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Year one

Alison Taylor checks in with Whistler council on the first anniversary of their election - what worked and what's ahead
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Whistler's amicable council gather for photo shoot outside muni hall. Photo by Maureen Provencal

By Alison Taylor

Mayor Ken Melamed admits he hasn’t had a lot of time to really think about this past year.

By all accounts it’s been 12 months filled with momentous decisions both large and small: from losing the Parlaympic arena to re-committing funds to the Squamish-Whistler commuter bus and the gamut of things in between.

This will be a good exercise in reflection he says, sitting down at the boardroom table in his office, and slipping on a traditional black, white and red Japanese jacket.

The coat was a gift from the mayor of Karuizawa, the municipality’s sister city, he explains.

The white Japanese letters running vertically down the front spell “Hancho”, which means section chief of the Fire Brigade, somewhat fitting attire for a mayor who is constantly tested on his ability to put out political fires, and in some cases, fan their flames.

Still, there is something slightly incongruous about the mayor of Whistler dressed in a traditional Japanese fire chief’s coat. It is a disarmingly unselfconscious act.

There’s a chill in his office, the temperamental heating and cooling system at municipal hall is acting up again and shivers in the mayor’s office means someone else is sweating at their desk.

Melamed wears the Hancho coat to keep warm.

Just beyond the mayor’s open door there is an unusual stillness in the hall. The hum of daily activity is suspended. Staff has moved en masse to a nearby hotel conference room to hear plans for a revolutionary restructuring of departments and duties within the organization.

More change is on the horizon.

Some would argue that there has been a sea change in the tone of the town. Whistler has pulled itself out of the doldrums and there is an almost palpable optimism in the air. Maybe it’s the smell of fresh snow blanketing the mountains. Or perhaps it’s the record-breaking room nights this summer on the heels of last winter, which is fondly remembered for its dumps of champagne powder.

But has council played a pivotal role this past year?

By its actions, its willingness to make collective decisions and engage the community, has council set the barometer for positive change in the resort?

When questioned about the new optimism permeating Whistler Melamed pauses to consider the question about council’s role.

“I think you’re right in the sense that when you have a dysfunctional council it’s easier for, let’s call it the virus of pessimism, to spread because it’s just one more thing for people to be pessimistic about,” he says.

“By having an efficient running municipal team and to continue to talk about the need to remain optimistic, I think we’ve been successful in turning that around. There was a lot of talk a year ago about how pessimistic everybody was and you don’t hear that as much.”

Last term, from 2002 to 2005, was tough. The economy wasn’t doing well and the outlook was grim. Former mayor Hugh O’Reilly was leading the town from Hawaii, where he had relocated at the end of August.

By the election in November a three-year struggle at the council table was finally coming to a head. Three of the six councillors were running for the top job and former mayor Ted Nebbeling was in the race too.

Melamed knows the community took a gamble on him.

It was banking on the promise that he would change, would move from his dependable positions — questioning further growth in the resort and pushing the green agenda — to a more balanced approach. He promised he would shift his focus and be more representative of the community as a whole, if he was elected mayor.

Don’t doubt for minute he hasn’t felt the pressure of that promise.

“The hardest part of adjusting to the job was understanding the transition from one role to the other,” admits Melamed. “It’s a different way of thinking, it’s a different mindset and even now I still have to remind myself. I am getting better at it.”

One of his biggest lessons was to understand and accept compromise.

As Councillor Ken Melamed, entrenched in the “green seat” for almost a decade, issues and decisions were more black and white. Today, as mayor, there are a lot more shades of grey.

“You have to get better at compromise to be a mayor,” he says candidly. “The world of politics and political decision making, it demands compromise. There’s no other way.”

More importantly, he knew if he was going to lead this community and make the tough decisions that were on the horizon, he needed the help of his council. It was one of the key lessons he learned while on the last council.

“The number one take away for us was to spend time on team building because we saw the past team devolve,” says Melamed.

There’s an illusion, he said, that Canadian mayors have a lot of power. In reality, the power lies with the collective. Seven people vote and approve virtually everything by majority. Schisms among council can often stymie efforts to move things along.

Melamed believes he’s lucked out by the community’s choice in council.

“I think it’s fair to acknowledge the makeup of this council has made my job much easier and I’m grateful for that and I think the community should be grateful as well.”

Building a team

Luck, and hard work by all stakeholders in the resort, may also have played a role in the economy turning around.

Council can’t take credit for that, says Councillor Eckhard Zeidler.

“I don’t think this council could begin to take credit for the improved economy but there is a better tone,” he says. “I’m sensing that more people have got smiles on their faces than have for the last few years.”

It doesn’t hurt that even with the heavy workload, and the tough decisions, council is also having some fun together, and enjoying each other’s company.

In her third floor office in Marketplace Councillor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden leans forward with a laugh, recalling her wilderness trip with five men to the Callaghan Valley. Lucky to have an understanding husband, she jokes, when you’re the only woman on council.

She’s lived in Whistler since she was in her late teens. She will live here, she says, until the day she dies.

And yet, it had been 20 years since she was last in the Callaghan Valley. It was her idea to go back for a two-day council retreat.

“We had a great time,” she says. “I got to know the boys better than I knew them before. It was good to be on an outing together without staff and I thought it was one of those cases where there was a bit of a change in the way we related to each other after that.”

It helps that they are all, without exception, passionate about what they do and committed to doing their best.

Perhaps Councillor Ralph Forsyth sums it up best over coffee in Alpine Meadows, while the Boss sings Born to Run.

“Isn’t this your favourite Springsteen song?” he asks. “I feel like I’m doing what I was born to do.”

His passion is contagious.

Decisions, decisions and more decisions

As with many of their decisions this past year council, at the one-year mark, is also unanimous in its assessment of its team.

When asked to grade themselves, they’re positive… and honest.

On average they gave themselves a strong B. They believe they are working effectively, finding consensus and resolution.

“I think we’re working really well as a team,” says Councillor Tim Wake, as the fire crackles in the hearth warming his Easy Street home. “Anytime you’re working well as a team and you have good team players, you’re going to achieve results. And I think we have.”

Within the first two months of taking their oath in office, the new council had helped put an end to a two-year labour dispute with its striking unionized workers.

The 25 workers, who are part of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2010, had been on limited job action for almost a year. January’s resolution was perhaps a sign of things to come.

A few months later, in early May, one of the biggest resident affordable housing projects, on the north-end Rainbow lands, was pushed ahead. Council gave bylaws for the project third reading, allowing the developer to begin work on site this past summer, even though there are several pieces of the project still to be reviewed by municipal staff. Final adoption of the bylaws is still pending.

By the summer council had achieved another coup.

The business plan for the athletes’ village cum employee housing neighbourhood was finalized and council could begin rezoning the land in the Lower Cheakamus. Again, council’s push on the plan ensured site-clearing work could begin this summer, which was critical to the tight timeline for the project.

“When you take a look at what we had any direct influence over on the Olympics — that athletes’ village was the biggie, that was very precarious at one point and I think we’re all delighted that it’s going to be a legacy neighbourhood,” says Councillor Bob Lorriman.

Early summer, however, also saw a community backlash to a council decision that would change the appreciation formula on some employee housing units.

The change would see units previously tied to the Vancouver market, which had been escalating as much as 30 per cent in the last three years, move to a more conservative Core Consumer Price Index appreciation formula, roughly two per cent per annum.

Though unanimous in their decision at the time, Councillor Forsyth tried to change his vote at the next meeting, after feeling the brunt of council’s decision from his neighbours in 19 Mile Creek who were affected by the change. This is who Forsyth, as the youngest member of council, felt he was elected to represent.

At 35 and with a young family, Forsyth believes he has a different perspective on what he calls the “street level realities” of living in Whistler, things like housing, affordability and the labour shortages.

“I live here so my neighbours talk to me about these things, whereas the other guys, I don’t think they have that,” said Forsyth.

His initial support of the CPI change is one thing he regrets so far this term. Whether right or wrong, a segment of the community felt betrayed and overlooked by council.

The backlash, however, set in motion a series of roundtable discussions and a top to bottom examination of the policies at the Whistler Housing Authority. Changes are pending.

It is perhaps another example of council’s willingness to listen.

“It’s not about never making mistakes,” says Wake. “It’s about recognizing the wrong choice and then going back and continuing to move forward.”

Council can play a role in setting a tone in the community, says Wilhelm-Morden.

“If we’re sending out this negative vibe it does affect the community,” she said.

“That’s quite frankly, one of the reasons why I’m in local politics, is because you can make decisions and you can set tones that fundamentally affect your day to day life.”

Still, you can’t please everyone all the time.

Time and again, when asked for their reflections of the past year, there is one decision in particular that keeps coming up. It’s as though some are still trying to figure out how it all came to pass.

The P3

Last November council was following the footsteps of the previous council who had decided to allow a public-private partnership for the multi-million dollar upgrades and subsequent operation of the sewage treatment plant. Seven months later, amid a flurry of rhetoric and veiled accusations, the plans were scrapped.

The P3, at it became known at water-coolers around town, was hardly a hot button issue during last November’s election; in fact, it was hardly an issue at all. The previous council had made its decision in January 2005 with little reaction from the community and a little push from the provincial government.

One year later everything had changed.

Segments of the community, due in no small measure to questions and concerns raised by Wilhelm-Morden and Zeidler at the council table, galvanized in opposition around the issue of the P3.

At the heart of the matter was a deep concern about privatizing a public facility.

Council took stock and a step backwards. They put the issue to the community, embarking on an Alternative Approval Process, or counter petition, which required roughly 900 signatures from community members to take the P3 issue to a referendum.

When 1,848 signatures came back, council decided to scrap the P3 plans altogether.

The community response was enough to convince the majority of council, even those members who still believed deep down that the P3 option was the most cost effective and efficient way to go, to abandon the plans altogether.

It was a five to two vote, with Councillors Gordon McKeever and Forsyth the only holdouts.

Over a leisurely lunch in the South Side Diner in Creekside, McKeever says he can’t help but feel the community dropped the ball on the issue, not council.

“It wasn’t until January 2006 that the community got mobilized and raised such a fuss. The most frustrating part of the whole process to me was the amount of money wasted in that year.”

Staff estimates put the cost of investigating the P3, including legal fees and consultant fees, at $1.3 million.

“I don’t mind the outcome,” explains McKeever, “but I deeply resent the process to get there.”

As a P3 opponent from the outset, Zeidler sees the process in a much different light. To him, it was simply inspiring.

“When I saw how the community mobilized around the faint hope of the counter petition process and then delivered a resounding message to council, which council respected, to me that’s far and away the highlight,” he says, “The people of the community are the ones in charge of this town, not us.”

Finally… financial tools

True, some decisions may rest in the community’s hands; others, however, are at the whim of outside forces.

Take the long sought-after financial tools, promised to Whistler by Premier Gordon Campbell.

Council wasn’t long into its term before it realized there were no guarantees they would ever get these tools.

What was painfully obvious, however, was the stress on the municipal budget as the demands of the Olympics gathered steam.

The 2006 municipal budget showed the strains as demands on hotel tax revenue, such as the free village shuttle, village maintenance and money for special events and resort marketing, increased while revenues decreased.

“We were going to have very significant financial issues if we hadn’t been able to bring home those financial tools,” says Wilhelm-Morden.

The last council tried, without success.

Municipal staff, specifically Jim Godfrey, Whistler’s executive director for the 2010 Games, had developed a rationale for a bigger share of the provincial hotel tax. And not just for Whistler but for other resort towns facing the same unique challenges of meeting the standards of a world-class tourist destination.

Of the 10 per cent tax collected by the provincial government on hotel rooms sold, Whistler was getting two per cent back into municipal coffers.

It was looking for six per cent.

The financial tools, we were told, were to be one of Whistler’s legacies from the 2010 Games.

The first six months of the term, with a council made up more of rookies than seasoned vets, brought tough negotiations with the province. At the end of May council got the news it was looking for. Premier Gordon Campbell announced 13 resort communities would get a bigger share of the hotel tax based on a set formula.

Whistler got the six per cent it was looking for which, based on recent occupancy levels, works out to be an additional $6 million annually.

Councillors credit staff for the success, as well as their own resolve with the province.

“This council’s willingness to take a tough position and stick to the tough position was fundamental,” says Wilhelm-Morden. “If we had wavered we would have lost it.”

Securing the financial tools, says Lorriman, is even bigger than the Olympics. The Olympics will come and go; the benefits of the tools will last forever.

He was shocked then to see the lack of coverage on the issue in the local papers.

“I think we need to pat ourselves on the back a bit more about things,” says Lorriman.

It speaks to the level of his concern when the self-proclaimed “quiet guy” on council says they should be tooting their own horn a little more when it’s deserved. They plan to develop a communication strategy in the coming months.

Paralympic disappointment

If the financial tools are the success story of this council, the Paralympic arena is perhaps its disappointment.

The issue was top of mind leading up to and after the election. The last council, after months of speculation and indecision, ultimately agreed to pursue building the arena on Lot 1/9 in the village. They had been negotiating behind closed doors to move the arena to Squamish. It was simply too expensive to build in Whistler.

The community, however, due to the sensitive nature of the discussions, had not been involved in the debate. They had been left in the dark and were not happy about it.

At the end of 2005 a community task force began its investigation. Two community open houses drew hundreds of people for comments on the arena. There was a collective excitement and anticipation. Whistler would be the most compact Games in the history of the Paralympics; it was excited, honoured even, to have that distinction.

But $60 million for an arena proved too much.

The task force came to its conclusion at the same time VANOC asked Whistler to forget about the arena. Council agreed in a unanimous decision. Whistler would not build the arena and the Paralympic sledge hockey events would move to Vancouver, along with the curling events.

“The task force made the decision,” says Lorriman. “At the end of the day, once we had vetted everything through proper public process, there wasn’t a lot of debate left on it.”

Despite the consensus, it was still a blow to lose the dream of the compact Paralympics.

“You can have all the hopes and ideals and dreams and ambitions that you want but at the end of the day you’ve got to work in the real world,” says McKeever.

“It’s unfortunate that the arena and the village skating rink associated with Lot 1/9 was out of reach for us. That was a big disappointment. But we are working to encourage more recreational diversification, creating new opportunities for new things.”

He points to increased funding and focus on festivals and events.

A look ahead…

To say it’s been a whirlwind year for council would not be over-stating the point. Many of the decisions were made with a figurative gun to their heads.

Being an insider now brings a new perspective, says Councillor Bob Lorriman, as he talks about his new role at his old stomping ground — Gone Bakery in the village, which he owned and operated in his life before council.

Going from entrepreneur to councillor, he can say with conviction that government is “excruciatingly time consuming” and by extension, expensive. Every opportunity must be explored and considered.

“When I was on the other side of the fence I would take a look at the financial statements and the budget and so on and so forth (and think) ‘why is this costing so much?’” he said, over coffee in his old café.

“It’s just a fact of democracy.”

There are parts of that old life he misses. He misses the daily interaction, finding himself more often than not in lengthy council meetings. But this is a new challenge. And like the rest of his colleagues he is rising to meet those challenges.

There are no signs the workload will be easing up any time soon. The bigger Olympic decisions have been made — there will be no arena and there will be an athletes’ village. But Olympic planning will be coming on hard and strong.

Council will also continue to implement Whistler2020 — it’s long-range sustainability plan.

“One thing I would like to see is that we don’t separate the Olympics and Whistler 2020 as two different initiatives,” says Wake. “Rather, we put everything we’re doing for the Olympics also through the Whistler2020 screen.”

Seeing its two major housing projects — Rainbow and the athletes’ village — to completion will also challenge council in the coming years.

And then there are the issues somewhat beyond Whistler’s control, such as the prospect of significant development on the fringes of the municipality.

That’s a topic near and dear to Zeidler’s heart and something that’s been on his radar screen for years.

“I have no question in my mind that our biggest issues and subsequently the biggest issues for this community and this corridor will be around growth and development outside our boundaries,” says Zeidler.

But there’s something even bigger on Mayor Ken Melamed’s mind: Sustainability.

The Olympics, and everything else, are incidental, he says.

“You know,” says Melamed, pausing to consider his comments, his blue eyes willing understanding on this point, “there has to be a greater sense of purpose, I think, in our lives than just being successful at putting on events.

“We understand that if our goal is to increase the acceptance and forward the movement of sustainability, if you will, making Whistler successful using that model is one of the most powerful things we can do.”

That, if council is successful, will be its lasting legacy.



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