A District of Squamish councillor has taken the unusual step of publicly expressing his anger over a Squamish Sustainability Corporation (SSC) decision, which has a board made up entirely of council members.
Since all SSC meetings are in camera, the public cannot know what discussions led to the request to remove the giant logger known as Sam, which graced the Adventure Centre grounds throughout the winter.
No one knows how individual councillors feel on the matter because what happens in SSC meetings are not supposed to be discussed, but Coun. Bryan Raiser said he can contain his anger no longer.
The man whose reputation before his election was of a highly opinionated Chief columnist, is now viewed by many council watchers as rather quiet -but this week, the self-proclaimed s**t disturber decided he would stay quiet no more.
"I'm totally pissed off SAM the Axe Man was removed from the Adventure Center," he writes in his June 28 newsletter.
"Regardless of your opinion of tacky tourist lures or our logging history, it is undeniable that he actually got people off the highway and out of their cars.
"Our community has spent countless millions of dollars trying to figure out a way to get people to do just that and when we finally do, he gets removed."
Raiser said he also understands why national media picked up on the story, and why so many members of the public have expressed dismay that Sam is now located in the Chances Casino parking lot.
"The reason for this passion is understandable since he is both a giant tacky tourist lure/bylaw infraction as well as a tip of the hat to our forestry roots. Both these things bring out passionate debate."
But Mayor Greg Gardner was not so understanding of the coverage the situation received.
"Very clearly the news they reported in the Vancouver Sun was inaccurate and sensational," he said.
"There was a headline that said that council banishes SAM which I personally found offensive because I was one of the people on the board who made the decision in the face of controversy to leave Sam up during the Olympic and pre-Olympic time, so to be criticized so inappropriately was disturbing to me."
The SSC decision to ask for Sam's removal stems from discussions over the quagmire of legal red tape associated with the rights of one group over another to occupy such a prominent municipal location.
But Raiser said he couldn't go into details on these discussions because the meetings were in-camera, which led him to also expressing frustration over the fact that he is discouraged from stating opinions.
He points to a suggested code of conduct expressed to him at the beginning of his tenure stating councillors should not be publicly critical of decisions once they've been made.
"The rational is that a good council will stick by their decisions whereas a dysfunctional council will spend all their time sniping at one another," he writes. "I'm having a tough time with this since it's very difficult to publicly support something you feel with all your being is wrong."
Gardner said it is untrue that councillors are discouraged from expressing dissenting opinions.
However, he said, in the case of Sam, the point is moot since it was not council, but the SSC board that presided over the issue during closed-door meetings. And board members follow a different code of conduct than council members.
"In my experience it would be unusual for a board member to express in public dissenting points of view," said Gardner.
Despite his frustrations, Raiser remains optimistic Sam will return to the location he's traditionally held in the years to come.
"I would hope we once again enjoy this year's Squamish Day's Logger Sports and hopefully next year, Sam will come back home. In the meantime I look forward to changing our bylaw so we can legally welcome him back with open arms."
