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“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Wimpy, the portly, hamburger-addicted Falstaff of Popeye cartoons, used to utter that line with some frequency.
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“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Wimpy, the portly, hamburger-addicted Falstaff of Popeye cartoons, used to utter that line with some frequency. I never knew whether he was poor and couldn’t afford his hamburger fix or if he was just cheap and preferred to cadge his favourite food as a test of the milk of human kindness. Perhaps he was a writer, which would pretty much be the equivalent of “all of the above.”

But at a time when most western governments and virtually every individual was mired in pay-as-you-go land, Wimpy was pioneering deficit spending on a personal scale. He was, as it turns out, ahead of his time. Governments, for the most part, are addicted to spending more than they earn unless they earn a lot by sucking oil out of the ground or are particularly parsimonious. Economists, having gotten much smarter over the years, have moved well beyond the simple explanation that incurring debt made sense for long-lived capital projects like roads, sewers, and schools. They’ve come up with all kinds of reasons why even running current account balances — the governmental equivalent of having to borrow money to go buy milk — makes perfect sense.

Individuals quickly caught on to the Wimpy trick too. Having, like earlier economists, come to peace with the idea that credit wasn’t a one-way ticket to palookaville, as long as you were borrowing for things like houses and maybe cars, most people became comfortable, friendly even with debt. So friendly they, with the help and urging of the banking business, cozied up to deficit spending for just about everything, hamburgers included. What would life be like without credit cards?

But with the benefit of at least a superficial understanding of the basics of Wimpy economics, I’m still struggling with the idea of committing $5 million bucks of municipal money to the Lot 1/9 medals plaza, outdoor cultural, recreation and gathering place. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for medals, outdoor culture and recreation. Gathering places I can mostly take or leave but I have an open mind about the whole gathering thing.

The root of my struggle though is wondering why we’re spending dough we arguably don’t have on something we arguably don’t need. And this struggle doesn’t even touch upon the whole umbrella-covered skating rink that’ll be built if the muni can scare up $20 million from fundraising activities in the next six months. I don’t know whether that dream is an indication of how much easier it is to raise funds now than it was when the very anemic fundraising efforts for Millennium Place and/or the Librarymahal were dropped for lack of interest a few years ago, or whether it’s just hamburger-in-the-sky wishing. Doesn’t matter for the time being though.

But with the mayor and council pissing and moaning over the budget shortfall, the unexpected budgetary hole created by the province’s Class 1/6 tax decision, the likelihood of forcing property owners to pony up higher rates on inflated assessments and the whole wheel of fortune atmosphere surrounding any construction project in the run-up to the Olympics, why are they still spending wads of dough they don’t need to spend?

Why isn’t there a single voice asking why we’re bulldozing the forest on Lot 1/9 to build a medals plaza we don’t need? Unless, of course, the answer is we have no choice: The Olympics made us do it.

The only reason I’ve ever been given for not turning Skier’s Plaza at the base of Whistler Mountain into Temporary Medals Plaza is because it’s too small. After all, we have to provide space for 8,000 people to attend the medals ceremonies.

Let’s just suppose for a minute we really have to host 8,000 people for those awards. Let’s just suspend any unwarranted, cynical thoughts about any earlier talk regarding hosting a smaller Games with a greener footprint. Is Skier’s Plaza too small to accommodate 8,000 people? I’ve been told it is. I’ve been told that by people who seem to really want Lot 1/9 developed.

Ironically though, I’ve been told by Sue Eckersley — the velvet gloved iron fist behind everything World Ski and Snowboard Festival — she’s had to arrange logistics and security for 10,000 people in Skier’s Plaza ever since the Big Snowball Fight of ’99.

So if WSSF can shoehorn 10,000 people into Skier’s Plaza for Big Air or Black Eyed Peas, why can’t we slip 8,000 people into the same space to watch medals being awarded and listen to national anthems we hardly ever hear? Just posing the question.

It’s a question worth asking though. That’s because in addition to spending $5 million to log, terrace and brickpave Lot 1/9, the site will have a legacy, skating rink or not. Its legacy will be adding to the infrastructure of the town. It will have to be maintained into the future lest the forest return to reclaim it.

So even if it makes sense to build it because (a) The Olympics made us do it and (b) other levels of government — and really, isn’t VANOC very government-like in that quacks like a duck way? — are tossing in more dough than we’re tossing in, does it make sense to have it become part of the post Olympic Whistler landscape?

Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. But that question can’t really be answered in isolation. It has to be answered within the context of everything that’s come before and all the new responsibilities Whistler’s taken/taking on. Incrementally, building an outdoor cultural, recreation and gathering place might make sense. But does it make sense when blended into the whole?

Other than a severance package, the most valuable thing I got from the time I spent working at a Canadian bank was a sense of the danger inherent in incremental decision making. Canadian banks — all banks for that matter — seem to repeatedly dig themselves into holes because they lose sight of the risk that accumulates one decision at a time. Whether it was loans to Latin America, U.S. commercial loans, real estate project lending or consumer lending, every single loan they made looked good in isolation. But when someone finally stepped back and said, “Hey, we sure have a lot of dough out to Brazil,” it was too late.

Maybe it’s not too late for Whistler. Maybe we’ll enjoy a prosperous future. Maybe money will flow like water from our new cut of the hotel tax. Maybe property owners won’t grouse too much about higher taxes. Maybe the Olympics will make everyone want to come to Whistler. Maybe Lot 1/9’s gathering place will prove to be the best thing about our town.

Or maybe we’re all just frogs in the same pot of warming water. Feels good right now, doesn’t it?