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All events are community events

In the Aug. 6 Pique there was a great story written in regards to events and how key they are to the success of the whole corridor in the future.

In the Aug. 6 Pique there was a great story written in regards to events and how key they are to the success of the whole corridor in the future.

There was also a line drawn in regards to community versus non-profit events that I would like to elaborate on if I could be so bold.

All events are community events and the point Cliff Miller makes about the need to put back in is key to the long-term health of our trail network.

Not just events but the whole business community, from the guys who sell Slurpees and gas to the fancy restaurants with 20 bikes on car racks out front  spending $$. In Whistler we get lots of help from the hotel tax that kicks in funding for local trail maintenance.

I have been putting on the Cheakamus Challenge for 20 years and have always tried to be the good partner by working with local communities to build the infrastructure, not just for the locals but also the people who bring $ to the area. Close to 90 per cent of our budget was spent in the corridor!

This year, working with Bicycles for Humanity and our guiding business, Whistler Bike Guides, we donated and transported 26 bikes to kids in Mt. Currie. We have also donated thousands of dollars to the Cops for Cancer program for children with terminal illness.

Over 20 years we have invested more than $25,000 in cash and labour into the trails that the race impacts and have worked for FREE to keep the Sea to Sky Trail route active and on the radar of land managers.

We have had help from Whistler Bike Guide and Bear Back Biking in doing trail maintenance on the route for the past five years.

Now that the S2S Trail is going full bore under the guidance of an engaged and active board and executive director this investment has paid off.

In regards to the trails, the SLRD has now assumed the liability for all trails on Crown land that get recognized and adopted - big step!

There is also the new parcel tax that is being applied to every parcel in the SLRD which will go to maintain and repair trails in the corridor, which will be in the $200k-$300k range per year!

Good news is on the horizon.

FYI, the FOR-PROFIT events that everyone talks about are also non-profits and money losers. Most of us don't go for the non-profit status because we hope to one day recover our losses. The paperwork involved to become and maintain a non-profit is another 100 hours of unpaid time.

Grant Lamont

Whistler

True Olympians

Re: "People make the Games" (Pique Opening Remarks, Aug. 6)

I would like to thank you for your words and share a story with you that made our experience at the Torino Olympics, that much more terrific - locals who met us and embraced us.

My husband Paul and I were on the bus heading towards Celebration Plaza in the hub of Torino. We saw an older couple, both of whom were wearing the Olympic volunteer jackets, and asked them for some directions.

Alberto and Carla were just finishing their shift for the evening and said they were heading in the same direction. To make a long story short, these two were so excited to share their town with us that they took us on an evening walking tour of central Torino, filled with narration of historical facts and personal experiences and events... we were all engaged in our time together.

As the evening progressed, we asked them to recommend a small locals' spot for some Italian food (and would they like to join us). Well, they would not hear of it. After much insistence and Carla's quick disappearance and reappearance with a large baguette and a bag of produce, we were on the way to their apartment for the most sumptuous homemade dinner.

As the night moved on into the late hours we shared our lives and stories with these new found friends and we were all reluctant to say good bye when our eyes were barely able to remain open.

As much as we will remember the events we attended and the excitement behind the sports, it is this encounter with our new Italian friends that truly enriched our experience during our time in Torino at the 2006 Winter Olympics.

We are proud to be Whistlerites and wish to share our enthusiasm for our hometown and all it has to offer. While Alberto and Carla were exceptions in how far they went to make us feel welcome, we can only hope that our great neighbours and friends here will also embrace the enthusiasm of the Olympics and share our wonderful Whistler with athletes and visitors who will be here in 2010.

To quote Bob Barnett from Aug. 6th, "People make the games."

Talya Shore

Whistler

Fish farms to blame

This letter was addressed to MP John Weston. A copy was forwarded to Pique for publication.

Our local Squamish to Lillooet Sportfish Advisory Committee is writing to express our extreme dismay at news that DFO is reporting 11 million sockeye salmon have not returned to the Fraser River. This has impacted the local area on the Birkenhead River in Pemberton. The colossal collapse is something that can not be ignored.

Initial comments from high-ranking DFO officials are very worrisome in the lack of recognition of a significant factor in this collapse. Barry Rosenburger, DFO area director for the B.C. Interior, describes the Fraser sockeye collapse as unexpected and that DFO doesn't know what happened ( Globe and Mail , Aug. 13, 2009). But the next day he goes on to say it does not look like fish farms are responsible (BCLocalNews.com).

On Aug. 15, a letter from Paul Sprout, Pacific Region Director for DFO, was published in the Globe and Mail : "Sea lice from fish farms are not the explanation of this year's extremely poor marine survival of Fraser River sockeye..."

What science did Sprout and Rosenburger use to inform the public that fish farms are not responsible for this sockeye collapse?

Two of your highest ranking employees involved with this fishery have publicly exonerated the fish farmers, an industry associated with catastrophic salmon collapse worldwide (Ford and Myers 2008) and here in B.C. (Krkosek et al 2007).

The most recent past catastrophic B.C. wild salmon collapse was in 2002 when 99 per cent of the Broughton pink salmon failed to return. The Pink Salmon Action Plan ( http://www.fish.bc.ca/node/135 ) temporarily removed farm salmon from the Broughton pink salmon migration route and the next generation of pink salmon returned at the highest survivorship ever recorded for the species (Beamish et al 2006). That management decision was reversed and the stock collapsed again.

Dr. Brian Riddell of the Pacific Salmon Foundation suggests that answers to the fate of these sockeye may lie in what happened to them right after they left the Fraser River, before they reached the open ocean. Alexandra Morton and others did examine this run of sockeye shortly after they left the Fraser River. She looked at about 350 of this generation of Fraser sockeye when they went to sea in 2007 and they had up to 28 sea lice (each). The sea lice were all young lice, which means they got them in the vicinity of where we were sampling, which was near the fish farms in the Discovery Islands near Campbell River.

I am not saying that fish farms resulted in the loss of all 11 million missing Fraser sockeye, but fish farms certainly played a significant role. I reference a map from the Aug. 13 Globe and Mail showing the migration route of these sockeye salmon.

I urge you to bring this to Fisheries Minister Shea's attention. To see high ranking DFO representatives dismissing the impact of these salmon farms on the Fraser sockeye collapse is extremely concerning. These missing sockeye did swim through fish farm effluent. Rather than exempting fish farms from your investigation you must order complete disclosure of the health and number of farm salmon on the missing Fraser sockeye migration route in 2006-present. Our local Squamish to Lillooet Sportfish Advisory Committee needs to know why DFO is exonerating fish farms in the first few days of the investigation.

We look forward to your reply and continued efforts on this issue. We hope that you urge Minister Shea to visit our riding to hear our concerns.

Dave Brown Vice Chair

John Wright Chair

Squamish to Lillooet Sportfish Advisory Committee

Paramedics need support

Here it is mid summer and our amazing ambulance paramedics are still asking the public for help with getting their contract deal done. Is there anyone in Whistler who isn't keen on seeing these men and women get their fair share?

Along with police and fire departments, the paramedics form a trinity that keeps our town from descending into all sorts of chaos. What they have to see and do each day is difficult on the body and the soul. It must be even more disheartening to ask for the public's help through full-page ads week after week. As a taxpayer I hope they will get what they need to continue to do the fine job serving our community.

Kathy Smith

Whistler

Whistler is too good for this

The pigs did very well at the trough last year. The average increase of those earning over $100,000 at the municipal hall in 2008 was 17.3 per cent. This compared to the average for B.C. workers of 1.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, a report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses found municipal employees are paid 35 per cent more than those at comparable levels in the real world.

However, if our esteemed leader cannot control his appetite, we should not expect discipline from his own staff. Mayor Melamed received $80,221 last year, up 44.5 per cent from the previous year - quite a bit better than the mayors of West Vancouver ($71,700), Squamish ($35,923) or Victoria ($63,000). The latter a jurisdiction that has to deal with homelessness, needle exchanges, overnight squatting in the parks and a population eight times Whistler's.

For 2009 the mayor gets a 7.4 per cent raise to $86,200, saying he had to eclipse inflation or it would be disempowering - odd as we currently have no consumer inflation in Canada.

The benchmarking of small municipalities to the incomes of large ones is the best circle jerk I have ever witnessed for government employees. Our recent residents' rebellion to the muni's inept attempt to impose high cost parking is an understandable reaction to the fact that we feel parking money will be simply misspent by the largesse of our council on over governing us, overpaying staff, treating themselves to Olympic tickets, and insane expenditures such as the destruction of the treed boulevard on Blackcomb Way.

But don't worry, our mayor's answer to high taxes is "we are trying to be very entrepreneurial and invest in our cachet... to take the burden off our residents and businesses." Meanwhile, our bylaw storm troopers close an artists' night market that was bringing necessary income to artists and considerable benefits for the tourists from unique purchases and personal exchanges with the artists. Please just leave us with Nike, Eddie Bauer, Starbucks and The Gap so we can be just like Vail and Aspen.

Call me cantankerous, callous or whatever you want because I know in my heart I am being realistic in wanting to preserve Whistler as a great place. Whistler is too good to be mired in debt and high taxes, which can only serve to destroy the essence of what we have built and come to enjoy up until now in our community.

Lennox McNeely

Whistler

Citta' saved

A massive thank you to all our incredible supporters!

We were happy to work with Burrard International to successfully negotiate our lease and we thank them for supporting Citta'. We are here for a number of years to come, and although our lease does not allow for significant renovations, we will undertake modest renovations this fall.

We are thrilled to still be part of the Whistler community and we thank everyone for their incredible support and our great staff for being so patient and so loyal during this prolonged time of uncertainty.

Stay tuned for a celebration party this fall!

Scott Gadsby, General Manager Citta Bistro Ltd.

Sonia Bozzi, President Citta Bistro Ltd.

Operating domestically is good

In response to G.D. Maxwell's column, "Welcome home, troops" (Pique, Aug. 13) I want to ask if the writer was "recoiled in horror at the thought of Canadian Forces personnel being deployed domestically" to help fight this summer's wild fires in B.C.? While they weren't deployed this time (they were on notice), they were in 2003 (Op Peregrine).

And how about the Red River flood in Manitoba (Op Assistance)? The Canadian Forces were there for the recovery of Swiss Air flight 111 in 1998 (Op Persistence) off Halifax. They are also conducting ongoing operations to protect our arctic sovereignty.

While these are just a few examples of the CF's domestic operations, there are many more. I'd say having the CF operating domestically is indeed a good thing. We are very fortunate to have so many brave men and women put their lives at risk to ensure we have a safe and comfortable place to live. And I am very grateful for that.

Mary Ellen Green

Victoria, B.C.

Whistler Reads, a community success

Mix a stunning location, wine, sculpture, lively discussion and a great book and you have a typical Whistler Reads event.

Whistler Reads has really pushed me out of my bedside table comfort zone - and all the better for it! The events allow for people to discuss and really dig deeper into whichever book we have been pouring over for the past month after keeping an eye on the bookbuffet website for the latest title. Hearing other readers' ideas and takes on things shines such a different light on the whole book reading experience, drawing out opinions from all types of readers. Often with a guest speaker, or two, discussing topics that range from the art world to the arctic these events are simply amazing in their scope and accessibility to the locals.

Personally, as a new comer to Whistler, these book group meetings have not only been an eye opener in a literary aspect but have been a great way to meet locals from every industry and interest. I anxiously wait the next choice of book, our next guest speaker and our next spectacular Whistler location.

Whistler Reads is a locally run and operated book club, please visit bookbuffet.com for more information on events!

Dee Raffo

Whistler