The municipality is thinking twice about spending up to $15,000 to produce a commemorative yearbook for its staff.
Like a typical high school yearbook, the municipality's yearbook is proposed to have staff photos before and after the 2010 Games, fun facts about staff, quirky short stories, places for signatures, and room to hold ticket stubs.
It is a way for the municipality's 350 workers to remember their Olympic and Paralympic experience.
But in view of recent community outrage over spending at municipal hall, the yearbook project could be shelved.
"As you can appreciate, our staff and all expenditures that relate to our staff are under serious scrutiny and it was an idea that came up as part of a larger discussion about engaging our staff," said Jessica Delaney, senior communications officer with the Resort Municipality of Whistler.
"It was something we put out there and now we've put on the shelf, mostly because our staff are getting beaten up in the local press."
Delaney was taken aback to learn from Pique that a project summary and a request for quotes was posted on the Whistler Arts Council website this week. It was only sent to the arts council, she said, to gauge what the uptake would be on the project and whether or not local designers could produce the project for the $15,000 price tag.
At Delaney's request, the project description, complete with the request for quotes by the Friday, July 24 deadline, was immediately removed from the arts council's website.
"The status is: we're reconsidering everything," she said.
Delaney said they would still consider any quotes that come in from local designers before the Friday's deadline.
The online description outlined the goals and objectives of the yearbook project.
Its goal is "to recognize and thank the RMOW's employees for their commitment to delivering an extraordinary 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games experience for locals and visitors alike."
According to the project timeline, the yearbook would be ready for delivery at the end of April. Roughly 300 print copies could be made and up to 400 digital copies.
The budget for the yearbook would come from the $650,000 municipal Games budget for volunteer and staff engagement.
That's the same budget that will fund the much-pilloried staff Arc'teryx jackets during the Games.
