Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

The Maxies for 2007

Well, it’s that time of year again. The time of year I wish I had a two-page spread. Yes, it’s Maxie time, time to honour the achievements, great and small, that make this town such an interesting place to live. The envelopes, please.
1452maxed

Well, it’s that time of year again. The time of year I wish I had a two-page spread. Yes, it’s Maxie time, time to honour the achievements, great and small, that make this town such an interesting place to live. The envelopes, please.

Politics

Hey, why didn’t we think of that: Canmore council balances the books by slapping second home owners and residents who own homes they don’t live in with higher property tax rates than just plain folk who live and work in their happy mountain home. City leaders justify the two-tier tax rate as necessary to provide increased revenues and keep “…normal working people living in this community.” Imagine that?

Yeah, I feel a lot safer now, thank you: The Canadian Border Services Agency, ever vigilant in keeping queer literature and other undesirable influences out of the homeland, goes to new heights of Dudley Dorightness and tells Glen Plake to keep his iconic Mohawk and juvie record on the other side of the border where they belong. A sold-out crowd at Words and Stories misses out on what would surely have been a rollicking good tale and we’re all left wondering whether they’ll be just as vigilant when the criminal Lord Black tries to weasel back into the country.

We deserve a break today: Council beautifies Whistler by canceling the tasteless ads plastered on village bus stops. We hear the busses won’t be running on gas much longer either.

The reason I’m going is blood on the floor: After a disinformation campaign that pitted the live-to-shop crowd against the raging antis, Council unanimously — yes, unanimously — turned down Larco’s rezoning application for their subterranean white elephant, thus paving the way for London Drugs to locate in… Squamish. Councillor Nancy wields her verbal scalpel with the skill and zeal of a streetfighter, eviscerating the company for its “skillful manipulation of public opinion.” One chain down, so many to go.

Doing more with less: Victoria changes the rules on taxing condo hotels and Whistler watches $2.5 million in property tax revenue vanish. Rick Thorpe, minister of Small Business and Revenue, says the change was designed to help the province move forward with its goal to double tourism. I wonder.

Doing less with more: Victoria changes the rules on remunerating the premier and MLAs. Everybody gets a big raise despite their own consultant’s polling showing virtually no one in the province believes they deserve a raise. I wonder.

Just say No: Council takes a pass on spiffing up the iconic Muni Hall when the $5.8 million initial budget gets dosed with Viagra and swells to $15.8 million.

Just say Yes: Council says in for a penny, in for a pound when the iconic Library-mahal budget inches past $11 million just in time for Christmas.

Just say I Dunno: Calling it a conspiracy of factors, Council discovers a gaping hole in the town’s budget and votes 4-3 to set the guidelines for next year’s budget at a level that’ll require a 6 per cent increase in property taxes, around three times inflation. Hey guys, Canmore’s got a pretty good idea. Why not give them a call.

Olympics

No more teachers’ dirty looks: The Howe Sound School Board announces school will be out for the Olympics. Many parents cry foul, wondering what they’ll do with their little truants in February. Oddly, none of the kids seem particularly worked up about the plan. Go figure.

Roger Taillibert would be proud of us: What is it about Canadian Olympics and iconic roofs? Montreal got theirs. Sure, it cost twice the original estimate and took them 30 years to pay it off but, hey, everyone agrees it’s iconic. Doesn’t work but it’s iconic. Seems like déjà vu all over again.

How do you spell E-Y-E-S-O-R-E: New Olympic signs sprout up along the highway. They’re big, ugly as sin, in violation of Whistler’s iconic sign bylaw and… still there? C’mon guys, they’re on wooden posts. Chainsaws are Canadian icons.

I feel a cavity coming on: Quatchi, Miga and Sumi are presented to the world as the official Vancouver 2010 Olympics mascots. Mukmuk cries foul and pees on their legs. The rest of us simply wonder why the whole thing was run through the infantilization machine

Life in Tiny Town

The rich are different from you and me… and everyone else: Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, his family and close personal friends and bodyguards hit town and show the rest of the wannabes how to do Whistler. Reserving entire restaurants, movie theatres, stores and half the ski school, the Prince threw down a raging good time and personally accounted for Whistler’s January bump in GDP. Y’all come back now, y’ear.

It’s the drivers, stupid: After being asleep at the switch during the most anticipated big-ass storm of December and watching as snow and incompetent drivers close the iconic Sea to Sky Highway for hours, local RCMP call for Canada’s longest continuous construction site to be designated a mountain highway so that snow tires would be mandatory during winter months. It ain’t the knobs on the tread causin’ the snafu out there, fellas.

Clogged artery award: As if bad drivers and endless construction weren’t enough, the Sea to Sky Highway wins Olympic gold after slides, snow, spilled logs, strewn cars and just plain nasty weather closes it for what was surely a record number of times. Quick Watson, the Lipitor.

This place is murder: Whistler’s first murder in more than 30 years occurs when 27-year-old loser, Shane Richards, channels his inner Neanderthal and pops Michael George Boutros in the village ’round closin’ time. Don’t take your guns to town boys… at least not this town.

Birds fly over the Rainbow, why oh why can’t I: Amid much fanfare and backslapping, the Rainbow development is touted as a major step forward in Whistler’s neverending quest for housing sustainability. Then the bickering began. Then the land was clearcut. Then…. These are peoples’ lives you jokers are messin’ with. Get off your greedy butts and start pounding nails.

Folly of the year: So many entries to choose from. But for the bargain price of $258,000 Whistlerites will not get wet when they drop by the Nesters compactor site to drop off their recycling now that we have an iconic roof over the bins. Of course, they probably won’t drop by at all since the musta-been-designed-by-someone-who-never-saw-the-place change has made getting in and getting out almost impossible.

Mountain Kulture:

Icon, Schmicon; it still sucks: Stephen Vogler panders shamelessly to the heartstrings and nostalgia of gathered masses and pulls a Rabbit out of his porkpie hat. Gravity squeaks past the very naked and revered Toad Hall Poster to become Whistler’s most iconic… scientific principle? Elemental earth force? Irresistible force? If you don’t live here, I can’t explain it to you… but it does make sense.

If you don’t like extreme weather, go play golf: Paul Morrison’s masterful dance of light and shadow is the crowd’s favourite at the sold-out Deep Winter Photo Challenge, an homage to the very elemental — perhaps even iconic — wild winter weather that makes skiing here so much fun.

Party of the year: WSSF, natch. Driving a 17.6 per cent increase in hotel bookings over last year, the first Perryless festival proves you can’t keep a good woman down. Runnerup props to the Pug Wedding and the misguided RCMP officers who provided comic relief and spoiled the bride’s biggest day.

Never again: Just nudging out “sustainability” as the word we’d most like banned in the New Year, icon, iconic, and all the other derivatives should forever be banned from the pages and tongues of town.