to end it.

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ont.

Federally Licensed Medical Marijuana User Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis (PAIDOC) www.paidoc.org

Show some respect

Using an environmental agenda to implement pay parking is insulting. Guests who know that parking used to be free are going to be insulted. Please show some respect.

We have this nifty pedestrian-only village that the majority travel to in a vehicle. Let's not do the one thing that's going to piss off every single one of them. How is that a good business practice? Welcome to Whistler. Enjoy this kick to the nuts. Please come back tomorrow.

Jamey Kramer

Whistler

Keep the pressure on

It has been four weeks since I wrote my letter to protest the new pay parking which has been installed at the Whistler Conference Centre. Since that time, I have not only observed that each new issue of this newspaper has a few letters on the same issue, I see that the issue has resonated very deeply with a great many people in this town, visitors and locals alike.

Nathan McLeod of Whistler Wired asked me to participate in the creation of a website (freewhistlerparking.com) which I designed to poll the community and capture the comments of concerned citizens. Here are the survey results of the website, which has only been up for two weeks: 556 responses, 492 voted against pay parking (an overwhelming 90 per cent support). Additionally, 22 visitors to the website left comments voicing their discontent with the new pay parking agenda.

Last Saturday (June 20), I went to the parking lot and took pictures to see if the parking lot is being used. The parking lot was virtually empty on all levels except the top level. All the other parking lots in the village were crammed full. This clearly demonstrates the attitude the community has taken in this issue. You can view the pictures at www.freewhistlerparking.com.

I have urged all the poll participants to write to the mayor and council; I also wrote to the mayor myself. After Mr. Melamed's initial claim in the Whistler Question article that "he had only received about four personal e-mails on the pay parking issue," his e-mail back to me shows that the message is getting through: "We understand that many reactions to the current and proposed changes (to the pay parking) have been negative. Due to the high volume of e-mails we have received, please be patient. A more detailed response will be forthcoming."

Keep sending those letters!

Tim Allix

Whistler

Council has been warned

I am writing to express my disgust at the municipality's ongoing cash grab. I do not have a vehicle but support the many others against pay parking.

My issue is that even though council is encouraging us to ride buses we pay extreme amounts for the shortest rides I have ever seen. Is it really fair for someone who makes $8/hour to have to pay $2 just to get five or six stops?

Council encourages us to take transit instead of drive but that may become too difficult as well. Paying $55 a month for a bus pass I might as well just spend the extra $50 and get a car and insure it... but then we come back to the same vicious cycle.

I know many people who have had to use the food bank to eat because costs are just too high. Having a bike is not really an option for everyone either, as we all work very hard and a lot of us don't want to have to bike home from the village to Emerald or Creekside at 11 p.m. after working an eight-hour - or more - shift. We get tired too.

I don't see council taking a pay cut to help the rest of us.

I have been a resident of Whistler for three years now and have seen our community slowly come unraveled in the wake of the Olympics.

Remember, without us, the workforce that drives this town, council would have nothing. Whistler may have a transient workforce but do they really care about the community they live in? I should hope council would want to keep people that have a passion for community spirit and want to make it better, not just people who come get drunk for a season and go home to their regular lives.

Council may have an uprising on its hands at precisely the time it wants our image of Whistler to be perfect to the rest of the world. Take action before we do.

Natasha Penner

Whistler

Do the math

I have been following the issue of paid parking for the last year. I did not plan to get involved. It is not a problem for us. We can walk to anywhere in the village. But this is not only a local issue. I do not hear anybody speaking up for the tourists. Existence of Whistler depends on them.

In my life, I was very closely associated with tourism. Half of my life I spent in a prestigious European alpine resort, not as big as Whistler. My father was a mayor there and he did his function for free, even paid some of his own expenses.

Later, in Canada, for several decades I have taken our four-member family from Eastern Canada on ski vacations. We went mostly to the best European and American ski resorts. We were to Whistler only once and I can write a study why that was the case.

I want to share a parking story. In the beginning of the '90s, we were going for several years to Vail. It was great. We liked the place, its alpine character of the village. Each time we had an apartment outside the village. There was a free parking lot near the centre of Vail from which there was a short walk to lifts. Great with two small kids.

Then one year, we came back and in place of a free parking lot there was this monstrous underground parking garage. Parking at that time was $8 per day with the Canadian dollar worth 65 cents. No problem, we could take the bus that was free.

Next day, we waited half an hour in -15C with two small kids. The bus was late and that was it. I paid for parking for the rest of the week and we never went back to Vail.

On our numerous ski vacations in Europe we encountered paid skier parking only once. All ski lift companies have free parking, without it they would not exist. And they have to maintain those lots. I am not surprised that WB is not protesting. We, the taxpayers and locals are paying for paving and maintenance.

I have questions for council members. Tell me one thing that paid parking will do that increases tourist visits. Who of the elected council members has taken their families on ski vacations to premier competition resorts and knows how much that costs?

Whistler has to compete with many resorts where every accommodation is ski-in, ski-out. Do you know that it is much cheaper to transfer by rail from Geneva to St. Moritz, about 200 km, than from Vancouver airport to Whistler? How about some homework? Do a budget for a four-member family from Toronto for a ski vacation in Whistler. Maybe then you will understand what you are doing to Whistler tourism, which is dying a slow death of a thousand small cuts.

I am looking forward to the day when WB will be refunding parking to ski visitors from Vancouver. With the astronomical prices for ski passes, it will be the only sensible thing to do.

Drago Arh

Whistler

Enough whining

It is with a sad heart that I feel the need to write this letter. The municipality has to make a lot of hard choices and then live with the fallout of those choices. On the issue of pay parking the muni got it right. To say that as locals we deserve the right to free parking is shortsighted and small minded. Driving is a privilege not a right. You pay for your licence, you pay for insurance, why should you not pay for the parking of your polluting vehicle?

Nobody is trying to stop you from driving, just trying to make you think about the trip you are going to take. Thousands of people go about their lives, go to work, grocery shop, raise their kids, all without cars.

In a town that has banned smoking even in lift lines (which I support) I am surprised there is such resistance to reducing the number of smog-producing cars in the village.

Before I climb down from the soap box I would like to address the companies that are involved in the petition to repeal pay parking. You were worried that pay parking would cost you business, and now it has. I will no longer shop at any store that supports that petition.

Just for the record, I am a full time local and I do own a car.

D.W. Buchanan

Whistler

Look before whining

I just want to say I've had enough.... of the whining that is! Look around at what the municipality HAS done for us:

The Valley Trail system, the Lost Lake trails and many others are truly world class. People in other places have to pay to ride and walk trails like these. The rec centre, the parks and beaches, the bus system. The beautiful library, which is a pillar of the free world. The affordable housing projects are the envy of the entire country.

And lastly, our mayor whose values have neither wavered nor morphed while serving our community as councillor and mayor. Maybe some would have preferred a rampant developer running our town.

So when you feel the urge to whine, take a good look around, it's easy to see what makes most of us happy to live and work here!

John Lee

Whistler

Good judgment or legislation

I write in response to the letters from Bart Makadia (Washington) and Shantu Shah (Oregon) concerning the tragic death of Nishil Ajudia.

I extend my condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Ajudia.

The letters raise several issues with respect to the responsibilities of society and the responsibilities of the individual.

Does society have to warn people that hot coffee and stoves may burn them? Does society have to warn people that mountain lakes in early June are frigid and that swimming in them may be hazardous? Does society have to warn people that skiing out of bounds is dangerous?

Maybe we do. Society has, for example, legislated seat belts and bike helmets to protect the individual from injury risks that should be obvious. Many people still ski and board without helmets; still others ski out of bounds.

Or should individuals use common sense and good judgment?

Lawrence McQuid

Coquitlam, B.C.

A warm feeling

We would like to express our most sincere thanks to those hundreds of people who helped us through the recent wildfire which threatened our cabins and homes at Marshall Lake. While the news wasn't always good, we appreciated the often twice daily e-mail bulletins from the Fire Information Officers. The opportunity, early on, to get the "straight goods" from the Incident Commander was welcomed.

From our point of view, everybody battling this fire, both on the ground and in the air, really put their hearts and souls into their efforts. Best of all, you saved our cabins, many of which were passed to us by our parents and hence are full of irreplaceable family memories.

In particular, our heartfelt thanks to the firefighters, crews and fire suppression teams of the Kamloops Fire Centre, pilots, RCMP, Tribal Police, SLRD Emergency Operations Centre staff, and volunteers including MOFR Fire Wardens. Thank you!

John Parrott for

Marshall Lake Rate Payers Association