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Finders keepers

Happily, this column is not about pay parking. It's not about asphalt. It's not about out of control municipal spending. It's not about secrecy. It's not about cute dogs and cats. It's about all those things. Okay, it's not about cute dogs and cats.
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Happily, this column is not about pay parking. It's not about asphalt. It's not about out of control municipal spending. It's not about secrecy. It's not about cute dogs and cats.

It's about all those things. Okay, it's not about cute dogs and cats.

Yes, it's time to dust off the Campagne de Fous and trot out another plank of Max's Big Tent platform, subtitled: A Primer on Saner Local Government.

A surprising number of people have, since I made my announcement in March, offered me money. True, some offered me money to leave town but I assume that has nothing to do with my political campaign since people have been offering me money to leave town for years now. And yes, smartypants, people other than whoever sits in the mayor's seat at the time.

No, people have been offering money to finance my Campagne de Fous. And while it's touching that so many who should obviously be institutionalized manage to live among us, it would seem hypocritical of me to be stumping for a more fiscally responsible municipal government while taking innocent peoples' money. It's not that I don't appreciate the offer, it's just I wouldn't know exactly what to do with their money and, perhaps more importantly, I would feel beholden to them. Okay, maybe I wouldn't actually feel beholden but they may think I should feel that way and there's no good outcome when two people have such divergent points of view.

So, one of the planks in my platform is that the Campagne de Fous is self-funded. Lest you think I'm foolish enough to waste my own money running for office, self-funded means, in this case, financed with found money.

This concept came to me one morning on my way to work - yes, it may surprise you to know I have a job requiring me to actually go to work... at least seasonally. Stumbling about in a morning daze, I was pleasantly surprised to find a twenty-dollar bill lying on the ground. It was an aha! moment.

"Aha!" I said, looking around furtively to see if there was anyone nearby who might have just dropped a twenty. The sidewalks were empty in the dawn of early morning. I picked up the bill and examined it closely. There were no distinguishing marks of ownership. Still, not wishing to give my future opponents any more scandalous fodder to use against me - reckoning I'd given them more than enough over the past 15 years - I put the bill in an envelope clearly marked, "Found Money," and sought out the rightful owner.

"Lose any money recently?" I asked everyone I dealt with that day. Enduring far too many sad stories of sure-fire stock tips gone south and RRSPs that evaporated faster than Nortel pensions, I was satisfied by day's end the bill was truly lost and, therefore, under the long-established legal maxim "finders keepers," which sounds far more legal in Latin, mine.

Scratching out the words "Found Money" I'd written on the envelope, I replaced them with "Campaign Finances," congratulating myself on the astute and sustainable reuse of an envelope otherwise destined for recycling.

"How hard can this be?" I wondered, pondering the notion of financing my foolish campaign on found money. After all, people lose money in Whistler all the time. Just ask the folks who volunteer to clean up the debris people leave under the chairlift lines every year. When the snow melts - sometime in August this year - you can generally find enough lost cash under the chairs to finance a semester of college. Enough lip balm to soothe all the chapped lips in town and enough empty coffee cups and Red Bull cans to wonder whether anyone in this town ever sleeps.

And if you really want to see found money, take a look under most any bar in town at closing time. Don't ask me what I was doing under the bar at closing time.

So, found money it is. Thank you for your kind offers but my mind is made up; I won't accept donations to fund the Campagne de Fous and am happy to announce the current amount in my campaign coffers has grown to $24.63. Of course, if we should be talking to each other and you happen to look down on the ground and find, say, another twenty - or more - and say to me, "Oh, you must have dropped this," I'll tell you, honestly, "No, I didn't. But I'll be glad to hang on to it and try to find the rightful owner." And if I'm unsuccessful in my quest to reunite that found money with that rightful owner, well, I'll just slip it into the Campaign Finance envelope and consider it divine providence.

'Nuff said?

Besides, how expensive can it be to run for office in this town? I'm already committed to avoiding the single biggest expense: campaign signs. There will be no Max for Mayor campaign signs this autumn. There are several reasons for this, some ideological, some fiscal, some perhaps simply illogical.

Aesthetically, campaign signs are a blight on the landscape. Whistler is a beautiful place and we should do everything we can to keep it that way. My record on this matter is clear. I was totally and publicly in favour of chainsawing those hideous Olympic venue signs before the circus came to town and I still think the town would be far prettier without them.

Intellectually, campaign signs are a blight on the psyche. Frankly, if people are so ill-informed that they need signs plopped along the road like late-season skunk cabbage to remind them who's running for office, I don't want their vote. If you're that ignorant, I can think of other likely candidates with whom you may be more closely aligned.

Campaign signs are wasteful, unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible. One can hardly mount a campaign whose touchstone is fiscal conservatism while wasting money on signs.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I'm told there are no more of the late Max Kirkpatrick's Max for Mayor signs left knocking about I might recycle. Oh well.

"How will you raise your profile without signs?" I'm asked.

Simple. Everywhere I go - and that'll be a lot of places, many of which will serve refreshing beverages, since that's where so many good ideas come from - I'll be accompanied by human campaign signs. The Maxettes. Three lovely Whistleratics of the XX persuasion, adorned with sashes proclaiming Max for Mayor. And just to illustrate the kind of big tent campaign I'm running, three buff Whistleratics of the XY persuasion wearing matching outfits.

We're working out the dance steps as I write.

And those other unspeakable topics I teased you with at the onset of this column. Just kidding.