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Nine candidates join council race at deadline

New entries bring number of council candidates to 17

The once small field of candidates for Whistler council more than doubled in size at deadline on Friday, Oct. 14, with nine people joining the eight who had already declared their candidacy.

Shane Bennett, who was running for mayor, decided to run for council and James Hyndman failed to complete his nomination forms for mayor, reducing the number of mayoral candidates to seven.

That gives Whistler a total of 24 candidates in this municipal election, not counting school trustee candidates Andrée Janyk and Christopher Vernon-Jarvis, who were acclaimed.

Who are the new candidates?

Nancy Wilhelm-Morden and Eckhard Zeidler declared their candidacy weeks earlier but did not make it official until the deadline. Both have profiles in Pique this week.

The other new candidates are, in alphabetical order, Ken Achenbach, McCaul Balmer, Inge Flanagan, Stephen Jui, Jamey Kramer, Doug Lundgren and Sonya McCarthy.

Achenbach gives part credit to Pique columnist G.D. Maxwell for his decision to run for council. Achenbach wrote a letter to the editor suggesting the Whistler Golf Course driving range be converted into a surfing park. Maxwell asked why Achenbach wasn’t running for office. Since then his friends have suggested that it’s not a bad idea.

Achenbach runs the Camp of Champions ski and snowboard summer camps and is, with Doug Lundgren, the co-owner of Powder Mountain Catskiing and Catboarding. Lundgren is also running for council this year.

"It’s basically a coincidence that we’re both running, both of us had different people urging us to throw our hats in the ring for a while now, but in the end it did come down to ‘dude, I’ll run if you run’," said Achenbach. "People I respect said that I had to run. I’ve got good ideas, some fresh perspectives, and I’m not in it for any ulterior motives.

"Doug is made for council. He reads everything that comes out of the municipality, and knows everything there is to know about every issue. I think we could work well together on council… and I’d look forward to working with a lot of the other candidates as well. There are a lot of people who have this community’s best interests at heart in this."

Achenbach has three specific issues he would pursue on council. The first is to get rid of all the pay parking in town. "People come from a long way away to spend money here, and the first thing they find when they get to town and go shopping is the parking meters," he said. "I’d like people to feel more welcome than that."

Another issue he would like to see resolved is affordable housing. He likes Norbert Doebelin’s proposal for the Paralympic arena that would include staff housing, but thinks if we can have 10-storey hotels in the village we can have eight- or 10-storey apartments for staff. He would also like to see more infill housing, and to give residents the ability to divide their lots to build additional housing.

"I’ve done some calculating and I’ve found that it costs the average resident about $50 a day to live here, which is more than $18,000 a year. If just 50 people move to Squamish and Pemberton that’s about $900,000. That Whistler ever let that money drive down the road is ludicrous," he said.

Of almost 100 staff he has working for Camp of Champions, Achenbach says just five live in Whistler.

His third priority is to build an amenity in Whistler like a surfing park on the driving range site, as well as an indoor skatepark, climbing wall, gymnastics centre, and other activities. His reasoning is that Whistler can’t offer enough attractions to visitors.

McCaul Balmer has lived in Whistler for six years and has been employed with Whistler-Blackcomb and several local hotels. He has a diploma and degree in tourism and is working towards his Masters in Business Administration with a focus on the tourism industry.

Why is he running? "To make a difference, really," said Balmer. "I’m a true nature lover. I love the environment, I have studied tourism all my adult life. I think I have something to offer the people of Whistler."

He has opinions on a wide range of issues but a short-list includes improving health care, improving communication between the municipality and public, and getting the economy back on track.

"For one thing, I think we should be able to have surgery in Whistler," he said.

"I also think that the municipality could be more effective communicating with people on the major issues, I know they do a lot but that could be improved.

"I would also like to see Whistler work towards becoming truly sustainable in the community. We’ve made a start, but we’re not 100 per cent committed to becoming more sustainable.

"Where Whistler is in its life cycle, we’re pretty complete, and now we have to adapt and change and be proactive if we want to stay the number one resort in North America."

Balmer also feels that his demographic, aged 20 to 35, has not been well-represented in the past even though that demographic includes the majority of residents and almost the whole of the service industry. "This is a group that needs a voice on council," he said.

Inge Flanagan has been an active member of the community for decades. Among her accomplishments, she was involved with starting the Whistler Library and Whistler Gymnastics, she was a president of the Whistler Skating Club, she was a co-founder of the Whistler Real Estate Council and sat on that committee for three years, she organized the Festival of Lights fundraiser for nine years, sat on the AWARE board for three years, and sat on the Olympic accommodations committee and transportation committees.

She was originally urged to run by friends based on her environmental background and the fact that Ken Melamed, a stanch environmental advocate on council, is now running for mayor. After thinking it over, and looking at the issues, Flanagan decided she could be much more than that.

"I’ve looked at who else is running in this election and what they’re saying, and I realized that everybody wants the same things. Everyone is concerned about the economy, housing, the direction of Whistler, keeping this the kind of place where people want to live," she said.

"There are gong to be some very difficult issues (for council) to decide, and I’m really hoping we’ll have people that can work together. I realized I’m really good at working with people, and not just shutting down and saying ‘it’s not my idea, we can’t go ahead with it’. I love bouncing ideas off of people, and generating more discussion and more thoughts and ideas.

"We’re going to need some really thought-provoking discussions to come up with solutions to our issues."

Flanagan says she has a track record for getting things done, especially while working as part of a committee. With her kids grown up, Flanagan decided it’s time to get more involved.

"This would be my focus, there’s nothing else really to fill my evenings with – unlike in the past when I was juggling kids and a career and everything else."

Stephen Jui is the owner of Farfalla Hair and Body Spa, a local DJ, an adaptive ski instructor, and has 14 years in the service industry. He is running for Whistler council with a platform that includes increasing tourism, adding more music and culture to Whistler, and lobbying the province for support.

"I’d really like to work together with everyone to increase tourism, and my goal for 2006, if we’re working together, is to increase tourism by about 15 per cent," he said. "I think that’s a reasonable number, and would do a lot for businesses in this town.

"I’d like to work with the province to get more support for tourism, such as funds to help our tourism infrastructure – things like affordable housing.

"I also want to revitalize music in Whistler, have more festivals, and more arts and cultural events. More attractions will bring tourists here as well."

Another late entry into the race is Jamey Kramer, a long-term Whistler resident who is well known in Whistler’s arts and culture scene and once had his own children’s show on Cable 6.

Doug Lundgren is a former pro-snowboarder and co-owner of the new Southside Deli in Creekside, as well as the co-owner of Powder Mountain Catskiing.

Sonja McCarthy is also well-known around the community as a volunteer for the Community Services Society and an employee at the Chamber of Commerce welcome centre. She also served on Whistler council in the 1980s.

All of the candidates will be profiled by Pique in the first two weeks of November.