But he is aware that the real work is just beginning.
During his time as mayor, Whistler will be full steam ahead with Olympic preparations as the countdown to 2010 really begins.
Despite the looming deadlines, the unknowns and the tough decisions that undoubtedly lie ahead, the feeling of optimism when talking to Whistler’s new mayor is so strong it’s almost tangible.
Ken Melamed took time Tuesday to sit down with the Pique’s Alison Taylor to talk about the election campaign, the new team that the community has chosen and the road to 2010.
Pique: With a couple of days' reflection what are your impressions of the election and the new council the community has chosen?
Melamed: I guess we’ll start with the election. Obviously we’re thrilled and very, very happy and I think there are a lot of people in the community who are very happy and relieved somewhat. That being said, I’m concerned about what seems to be a polarized split in the community…. This is almost a repeat in my mind of 2002 (the mayor race between Hugh O’Reilly and Dave Davenport). So clearly the business community doesn’t feel like it’s being served by the mayor, by municipal hall, by council or by the combination of all three…. And one of the things that I think needs to happen is to reach out to that sector, to try and end that polarization – not end it, but maybe mend it.
I would like to acknowledge the campaign team. Without my campaign team, the victory wouldn’t have been possible. As much as it was a very tactical and strategically thought out campaign, we also had strong support from the grassroots. People worked so hard to get me elected. I understand that is now critical in any campaign. I think it’s a lesson maybe some of the new councillors learned – campaigning is a craft almost and it requires work and strategy and listening to the community.
Pique: And the team that’s been elected?
Melamed: Strong council. I’m actually very impressed… I couldn’t judge where the community was going to go with that and I think at the end of the day they have made wise choices. What I sense already in talking with the new councillors is everyone is very engaged and very committed and very excited about the potential and the opportunity for the next three years.
Pique: Tell me about some of the key highlights in your 60-day action plan which you introduced during the campaign.
Melamed: I think I can probably remember them all! This is not to say that this is the be-all or end-all. It was just a suggestion to the community that I am committed to action, that I’m just not, now that the election is over, going to sit back and drink coffee all day. One of the key things that came up in the campaign, is the need to have an effective team. Obviously there was a lot of criticism of the last council. Not all of it was just. But it was a criticism. The fact is there are only two incumbents on council and although Bill Barratt, (the new administrator) has a long history in municipal hall, he has not been the top dog so it’s a new role (for him). We need to go through a team building exercise and right now we’re contemplating… some kind of team-building retreat.
The second thing is to reprioritize our work plan with municipal staff. I don’t think many people understand the full extent of the things that are going on at municipal hall. Our staff work really hard and they have a lot of things going on…. To credit Councillor Wells last night (at Monday’s final council meeting) she said there are a lot of things that are important but we have to prioritize the time sensitive ones. And that segues to the next action plan (item) which is to finalize Rainbow and the pre-planning of the athletes village…. We’ve been gathering information necessary to make an informed decision (on the athletes village) and essentially the decision is: temporary or permanent? Do we go permanent? If we go permanent what does the financial scenario look like?
Number four was to complete on the promises made by the province. So the three outstanding ones are financial tools, the STOCAP’S or Class 1/Class 6 (tax issue), and the boundary expansion.
Another plan is to address the pending construction/labour crunch. Some might call it a crisis. We’ve heard that they’re going to need 500 carpenters on the highway alone…. One of the most frightening things the community should be concerned about is if we want to complete on the promise of Rainbow somebody has to build those houses. Who is that going to be if they’re all working on the highway or the cultural centre or the sledge hockey arena or the athletes village or the Nordic Centre…? Essentially we want to bring together the local construction companies to assess what their resources are, whether they are interested in modifying their work plans to help the community’s needs and, if not, what are some suggestions.
The final one was another topic I learned as I went through the campaign and talked with key members in the tourist accommodation/marketing sectors and it’s that we need to spend more money marketing the resort. They’re saying that in relation to our key competitors as a percentage of the size of the resort and the business that we do, our marketing budgets are under-funded in comparison. So I heard that message and it makes sense to me and I think it’s the single most proactive and immediate initiative we can do to help raise occupancy rates, which is an economic stimulator for the resort.
Pique: That’s a lot to do in 60 days. I know it’s the dream list but this is a council of rookies and Christmas is approaching. Are you concerned about everything that you have to do?
Melamed: It’d be crazy not to be concerned. The staff really has known this is coming. The new council knows it’s coming. Everybody understands the time pressures that are here. So we’ll do the best we can do. I confess, I haven’t really factored in the holiday season into all of this and we may be asking councillors to work a little bit more through this holiday season than we would otherwise. But again I don’t get the sense from anybody that there’s a push back against the need to accelerate certain processes.
Pique: Councillor Wells has called for an organizational review of municipal hall. Is that something you’d like to embark on? Is it a priority?
Melamed: I’m not sure if it’s a priority. You know again, one of the things that concerns me is how we superimpose the time commitments required for an organizational review into the already existing work plan. But it is a serious question because obviously if we don’t have the staff and the organizational structure in place to accomplish what we need to, we’re sort of firing on four cylinders. That (question) will be (addressed in) the first two issues in the 60-day plan…. What does the team think we need to do in terms of checking our resources and structure and then when we go and set about our work plan, that issue is going to come up as well. It’s possible that an organizational review could be done externally and therefore not tap too heavily into internal resources.
I guess I’m hopeful that we don’t need a full organizational review, that we look at this as there’s a need to ramp up certain capacity within the organization to handle the additional workload come 2010 and that structurally and organizationally we are OK. That’s my hope but it’s always worth checking and asking the question and especially asking the question of the new council and administrator.
Pique: The issue of financial tools, or Whistler’s inability to get new financial tools from the province as an Olympic legacy, certainly came up in the mayor’s debate during the campaign. Are we any closer?
Melamed: We are closer. The milestone is that we finally now have provincial staff comfortable enough to write their own draft scenario of options…. All of the Resort Community Collaborative are in agreement on this proposal from the province. The question now is to get the provincial cabinet ministers to agree and the even bigger hurdle is to get it on the spring legislative agenda.
Pique: The proposal is to double Whistler’s share of the hotel tax, which would mean an extra $3-4 million dollars. How crucial is that money?
Melamed: Well, put it this way, there’s very little appetite in the community to spend taxpayer dollars on marketing. The logical source of the revenue is from the hotel tax and the hotel tax fund is currently tapped out. After we gave Tourism Whistler a $250,000 special grant for marketing, (our hotel tax reserves) will go into negative in two years, which is not a healthy situation. So those funds are desperately needed. Otherwise, if we’re going to complete on the desire within the community to increase marketing funds, we have to cut other programs.
We’re optimistic and yet the province obviously has a lot on its plate and one of its high priorities is not giving away more money. The ministers are driven to economize within their own budgets, maximize revenues and minimize expenditures. Our challenge is to convince them this is the right thing to do and it’s important to do it sooner rather than later.
Pique: How do we do that?
Melamed: The traditional way is, you know. the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We just keep showing up, we keep asking, we keep pleading. But frankly, we’ve been doing that for three years. I believe we need to think up some new approaches. I have some ideas.
Pique: Another issue that came up at the election was transparency at municipal hall. I know it comes up every three years during the election but it was particularly sensitive this year because of the sledge hockey situation. Some people criticized you in particular for not being as transparent. How do you propose to make municipal hall more transparent, more effective at communicating, if you think that’s an issue?
Melamed: It’s obviously an issue. The community has said it’s an issue, therefore as mayor, it’s an issue…. There are a couple of ideas I have about communicating. I’m thinking perhaps of having open community meetings between the mayor and the community more frequently than an annual town hall meeting, and I may do a mayor’s column on the website. Of course… there still will be a need to have in camera meetings.
I don’t know that people objected to the decision we made (on the sledge hockey arena) as much as the process and the implication that we were holding something back…. I’m not defending the way the process went but there was no dissention. There was unanimity. There was 100 per cent consensus to pursue the course that we did (which would have seen the sledge hockey arena go to Squamish). Obviously council made an error and the community corrected us and the community has the right to do that and council then responded. I think it’s fair to say it was a messy bit of business between August and that last extension that VANOC gave us just prior to the election. What I find curious is that everybody on this council was committed to open process and yet, it got caught. It wasn’t by any grand design. This current council was passionate about openness in government. How did they get caught? I bet we’re all still asking the same question.
Pique: What are the lessons learned from the election?
Melamed: The first one that comes to mind is really the overwhelming support for arts, culture and heritage. It was not conceivable to see that kind of event (the arts, culture and heritage all candidates meeting) happen prior, so that community really needs to be proud of how far it has brought the (wider) community to the point where there was consensus. There wasn’t a single candidate who felt that the development of arts and culture wasn’t untapped potential for the resort and a necessary complement to our recreation tourism focus.
Pique: Any lessons learned on a personal level?
Melamed: Oh yeah. I learned a lot about understanding how important the role of mayor is to the community. It was one of the biggest hurdles for me in the campaign – people needed to be convinced that I understood it was a different role and that I could actually perform the role, that I could be a leader and be an ambassador. People didn’t think I had what it took to be on the world stage and I needed to convince myself and convince them. There has been a tremendous amount of personal growth on my side in the last five weeks and I expect that to continue. It’s been one of the things that’s been the most thrilling about the campaign actually.
The other thing is (I was) reaching deeper into the community than I ever had before. I really made an effort to reach out to the business community. Even some of my most vocal critics, I tried to go and talk with them and listen to what they had to say. It wasn’t me telling them what I thought we needed to do and I think that’s the important distinction. I think it was one of the things that helped us through the campaign is I proved that I’m a good listener and that’s what the community is looking for – somebody who can listen and then act.
